ATULA AHUJA

CHENRUIXUE LUO

CHADAPORN TEPPIYAWONG

YAN GONG

Possible Explanations for the Great Vowel Shift

INTRODUCTION

The Great Vowel Shift refers to the major change

in the pronunciation of vowels

took place in England between 1400- 1700.

Otto Harry Jespersen;a Danish linguist was the

first to study this phenomenon in detail.

He coined the term the Great Vowel Shift

INTRODUCTION

In all, seven long vowels, three short vowels and five diphthongs underwent changes.

The long vowels that could be raised were raised. Ones that couldn’t be raised ( u:, i: ) became diphthongs.

α: was was fronted to [æ:] →raised 2 steps up → [ɛ:] → [ej] (name)

Vowels play musical chairs

house [hu:s ]→ [haʊs] name [na:m ]→ [ej] beat [be:t] → [bi:t] about [əbu:t] → [əbtαʊt] fool [fɔl]→ [fo:l] → [fu:l]

The Eight steps by Otto Harry Jespersen.

Step 1: i and u drop → əɪ & əuStep 2: e and o move up→ i & uStep 3: a moves forward→ æStep 4: ɛ becomes e, ɔ become oStep 5: æ moves up → ɛStep 6: e moves up→ iStep 7: ɛ moves up→ eStep 8: əɪ and əu drop further to aɪ and au

serene [sere:n]→ [sɪriːn]

THE SHORT VOWELS SHIFT

LATE MIDDLE ENGLISH → EARLY MODERN ENGLISH → LATER ENGLISH

Mid low vowel was moved forward to front low vowel

[a] that ---------------→ [æ]

Back mid vowel fell one step down at back

[ɔ] on , odd -----------------------------------—→[ɔ] or [ɑ]

Back front vowel fell one step down at central

[ʊ] but ---------------→ [ə]

DIPHTHONGS

LATE MIDDLE ENGLISH → EARLY MODERN ENGLISH → LATER ENGLISH

Diphthongs became monophthongs

[aʊ] lawe -------------→ [ɔ] [əʊ] snow ------------→ [o] [æI ] nail ----→ [a:] ----→[æ:]------→[ɛ:]----→[e][yu] has tended to reduced to [u] in written ew, eu, iu,iw and u

[ɛʊ], [Iʊ] few, knew ---------[yu]The appearance of new diphthongs

[ʊI] join ------------→ [əI]-----→ [aI] ---------→[ɔI]

POSSIBLE CAUSES

1. The reform began as a struggle for a divorce and ended in freedom from the Papacy.

2. Make an independent Church of England

3. Translate Bible into EnglishGreat diversity of scribal of forms

from Latin letterEnglish Written forms

Henry VIII and  The English Reformation

The Norman Conquest in 1066

One of the most

obvious changes

was the

introduction of

Anglo-Norman,

a northern dialect

of Old-French(Latin

roots)

Displacing Old-

English

French words entered the English language

The mixture of spelling by Latin and English words

e.g. come, some, done and loveare pronounce [^], not the [o:] 'o' written.

French became the language of the upper class

English of the lower class

POSSIBLE CAUSES

The Black DeathIllustration of the Black Death from the Toggenburg Bible (1411)

A devastating pandemic in 14th century.

Wiped out 30% - 60% of Europe’s population.

Reduced world population of 450 M to 350 M

Mass immigration to South England.

Sudden geographical movement caused many languages and dialects to come together.

Difference in accents ; people to modify speech.

Vowels began to shift to accommodate changes leading to GVS.

POSSIBLE CAUSES

André Martinet (1908-1999)

drag chainsIn a drag chain one sound moves from its original place, and leaves a gap which an existing sound rushes to fill, whose place is in turn filled by another, and so on. push chains In a push chain, the reverse happens. One sound invades the territory of another, and the original owner moves away before the two sounds merge into one.

POSSIBLE CAUSES

DICK LEITH (1948-2011)

Social ExplanationLeith suggests that • Upper and middle class

speakers of London may have consciously distanced themselves from lower class speakers by adopting changes in pronunciation which nevertheless gradually spread to the rest of the population.

POSSIBLE CAUSES

• Middle English did not have contrastive vowel length. Rather, vowel length was conditioned by syllable and word structure.

• However, there were eight long vowels and only five short vowels, with typically a two-to-two correspondence between them. Example:

long [æ] alternated with short [e,α]short [e] alternated with long[ε, æ].

Herbert Pilch

(1927-present)

THE MOST CONVINCING CAUSE

Middle Class in London required the creation of a common dialect. Because there was continual growth in the importance of trading and commerce from the end of the fourteenth through the sixteenth centuries, people needed to be able to communicate more clearly in English.

Thus a new kind of English pronunciation evolved that would split the differences between various dialects in England, with the London dialect (spoken by Chaucer, among many others) eventually winning out, but adopting many of the pronunciations of the other dialects.

Implications

The GVS has had long-term implications

I. for spellingII. the teaching of readingIII. the understanding of any

English-language text written before or during the Shift. 

The impact of Printing Press: the spelling in English pronunciation had changing while   the spelling of most English vowels is frozen at a form.

Points to remember

The GVS was limited only to the English language.

The shift affected words of both native ancestry and borrowings from French and Latin.

As a result, the Middle English has quite radically differing pronunciations in Modern English. 

The GVS has had long-term implications for, among other things, spelling, the teaching of reading, and the understanding of any English-language text written before or during the Shift. 

TO CONCLUDE

GVS is the most mysterious linguistic phenomenon.

1. It’s time span is 300 years, but most of the long vowels changed between 100- 1450, just after Chaucer’s death.

2. It was limited to only English. Contemporary neighbouring languages not affected.

3. Seven long vowels → high vowels

4. Mid 2 short vowels → up 1 position

5. ME diphthongs were monothongised- /snɔu/ → /snow/ ; /laʊw/→ /lɔ/ / næil/ → /nel/

There are many educated guesses, but the real cause of GVS is yet to be known.