Atália Pozana

Casimiro Pedro Sitoe

Dorca Tamele

Nelton Nandza

Francisco Augusto

Gil Dimande

Great Vowel Shift - Licenciatura em Ensino de inglês

Universidade Pedagogica Maputo

Maputo, Abril de 2024

Great Vowel Shift (GVS)

Trabalho de pesquisa Apresentado no

Docente: Mestre Carlos Vitorino

Universidade Pedagogica Maputo

Introduction.................................................................................................................................................4
General and specific objective.....................................................................................................................5
General Objective........................................................................................................................................5
Specific Objective........................................................................................................................................5
Great Vowel Shift.........................................................................................................................................6
Loss of unstressed e....................................................................................................................................6
Long vowels.................................................................................................................................................7
Conclusion.................................................................................................................................................12
Bibliography Reference.............................................................................................................................13
Introduction
English is a dynamic language and has been changing since the stone age. There have been
several changes and this paper will look at one of the most historic events in English language,
linguistically known as The Great Vowel Shift. Therefore, the changes were gradual and their
results had a significant impact such as the loss of quality of long vowels, and several other
aspects that will be presented in this research, such as the reason for this great change in vowels.

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General and specific objective

General Objective
Analise The Great Vowel Shift

Specific Objective
Know the Changes the occurred on The Great Vowel Shift

Investigate the reasons of The Great Vowel Shift

Identify the results of The Great Vowel Shift

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Great Vowel Shift
The changes in the sound system of the early new English period were significant. The process
of levelling of endings continued, there were positional and assimilative changes of short vowels,
and a significant change in the whole system of long vowels, called Great Vowel Shift. During
the period the process of simplification of consonant clusters and loss of consonants in certain
positions continued. The changes were as follows:

Loss of unstressed e – the process of levelling of endings led to total disappearance of the
neutral sound ə marked by letter e in the endings (it was preserved and even pronounced
distinctly like [ɪ] only when two identical consonants were found in the root and in the endings),
though in spelling the letter might be preserved: no vowels is found in:

Kept – Slept;

Crossed – Played;

Walls – Pens;

Bones – Stones;

But it is preserved in:

Stresses – dresses;

Wanted – parted;

Watches – Judges;

Wicked and Crooked;

The whole syllables might be lost in the Early New English pronunciation of long words. In
some words, this loss was fixed in spelling, like chapter (ME chapiter), palsy (ME parlesie),
fancy (ME fantasie); some other words preserved the lost syllables in spelling e.g. colonel,
business, medicine;

The sound e change into ɑ: - this change in many cases (but not always) was reflected in
spelling:

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Sterre – Star;

Herte – heart;

Bern – barn;

Sterven – starve;

Kerven – carve;

Marveil – marvel;

ME clerc - clerk

ME sergant – sergeant

Some place – names changed the pronunciation: Derby, Berkley, Berkshire, Hertford though this
changed is not reflected in their spelling.

It is due to this change that the alphabetic reading of the letter r [er] began to be pronounced as
[ar].

Long vowels
Beginning in the 15 century, all long vowels that existed in Middle English change their quality.
This change was a fundamental one, changing the entire vocalic system, and the essence of it is
as follows. All long vowels narrowed, and the narrowest of them turned into diphthongs. The
shift resulted in the followings changes:

i: → ai time, like, rise, side;

e: → i: meet, see, keen, deep; in borrowed words chief, receive, seize;

ɛ: (e: open) → into e: closed, then → i: east, clean, speak, sea

a: → ei (through the stage ӕ, ӕi) take, make, name, grave, pave, sane

ɔ: (o: open, from Old English ā) → ou stone, bone, home, oak, go, moan

o: closed (from Old and Middle English ō in native words as well in the borrowings) → u: tool,
moon, stool, do, root, room

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u: → au house, mouse, out, noun, down, how.

The changes were gradual, of course, and in Shakespearean times the vowels were somewhere
halfway to its present-day stage. The change from [ɛ:] to [i:] had the intermediate stage [e:]. This
explains why the rhyme in some sonnets is not exact in present-day system of reading:

And truly not the morning sun of heaven

Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east.

Nor that full star that ushers in the even

Doth half that glory to the sober west.

The intermediate stages of the development of u: were [əu] → [ӕu] and finally → [au].
Consequently, a → ӕ: → ӕi → ei; and i: → ii → ei → ei →ӕi → ai.

The Great Vowel Shift affected all long vowels in native as well as borrowed before it words;
table and chamber, doubt and fine, appeal and tone developed in full accordance with the
development of the English sound system. Some borrowed words preserve [i:] or [u:] in the open
syllable (routine 1670-80) if they were borrowed from French in the later period; some other,
though taken during this process still resisted the change and remain phonetically only partially
assimilated: police 1520-30, machine 1540-50 etc. Latin borrowings that were taken from written
sources, however, usually have a vowel that was changed in the course of the shift. The causes of
the shift have not yet been clarified, as well as its direction. A push-chain hypothesis is (Luick),
or drag-chain (O. Jespersen Martinet)

Wilhelm Horn and Martin Lenhert in Sound and life suggest that it resulted from intonation
conditions - a high tone which is characteristic of English emotional speech naturally makes
sound narrower.

Andre Martinet connects the shift with the fact that traditional phonemic quality of English
sounds was no longer preserved, and so short and long vowels became mere allophones of the
same phoneme. A need arose to reinforce them, so the articulation was emphasized and resulted
in diphthongization (starting with i: and u:) (Andres Martinet, Economie des changements
phonetiques. Traite de phonologie diachronique Beme 1955).

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A Russian linguist V. Plotkin from Novosibirsk (1968) states that with the loss of unstressed
words a great number of monsyllabic words arose, where only their length of the vowels was the
distinctive feature (god and good etc.) Under such conditions the phonology of length-shortness
acquired simply other manifestation.

The diphthongs that arose as a result of the Great Vowel Shift did not enrich the phonological
system of the language; such diphthongs had already existed in Middle English. They arose in
the process of vocalization of ʒ: wey (from weʒ) had the same diphthong that appeared in wake
sayde (from sӕʒde) in Middle English had the sound that appeared in side, but later the
diphthong developed into a short monophthong;

drawen (from draʒan) in Middle English had [au] that later appeared in the words like house and
mouse;

bowe (from boʒa) had and retained the diphthong [ou] resulting from vocalization of ʒ, now
words like bone and wrote were pronounced with the same diphthong.

Nor were the long vowels [i:] and [u:] new: what sounded [i:] in time and was diphthongized into
[ai], was replaced by the change [e:] and [ɛ:] → [ i:] in see, sea field; hous yielded [u:] to [au],
but as a result of the Great Vowel Shift [u:] appeared in words like moon and soon.

Depending on the following consonant, r in particular, there were somewhat different variants of
vowels that appeared into the Great Vowel Shift. If the long vowel was followed by r the
following variants appeared:

are → [eir] fare; compare with fate

ear → [ier] fear (but feat)

eer → [ier] steer (but steep)

ir → [aier] tire (but time)

or → [o:r] boar (but boat)

o open → [uer] moor (but moon)

u: → [auer] power (but house)

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Short vowels were changed, too, but the changes here are not that systematic. The vowels
changed depending on their environment.

Short a found in closed syllables generally changed into ӕ: that; man; hat; cat; rat; pan; can;
stand; back etc.

If it was preceded by the sound w, it remained unchanged and eventually developed into o: war;
want; was; warm, watch; wasp; water etc.

It was lengthened before some consonant clusters and turned into a: when followed by:

a + th father; rather; bath; path

a + ss pass; class; grass

a + st cast; last; fast; disaster

a + sk ask; mask; task; basket

a + sp clasp, gasp, grasp, raspberry

a + lm alms; balm; calm; palm

a + If calf, half, behalf

a + nt, nd, nch etc. plant, command, branch

a + ft after; craft; daft

This change is not found in the American variant, where the sound a changed into ӕ.

When the same sound was followed by 1 + consonant (other that m and n) it turned into long o:
all; call; talk; walk; stalk

The exceptions from the general rule are: cant; scant; pant; grand where it turned into ӕ; gaunt,
haunt where the sound ɔ: appeared; in the words like change, strange it turned into ei, and the
syllable became open by adding mute e.

The sound r changed its quality, turning from back lingual into uvular and was vocalized after
vowels; that resulted in lengthening of the preceding vowels in combinations ir, ur, or, er turning

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them into ə: fir; sir; dirt; firm; skirt; first; thirst fur; curt; curtain; burn; hurt; burst; turn, worm;
word; world; worse; worth heard; learn; herd; certain; person

Alongside qualitative changes of vowels, some changes in the length of the vowel were
observed: u: was shortened and turned into [u]

before k; book; cook; hook; took; brook before d and t: food; good; stood; hood; foot; soot There
are exceptions to this: mood, rood, loot, root.

Short u turned into [ᴧ]; here we may find the words that had this sound in Old English as well as
the words that acquired long u: from long o: in the course of the Great Vowel shift, but then were
shortened before t/d: come; sum; son; up; love; cut; rubber; utter; blood; flood.

In many cases this change did not take place when u was preceded by a labial consonant: push;
put; bull; bullet; butcher; pudding.

The cases when in such position the sound also turned into [ᴧ], however, are numerous: bulb,
buckle, buckwheat, buddy; budge; pulp, pulse, but, pub, puddle, puff, pumpkin.

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Conclusion
The Great Vowel Shift was a series of changes in the pronunciation of English language,
beginning in southern England and today having influenced effectively all dialects of English.
Though this vowel shift, the pronunciation of all middle English vowel more changed
particularly those that become dialect. The great vowel shift is the major reason English spellings
now often deviate considerably from how they represent pronunciation. The causes of the shift
have not yet been clarified, as well as its direction, although some suggest that it resulted from
intonation conditions - a high tone which is characteristic of English emotional speech naturally
makes sound narrower.

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Bibliography Reference
Verba, L. History of the English Language. New York University, N. Y., 2004.

Baugh, Albert. C. and Cable, Thomas. History of the English Language. Fifth Edition,
Routledge, 2002.

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