5.3.2. Consonant changes in oe

5.3.2.1. West Germanic gemination of consonants

In all WG languages most consonants were lengthened after a short vowel before [j]. This process is known as WG “gemination” or “doubling” of consonants, as the resulting long consonants are indicated by means of double letters, e.g.: *fuljan > OE fyllan ‘fill’; *sætjan > OE settan ‘set’, cf. Gt satjan.

The change did not affect the sonorant [r], e.g. OE werian ‘wear’; nor did it operate if the consonant was preceded by a long vowel, e.g. OE dēman, mētan ‘deem’, ‘meet’ – the earlier forms of these words contained [j], which had caused palatal mutation but had not led to the lengthening of consonants (the reconstruction of pre-written forms *mōtjan and *dōmjan is confirmed by OS motian and Goth domjan).

5.3.2.2. Loss of Consonants in Some Positions

Comparison with other OG languages, especially Gothic and O Icel, has revealed certain instances of the loss of consonants in WG and Early OE.

Nasal sonorants were regularly lost before fricative consonants; in the process the preceding vowel was probably nasalised and lengthened. Cf.: Gt fimf, O Icel fim, OHG fimf – OE fif ‘five’, Gt uns, OHG uns – OE ūs ‘us’.

Fricative consonants could be dropped between vowels and before some plosive consonants; these losses were accompanied by a compensatory lengthening of the preceding vowel or the fusion of the preceding and succeeding vowel into a diphthong, cf. OE sēon, which corresponds to Goth saihwan, OE slēan “slay”, Goth slahan, G. schlagen, OE sæde and sæ:de ‘said’.

We should also mention the loss of semi-vowels and consonants in unstressed final syllables. [j] was regularly dropped in suffixes after producing various changes in the root: palatal mutation of vowels, lengthening of consonants after short vowels. The loss of [w] is seen in some case forms of nouns : Nom. trēo, Dat. trēowe “tree”; Nom. sǽ, Dat. sǽwe “sea”, cf. Goth triwa, saiws.

Old English consonant system

Table 2.4 shows the system of OE consonants in the 9^th and 10^th c.

Table 2.4 Old English Consonants

Place of articulation Manner of articulation		Labial, labio-dental	Fore-lingual (dental)	Medio-lingual (palatal)	Back lingual (velar)
Noise consonants	plosive voiceless voiced	p p: b b:	t t: d d:	k’ k’: g’:	k k: g g:
	fricative voiceless voiced	f f: v	 : s s: ð z	x’ x’: γ’ (j)	x x: (h) γ
Sonorants		m m: w	n n: r l	j	(η)

The system consisted of several correlated sets of consonants. All the consonants fell into noise consonants and sonorants. The noise consonants were subdivided into plosives and fricatives; plosives were further differentiated as voiced and voiceless; in this set, however, sonority was merely a phonetic difference between allophones. Cf. OE pin – bin, where the difference in sonority is phonemically relevant, and OE hlāf [f] – hlāford [v], where the difference is positional: the consonant is voiced intervocally and voiceless finally (incidentally, voiced and voiceless fricatives were not distinguished in OE spelling).