Gemination

In EOE, as well as in other dialects of the West Germanic subgroup, most

consonants could be lengthened before j. The process is known as gemination of

consonants in West Germanic or doubling of consonants as it is shown in spelling by means of double letters. Gemination led to the appearance of many new long consonants

in the place of short ones.

Gemination of consonants before j occurred only after a short syllable. In the

process, or later, j disappeared. All consonants except r underwent gemination.

e. g. OE fyllan, NE fill from an earlier fuljan,

OE settan, NE set from an earlier sжtjan.

Loss of Consonants

Another process, or rather, group of processes affected considerably not only the

consonants but also the neighbouring vowels. It was the loss of consonants and

semivowels in some conditions:

1) nasal sonorants was dropped before the fricative consonants: Gt fimf- OE fif,

NE five;

2) some fricative consonants were lost between vowels and before some plosive

consonants; as a result the vowels were lengthened or diphthongs were formed;

3) loss of semi vowels j and w and consonants in unstressed final syllables.

Me and ene Consonants

In ME and ENE we observe growth of sibilants and affricates.

The OE system of consonants contained neither sibilants except [s/z] nor affricates.

The earliest distinct set of these sounds appeared towards the close of the OE period and

was regularly shown in the spelling in ME manuscripts. The new type of consonants arose

from the OE palatal plosives [k'], [ g'] and palatal [sk'].

Development of Sibilants and Affricates in EME

Change illustrated	Examples
OE ME	OE	ME	NE
k' tj g' d3 sk' J	cild ec3e fisc	child [tji:ld] edge ['ed3e] fish [jЈ:p]	child edge fish

Another development accounting for the appearance of new sibilants and affricates

in English dates from the ENE period and is connected primarily with the phonetic

assimilation of borrowings. The clusters [sj], [zj], [tj], [dj] regularly fused into [J], [3], [tj],

[d3J. Three of these sounds merged with the phonemes already existing in the language,

while the fourth [3] made a new phoneme.

Development of Sibilants and Affricates in ene

Change illustrated	Examples
ME NE	ME	NE
sj J zj 3 tj tJ dj d3	commissioun [komi'sju:n] plesure [ple'zju:r] nature [na'tju:re] procedure [prose'du:r]	commission pleasure nature procedure

In the 16th century there took place another decisive alteration: if a fricative

consonant was placed between unstressed and stressed vowels, it became voiced. This

process is called voicing of consonants.