14. 8.

The Great vowel shift

Vowel Shift was a major change in the pronunciation of Germanic languages, generally accomplished in the 15th
century and early 16th century, both in Europe and England. It represented a change in the long vowels (i.e. a vowel
shift). In English, the shift began toward the end of the 15th century and was mostly completed in the 16th century,
although it continued for some time after that, spreading toward the non-metropolitan and non-port areas.
The values of the long vowels form the main difference between the pronunciation of Middle English and Modern
English, and the Great Vowel Shift is one of the historical events marking the separation of Middle and Modern
English. Originally, these vowels had "continental" values much like those remaining in liturgical Latin. However,
during the Great Vowel Shift, the two highest long vowels became diphthongs, and the other five underwent an
increase in tongue height and one of them came to the front.
The principal changes are roughly the following — though exceptions occur, the transitions were not always
complete, and there were sometimes accompanying changes in orthography:
/a:/ -> /e:/ (in e.g. make)
/E:/ -> /e:/ or /i:/ (in e.g. break, beak)
/e:/ -> /i:/ (in e.g. feet)
/i:/ -> /ai/ (in e.g. mice)
/O:/ -> /o:/ (in e.g. boat)
/o:/ -> /u:/ (in e.g. boot)
/u:/ -> /au/ (in e.g. mouse)
This means that the vowel in the English word make was originally pronounced as in modern English father, but has
now become a diphthong, as it is today in standard pronunciations of British English (see Received Pronunciation);
the vowel in feet was originally pronounced as a long Latin-like e sound; the vowel in mice was originally what the
vowel in feet is now; the vowel in boot was originally a long Latin-like o sound; and the vowel in mouse was
originally what the vowel in moose is now, but has now become a diphthong.
The Great Vowel Shift was first studied by the Danish linguist Otto Jespersen (1860 - 1943), who coined the term.
The shift was remarkable for how widespread it was (going through most of Europe and then Great Britain), as well
as its rapidity. The effects of the shift were not entirely uniform, and differences in degree of vowel shifting can
sometimes be detected in regional dialects, both in written and spoken English. The surprising speed and the exact
cause of the shift are continuing mysteries in linguistics and cultural history
. Because English spelling was becoming standardized in the 15th and 16th centuries, the Great Vowel Shift is
responsible for many of the peculiarities of English spelling. Spellings that made sense according to Middle English
pronunciation were retained in Modern English.

15 Compounds are words produced by combining two or more stems which occur in the language as free forms. They may be classified

proceeding from different criteria:

according to the parts of speech to which they belong;

according to the means of composition used to link their ICs together;

according to the structure of their ICs;

according to their semantic characteristics.

When the meaning is not only related to the meaning of the parts but can be inferred from it, the compound is said to be non-idiomatic. The non-

idiomatic compounds can be easily transformed into free phrases : air mail –>‘mail conveyed by air’, night flight ->”flight at night’. Such

compounds are like regularly derived words in that their meaning is readily understood, and so they need not be listed in dictionaries.

On the other hand, a compound may be very different in meaning from the corresponding free phrase. These compounds are called idiomatic.

Thus, a blackboard is very different from a black board. A blackboard may be not a board at all but a piece of linoleum.

Most compounds in Modern English belong to nouns and adjectives. Compound verbs are less frequent; they are often made through conversion

(N -> V pattern). Compound adverbs, pronouns, conjunctions and prepositions are rather rare. The classification of compounds according to

the means of joining their IC’s together distinguishes between the following structural types:

juxtapositional (neutral) compounds whose ICs are merely placed one after another: classroom, timetable, heartache, whitewash,

hunting-knife, weekend, grey-green, <deep-blue, H-bomb, U-turn, etc.;

morphological compounds whose ICs are joined together with a vowel or a consonant as a linking element, e.g.: gasometer, handicraft,

electromotive, Anglo-Saxon, sportsman, saleswoman, etc.;

syntactic compounds (integrated phrases) which are the result of the process of semantic isolation and structural integration of free word-

groups, e.g.: blackboard (<black board), highway (<high way), forget- me-not, bull’s-eye, up-to-date, son-in-law, go-between, know-all, etc.

The classification according to the structure of immediate constituents (составляющие):

compounds, consisting of simple stems: film-star;

compounds, where at least one of the constituents is a derived stem: chain-smoker;

compounds, where at least one of the constituents is a clipped stem: math-mistress. The subgroup will contain abbreviations like: H-bag

(handbag), Xmas (Christmas).

Compounds, where at least one of the constituents is a compound stem: wastepaper-basket.

3 types of compounds:
1. Neutral – the process of compounding takes place without any linking element by a mere juxtaposition of 2 stems (armchair,
breakwater). Neutral compounds are subdivided into: simple (consist of simple affixless stem); derived (have affixes in at least one
constituate: blue-eyed, newcomer); contracted (have a shortened stem in their structure: T-shirt, FBI-agent); compounds where at
least one of the constituance is a compound stem (wastepaper-basket, cornflower-blue).
2. Morphological – 2 compounding stems are combined by a linking vowel or consonant (statesman, handicraft).
3. Syntactic – the components represent segments of speech preserving in their structure numerous traces of sintagmatic relations (do-
all, free-for-all, good-for-nothing, son-in-low.).