Phonology and Grammar
In phonology and morphology, the main linguistic developments of the period are:
- Changes to the long vowels and diphthongs:
- Diphthongisation of the long high vowels î, û and iu : MHG hût > NHG Haut ("skin").
- Monophthongisation of the MHG opening diphthongs ie, uo and üe, replacing the lost long high vowels: MHG huot> NHG Hut ("hat")
- lengthening of stressed short vowels in open syllables: MHG sagen /zaɡən/ > NHG sagen /zaːɡən/ ("say")
which brought consequent changes to
-
- verb conjugations
- syllable structure rules
- The loss of unstressed vowels in many circumstances (MHG vrouwe > NHG Frau ("lady")), which contributed to
- further simplification of the noun declensions
These changes did not affect all dialects equally, and led to greater divergence between the dialects than in Middle High German.
Read more about this topic: Early New High German
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