Ampersand (Jan 2020)
The developmental progression of English vowel systems, 1500–1800: Evidence from grammarians
Abstract
This paper suggests that all Early Modern English dialects may be fitted into a simple system of classification (types A through D) based upon the relative heights of their long front vowels. Research into this period has always focused more on the trajectories of individual phonemes than on how those phonemes might have fitted together at any given time. It is argued here that changes throughout the vowel space typically occurred in bundles, and that these bundles of changes manifested themselves into discrete sequential stages. The number of vowel systems consistent with the evidence is really very small. Relying mostly on primary sources and summaries of primary sources, I classify for the first time dozens of English and foreign grammarians and turn them into witnesses for the specific stages above. Selected grammarians’ Continental vowel symbols (a wholly neglected resource) are diagrammed into clear phonetic snapshots of each stage. These symbols also illuminate trajectories. For example, while the proto-IPA phonetic alphabets of certain English grammarians show FACE raising from Continental to , French grammarians’ symbols actually specify the steps: from “almost” to to ([æ:, ɛ:, e:]). Dates for these changes are noted with unusual care. All in all, the facts and views advanced here support the traditional timeline established for the major sound changes, although many fresh details are added, including evidence for an unreported phase in the late 1500s in which ME /ai/ was fully distinct as /ɛ:/ in popular London English. Fresh evidence is also produced about the dissolution of the MEAT phoneme, the origins of THOUGHT monophthonging, and the development of START–BATH and NORTH–CLOTH lengthening.
