Chapter 4 - The development of OE ē and ēo

Summary

Chapter 4 addresses the changes to OE ēo and ē, the first of which monophthongised to [ø:] in lOE or eME, and then unrounded to [e:] in a lengthy process that affected the Northern and Eastern dialects first, and eventually took place in the West and the South in the course of the ME period. ME ē from both sources was raised to [i:] in the GVS; this raising has been traditionally dated to c. 1400, but the extracted ME spelling material indicates that it started much earlier, around the mid-thirteenth century, at the latest. This lends support to the Early Vowel-Shift Hypothesis. It is clear that there must have been two consecutive stages of raising, one earlier that affected mainly French vocabulary, and one later affecting the remaining ē. The reason is that the product [i:] from the earlier process had been raised early enough for it to participate in the GVS diphthongisation of ME ī to PDE /aɪ/. The nature of this early raising process is discussed in some detail.