Early Modern English: Phonology

In the Early Modern English period, English underwent a number of substantial changes in all phonological subsystems, which transformed the Middle English system into a distinctly modern one. The present chapter highlights in turn changes in lexical stress patterns, the reduction of unstressed syllables, changes in the distribution of certain consonants and their allophones (in particular /h/, [ç], [x], /r/), the reduction of consonant clusters (including the emergence of the novel /ʒ/ and /ŋ/ phonemes) and changes in the vowel system. A large part of the chapter is devoted to the important shifts undergone by the latter category of sounds in the Early Modern era; yet it excludes the massive turnover known as the Great Vowel Shift (which is treated in a separate chapter of the present handbook). The vowel changes are, for expository purposes, subdivided into unconditioned and conditioned changes; the subsystems of long vowels, diphthongs and short vowels are treated separately. The chapter describes the most important qualitative changes in long vowels (beyond the Great Vowel Shift), the monophthongization of many ME diphthongs, the development of some of the short vowels, and the interfering effect of certain consonantal environments, partly leading to phonemic splits