MIDDLE ENGLISH PHONETICS
I. Supply the missing vowels in these phonetic transcriptions of ME words paying
special attention to the vowel length.
1) slepen /'sl.. .рən/ “sleep” 2) slepte /ʹsl.. .ptə/ “slept” 3) name /'n.. .mə/ “name”
4) feld /f...ld/ “field” 5) mild /m...ld/ “mild” 6) hund /h...nd/ “hound” 7) climben
/ʹkl...mbən/ “climb” 8) tale /ʹt...1ə/ 9) child /tʃ.. .ld/ “child” 10) children /'tʃ...ldrən/
“children” 11) open /ʹ..рən/ “open” 12) wise /'w…zə/ “wise” 13) wisdom /ʹw...zdəm/
“wisdom” 14) speken /'sp...kən/ “speak” 15) behind /bə'h…nd/ “behind”.
II. Examine the following ME words and write their OE counterparts in:
а) phonetic transcription and b) normal orthography.
1) goon “go” 2) hoom “home” 3) stoon “stone” 4) boot “boat” 5) knowen
“know” 6) man “man” 7) can “can”.
III. The following words all had /a:/ in OE:
1) ʒāt “goat” 2) rāp “rope” 3) rād “road” 4) āc “oak” 5) āƥ “oath” 6)
sār “sore” 7)
tācen “token” 8) mārа “more”.
What is the usual development of OE /a:/? Determine the ME form of each word.
IV. The following words all had /æ/ in OE.
l) blæc “black” 2) bæc “back” 3) æsk “ask” 4) ʒlæd “glad” 5) wæs “was” 6) mæʒ
“may” 7) dæʒ “day” 8) æfter “after”.
What is the usual development of OE /æ/? Determine the ME form of each word.
V. Write the ME developments of the following OE words in: a) phonetic
transcription and b) normal orthography.
1) sǣ “sea” 2) dǣl “deal”, “part” 3) ǣfre “ever” 4) clǣne “clean” 5) dəd “deed”
6) hǣlan “heal” 7) hǣtu “heat” 8) lǣdan “lead”.
VI. The following are phonetic transcriptions of OE words. Write their ME
developments in: a) phonetic transcription and b) normal orthography.
1) /ʹke:pan/ “keep” 2) /'ke:pte/ “kept” 3) /'wi:zdo:m/ “wisdom” 4) /'wi:s/ “wise”
5) /bli:nd/ “blind” 6) /'we:nan/ “think” 7) /'we:nde/ “thought” 8) /ʹki:ld/ “child” 9)
/ʹkildru/ “children”.
VII. All the words listed below had /у/ or /у:/ in OE. Write their ME counterparts.
1) fyrst “first” 2) hyll “hill” 3) fyr “fire” 4) cyssan “kiss” 5) hyd “hide” (noun)
6)syn “sin” 7) lytel “little” 8) fyst “fist”
VIII. Examine the OE words given below to describe the vowel change which seems
to have affected each group of words between the OE and ME periods.
/еа/ 1) earm “poor” 2) bearn “child” 3) wearm “warm”
/еа:/ 4) ēaс “also” 5) ēast “east” 6) dead “dēad” 7) hēap “heap”
/ео/ 8) feoh “cattle” 9) deorc “dark” 10) leornian “learn”
/eo:/ 11) bēon “be” 12) dēor “deer” 13) dēop “deep” 14) cēosan “choose”.
IX. What effect did the vocalization of the palatal fricative /j/ have on a preceding
vowel in ME? Write the ME developments of the OE words given.
l) dæʒ “day” 2) 1æʒ “lay” 3) mæʒ “may” 4) mæʒden “maiden” 5) weʒ “way”
6) reʒn “rain” 7) seʒl “sail” 8) siʒ “victory” 9) tiʒele “tile” 10) siʒƥe “scythe” 11)
Frieʒdæʒ “Friday”.
X. What effect did the vocalization of the velar spirant /r/ have on a preceding vowel
in ME? Write the ME developments of the following OE words:
1) ʒnаʒаn “gnaw” 2) soʒu “sow” (noun) 3) laʒu “law” 4) draʒan “draw”
5) daʒnian “dawn” (verb) 6) āʒen “own” 7) fuʒol “fowl” 8) buʒаn “bow”.
XI. What caused the appearance of diphthongs in the following ME words?
1) raughte “reached out” 2) slaughter “slaughter” 3) broughte “brought” 4)
boughte “bought” 5) plough “plough” 6) dough “dough”.
XII. Examine the OE words listed below to write their ME developments in: a)
phonetic transcription and b) normal orthography.
1) cild “child” 2) hwilc “which” 3) cin “chin” 4) tǣcan “teach” 5) cēse “cheese”
6) brусʒе “bridge” 7) есʒе “edge” 8) wycan “wish” 9) fisc “fish” 10) sceadu
“shade” 11) scēap “sheep”.