Changes of Unstressed Vowels

An important change characteristic of the ME period affected the unstressed vowels.

All unstressed vowels were as a rule weakened and reduced to a neutral vowel something

like [e], which was denoted by the letter e. Thus, for example the infinitive suffix -an was

reduced to -en, as in bidan > biden, tellan > tellen; in a similar way, sunu > sune, sone

(son), the nominative plural ending -as become -es, as in stanas > stones, and the like.

This weakening of unstressed vowels is closely connected with developments in

declension and conjugation.

From the 13th century, some dialects showed certain vacillation in spelling

unstressed vowels, which probably reflected peculiarities of pronunciation. Thus, in

Northern dialects the unstressed vowel was often spelt i or y: askid, bundin; in West

Midland dialects a u-spelling appears, as in: fadur, stonus.

From the phonemic viewpoint this change indicates a decided separation of the

unstressed vowel phoneme system from that of the stressed vowels. Whereas the stressed

position allows a distinction of many vowel phonemes, the number of unstressed vowel

phonemes is very greatly reduced. Thus, while in OE there was no difference between the

number of vowel phonemes in stressed and in unstressed syllables, in ME there arises a very significant difference in this respect, and the way is paved for the state of things of

typical of NE.