Expertlatin
Breaking and retraction. Vowel breaking in Old English is the diphthongization of the short front vowels /i, e, æ/ to short diphthongs /iu, eo, æɑ/ when followed by /x/, /w/ or by /r/ or /l/ plus another consonant. Long /iː, æː/ similarly broke to /iːu, æːa/, but only when followed by /x/.
- What is breaking in linguistics?
- What is a diphthong in Old English?
- What was the sound shift in Old English?
- What are examples of vowel breaking?
What is breaking in linguistics?
Explanation. In historical linguistics vowel breaking is defined as an assimilatory sound change that implies the diphthongization of single vowels due to the influence of a neighboring sound.
What is a diphthong in Old English?
Most Old English diphthongs consist of a front vowel followed by a back offglide; according to some analyses they were in fact front vowels followed by a velarized consonant. The diphthongs tend to be height-harmonic, meaning that both parts of the diphthong had the same vowel height (high, mid or low).
What was the sound shift in Old English?
The Great Vowel Shift was a massive sound change affecting the long vowels of English during the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries. Basically, the long vowels shifted upwards; that is, a vowel that used to be pronounced in one place in the mouth would be pronounced in a different place, higher up in the mouth.
What are examples of vowel breaking?
Examples are: PG *ek(a) "I" → (east) ON jak, Swedish jag, Danish and Norwegian Bokmål jeg, and Icelandic ek → ég (but Jutlandic æ, a, Nynorsk eg). Faroese has both. The standard form is eg, while the dialects of Suðuroy have jeg.
