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Vowel Harmony: an Historical Account

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Advances in Language and Literary Studies ISSN: 2203-4714 www.alls.aiac.org.au Vowel Harmony: An Historical Account Emran R. Al Khattab* Language Center at Al Hussein Bin Tala University, Jordan Corresponding Author: Emran R. Al Khattab, E-mail: [email protected] ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Article history All languages change over time. English has undergone continuous change throughout its three Received: December 15, 2017 major periods: Old English (roughly from 450 to 1100 AD), Middle English (from 1100 to 1500), Accepted: January 26, 2018 and Modern English (from 1500 to the present). Sound is one of the most easily influenced parts Published: February 28, 2018 of language to be subject to different changes. Sound change is inevitable and it is a live indication Volume: 9 Issue: 1 of the continuous growth of language. The evidence to prove the regularity and systematicity of Advance access: January 2018 sound change has been the main concern of linguists, This paper seeks to provide more evidence on how vowel harmony played a key role on the regularity of sound change by extracting samples of sound changes that have taken place throughout the English history. Conflicts of interest: None Funding: None Key words: Phonology, Sound change, Decay of inflections, I-umlaut, Vowel creation INTRODUCTION are attributed to the phonetic environment necessity? Sound change is perhaps the most thoroughly studied area in the • To what extent does phonology influence the decay subject of language change. Evidence in literature shows that of inflections in English? languages and sounds, in particular, are subject to continuous • To what extent does the phonological environment change over time. No doubt, such processes are not unexpected trigger feature and segment change? since language change is a feature of all living languages all over the world. Research on this area has revealed that under- LITERATURE REVIEW standing the lexicon as well as the relationship among languag- es requires a comprehensive understanding of sound change. English is one of the universal languages whose sound sys- Furthermore, understanding sound change is a prerequisite to tem definitely changes over time. Divergent definitions and understanding linguistic reconstruction and loan words, and de- opinions are revealed here to help us understand the three termining whether or not languages are related to one another. different kinds of sound change that are being dealt with in As far as this paper is concerned, a deliberate attempt this study. has been made to shed light on three main changes (primary Campbell (1998) explains that “i-umlaut is a kind of sound phonological) in English attributed to phonological necessi- change in which a back vowel is fronted when followed by ties. To this end, the paper addresses three different but relat- a front vowel or/j/(usually in the next syllable). Umlaut ini- ed targets: (i) vowels and consonants created (added to the tially created front vowel allophones of back vowels, which sound system) due to phonological necessities, (ii) the role became phonemic when the final front vowel of the umlaut of phonology on the decay of inflections and (iii) the role of environment was lost.”. Crystal (1995) provides further in- phonology on segments and feature change. formation and explanation on the role and origin of the i-um- As far as this study is concerned, the following three Re- laut process of sound change “In Germanic there were many search Questions have been considered: words when a vowel in a stressed syllable was immediately • What are the vocalic and consonantal sounds added followed by a high short vowel [i] or a vowel like [j] in the to the previously existing sound system of the language that next syllable. The quality of this high front sound caused by Published by Australian International Academic Centre PTY.LTD. Copyright (c) the author(s). This is an open access article under CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.9n.1p.106 107 the preceding sound to change (mute). The process came to the reasons behind introducing new vocalic and consonantal be called i-mutation or i-umlaut (a Germanic term meaning sounds added to the English Language in later stages of its ‘vowel alternation’). It is thought to have taken place during development. The second section illustrates the phonologi- the 7th century. There is no sign of the vowel continuity to cal impact on the decay of Old English inflections. The third change in this way in later periods. It is a kind of ‘vowel section, on the other hand, spots light on the segments and harmony’ which is a natural process that affects modern lan- feature change. guages.” It is quite obvious from Campbell’s and Crystal’s Section (1): Old English is one of the languages that had definitions of i-umlaut that it is a kind of vowel reduction undergone numerous changes including the sound system. triggered by the loss of the umlaut environment. Old English had seven vowel letters (a, ae, e, I, o, u, and y) Katamba (1995) defines assimilation which is a phono- representing long or short sounds, since vowel length was logical process that affects sound in a way that leads to cre- phonemic. It also had two long diphthongs (eo and ea). ating new and similar sounds in all languages of the world This brief introduction is provided here to show that Old as “assimilation is the most common type of sequential English did not have some vowels that appeared later in this change, which has the effect of increasing the efficiency of period that were attributed to phonological necessities. articulation through a simplification of articulatory move- A phonological process called i-umlaut (vowel harmony) ments. Assimilation involves voicing, place, and manner of was the main reason for creating two new vowels in Old En- articulation.”. Crowley (1992) provides further information glish, these two vowels were [o] and [y]. There was no need about assimilation when defining it as “Assimilation is one to these vowels which did not exist in early Old English, but sound becomes more similar to another, a change in a sound later they had to appear due to the effect of one sound on brought about the influence of a neighboring, usually an ad- another (usually in the next syllable). jacent sound. Assimilatory changes are very common, and Accordingly, this phenomenon will be explained and de- they are probably the most frequent and most important cat- scribed by taking some examples from this period and trac- egory of sound change. ing the changes that they underwent. Crosswhite. K (2001) states that vowel reduction and in- The first example of this change is the wordfót : flections decay are well-Known phonological phenomena: The Step (1): The word fót in Old English was pluralized by idea that certain vowels might undergo qualitative changes in adding the suffix [i], so fót was singular and its plural was unstressed positions is likely familiar to anyone who has taken fóti. an introductory phonology course. Because these phenomena Step (2): Adding this vowel as a plural sign caused a new can be so succinctly described – i.e. “unstressed vowels under- vowel to occur taking one feature of the two sounds [ó] m go neutralization” it is often assumed that vowel reduction is and [i]. The vowel [ó] was [+ rounded, +back], and the vow- a unitary phenomenon, with a single formal analysis”. Barber, el [i] was [ - rounded, + front]. Having these two vowels in C. (1993) adds more details about the aspects and origins of the same word in different syllables led to a new vowel to vowel reduction and the loss of inflections: “The processes of be created which was [θ]whose features were [+ rounded, + change within the inflectional system commenced towards the front] as in fóti, this new vowel was created and introduced end of the OE period when word –endings began to become after being umlauted, while the singular fót remained having less distinct. For example, by the end of the 11th century and in the original [ó]. most dialects, inflections such as –a, -e, -u, and –an had been Step 3: The vowel [i] – the plural sign – was lost in early uniformly reduced to –e, (pronounced [ ə]). Another modifica- Old English when inflections were lost leaving the umlauted tion involved the loss of word -final –n after –e in unstressed vowel as the marker of the plural form. syllable. Eventually the remaining –e itself was abandoned. Step (4): The new vowel [θ] was later derounded by Mid- For example, Middle English drinken (from OE drincan “to dle English yielding [ī] and [ē] as in [fēt]. drink”) became firstdrinke and then” drink”. Step (5): Later in Modern English, [ē] became [ee] as in the plural of foot (fót) which is feet (fēt). METHOD The second example of this change is the word mūs from This study traces back the sound changes that have taken Old English too. place in English explained previously. In doing so, four pro- Step (1): The word mūs was pluralized by adding the suf- cedures have been employed: fix [i] as in mūsi. • Extracting samples of sound changes that have tak- Step (2): Adding this vowel as a plural sign caused a new en place throughout the English history vowel to be created taking one feature from each of the two • Classifying the extracted examples into three dif- sounds[ū] and [i]. ferent types, which, in turn reflect the type of sound changes. The vowel [ū] was [+rounded, + back], and the vowel • Examining the reasons behind such changes [i] was [+front, - rounded].
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