Phonological History of English Vowels - Great Vowel Shift and Trisyllabic Laxing

Great Vowel Shift and Trisyllabic Laxing

The Great Vowel Shift was a series of chain shifts that affected historical long vowels but left short vowels largely alone. It is one of the primary causes of the idiosyncrasies in English spelling.

The shortening of ante-penultimate syllables in Middle English created many long–short pairs. The result can be seen in such words as,

Middle English from long V from short V
ī : i child /aɪ/
divine
mine
children /ɪ/
divinity
mineral
ē : e
ea : e
serene /iː/
dream
serenity /ɛ/
dreamt
ā : a nation /eɪ/
sane
national /æ/
sanity
ō : o goose /uː/
school
gosling /ɒ/
scholarly
oa : o
ō : o (Latin)
holy /oʊ/
cone
know*
holiday /ɒ/
conical
knowledge
ū : u south /aʊ/
pronounce
southern /ʌ/
pronunciation

*Middle English /ou/ merged with /o/.

Read more about this topic:  Phonological History Of English Vowels

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