The Main Changes in the OE Vowel System

OE Fracture (Breaking)

OE fracture is diphthongization of short vowels before certain consonant clusters. It is

the vowels a and e that undergo fracture: a > ea before the clusters "r + consonant", "1 +

consonant", "h + consonant" and before h final: serm > earm (arm), жld > eald (old), жhta

> eahta (eight), sжh >seah (saw);

e > eo before the clusters "r + consonant", "lc, lh, h + consonant" and before h

final: herte > heorte (heart), melcan > meolcan (milk), selh > seolh (seal), feh > feoh

(cattle).

The phonetic essence of fracture is that the front vowel is partially assimilated to the

following hard consonant by forming a glide, which combines with the vowel to form a

diphthong. Fracture is most consistently carried out in the West Saxon dialects, such as

Mercian, fracture in many cases does not occur; then the vowel se becomes a, and the

resulting forms are arm, ald, ahta, sah.

Mutation (Umlaut)

Mutation took place in the 6lh - 7th centuries and consisted in the change of the vowels

through the influence of a vowel in the following syllable. There are 2 types of mutation:

front or i(j)-mutation and back or velar mutation. The generally accepted phonetic

explanation of palatal mutation is that the sounds [i] or [j] palatalized the preceding

consonant and that this consonant fronted and raised the root-vowel. Having caused umlaut

i (j) disappeared or turned into an unaccented vowel spelt e, i. In OE i-mutation affects

practically all vowels. It led to the appearance of new vowels and to numerous instances of

merging and splitting of phonemes. The labialized front vowels [y] and [y:] aroused

through i-mutation from [u] and [u:] and turned into new phonemes when the conditions

that caused them disappeared.

Monophthongs:

a > e framian > fremman (perform)

ж > e tжlian > tellan (tell)

a > ж larian > lжran (teach)

o > e ofstian > efstan (hurry)

o > e domian > deinan (judge)

u>y fullian > fyllin (fill)

u >y ontfmian > ontynan (open)

Diphthongs:

ea > ie hleahian > hliehhan (laugh)

ea > ie hearian > hleran (hear)

eo > ie afeorrian > afierran (remove)

eo > ie 3etreowi > 3etnewe (true)

Back or velar mutation was caused by a back vowel (u, o, a) of the following

syllable. The articulation of the back vowel is anticipated in the preceding front vowel,

which accordingly develops into a diphthong. Back mutation did not spread equally to all

OE dialects.

i> io hira > hiora (their)

e > eo hefon > heafon (heaven)

a > ea saru > seam (armour)