![]() 2 History and Causes of the Great Vowel Shift This paper will try to give an overview about the history and causes of the Great Vowel Shift, each step of its development will be examined and illustrated and some irregularities and exceptions that can be found while analysing the Shift will be mentioned. (Freeborn 2006: 308) I will refer to some of his spelt words as an evidence of the Shift in the chapter “Steps of the Great Vowel Shift”. He wanted to adopt the best and drop the worst features of all dialects. In his “An Orthographie”, he tried to standardise the London English spelling, build on the contemporary pronunciation. (Labov 1994: 145) He already provided the following figure:Īnother “authentic source of evidence for the shifting of the long vowels at a transitional stage” (Freeborn 2006: 308) is John Hart. The Danish linguist Otto Jespersen studied and mint the term ‘Great Vowel Shift’ first in his “Modern English Grammar” (in the first of seven volumes published from 1909 until 1949). Principle III: back vowels move to the front Principle IIa: the nuclei of upgliding diphthongs fall Principle I: long vowels rise (as in the Great Vowel Shift) The linguist William Labov classifies three principles, which are applicable to all the Chain Shifts: A Chain Shift is “a change in the position of two phonemes in which one moves away from an original position that is occupied by the other.”(Labov 1994: 118) One of the most important changes in the English language, which appeared especially in the south of England during the 15th to 18th centuries, was a Chain Shift, the so-called Great Vowel Shift. Due to historical, political and social events, like population shifts or movements, a language develops and becomes versatile, as intralinguistic variations emerge between different regions and dialects. Menzer and Andrea S.2 History and Causes of the Great Vowel Shiftģ.1 Step 1: /i:/ and /u:/ drop and become /əɪ/ and /əu/ģ.2 Step 2: /e:/ and /o:/ move up, becoming /i:/ and /u:/ģ.3 Step 3: /a:/ moves forward to /æ/ and raises to /ɛ:/ģ.4 Step 4: /ɛ:/ moves to /e:/ and /ɔː/ becomes /o:/ģ.7 Step 7: əɪ/ and /əu/ drop to /aɪ/ and /aʊ/ /o:/ becomes /əʊ/Įvery language changes over time. ![]()
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