Phonological history of English high back vowels
Encyclopedia
Most dialects of modern English
have two high back vowels: the close back rounded vowel
/u/ found in words like goose, and the near-close near-back rounded vowel /ʊ/ found in words like foot. This article discusses the history of these vowels in various dialects of English, focusing in particular on phonemic splits and mergers involving these sounds.
, Ulster
varieties of Hiberno-English
, Malaysian English
and Singaporean English, where the vowels /ʊ/ and /uː/ are merged. As a result, pairs like look/Luke are homophones and good/food and foot/boot rhyme. The merged vowel is usually /ʉ/ or /y/ in Scottish English
and /u/ in Singaporean English. The use of the same vowel in "foot" and "goose" in these dialects is not due to phonemic merger, but the appliance of different languages' vowel system to the English lexical incidence. The full–fool merger
is a conditioned merger of the same two vowels before /l/, making pairs like pull/pool and full/fool homophones.
short /u/ into two distinct phonemes /ʊ/ (as in foot) and /ʌ/ (as in strut) that occurs in most varieties of English; the most notable exceptions being those of Northern England and the English Midlands.
The origin of the split is the unrounding of /ʊ/ in Early Modern English
, resulting in the phoneme /ʌ/. In general (though with some exceptions), this unrounding did not occur if /ʊ/ was preceded by a labial consonant (e.g., /p/, /f/, /b/) and followed by /l/, /ʃ/, or /tʃ/, leaving the modern /ʊ/. Because of the inconsistency of the split, the words put and putt became a minimal pair
, distinguished as /pʊt/ and /pʌt/. The first clear description of the split dates from 1644.
In non-splitting accents, cut and put rhyme, putt and put are homophonous as /pʊt/, and pudding and budding rhyme. However luck and look are not necessarily homophones; many accents in the area concerned have look as /luːk/, with the vowel of goose.
The absence of this split is a less common feature of educated Northern English speech than the absence of the trap–bath split. The absence of the foot–strut split is sometimes stigmatized, and speakers of non-splitting accents often try to introduce it into their speech, sometimes resulting in hypercorrection
s such as pronouncing pudding /pʌdɪŋ/.
The name "foot–strut split" refers to the lexical set
s introduced by Wells (1982), and identifies the vowel phonemes in the words. From a historical point of view, this name is inappropriate because foot and strut did not rhyme in Middle English (foot had Middle English /oː/ as its spelling suggests).
In modern standard varieties of English, e.g. RP and General American, the spelling is a reasonably good guide to whether a word is in the FOOT or STRUT lexical sets. The spellings o and u nearly always indicate the STRUT set (common exceptions are wolf, woman, pull, bull, full, push, bush, cushion, wuss, put, pudding and butcher), while the spellings oo and ould usually indicate the FOOT set (common exceptions are blood and flood). The spellings of some words changed in accordance with this pattern: e.g. wull became wool and wud became wood. In some recent loan words such as Muslim both pronunciations are found.
/y/ (occurring in loanwords from Anglo-Norman
like duke) and the diphthong
s /iu/ (occurring in words like new) and /eu/ (occurring in words like few).
By Early Modern English
, these three vowels merged as /ɪu/, which has remained as such in some Welsh, northern English, and American accents in which through /θɹuː/ is distinct from threw /θɹɪu/. In the majority of accents, however, /ɪu/ later became /juː/, which, depending on the preceding consonant, either remained or developed into /uː/ by the process of yod dropping, hence the present pronunciations /d(j)uːk/, /n(j)uː/, and /fjuː/.
where bisyllabic /uː.ɪ/ becomes the diphthong [ʊɪ] in certain words. As a result, "ruin" is pronounced as monosyllabic [ˈɹʊɪn] and "fluid" is pronounced [ˈflʊɪd].
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
have two high back vowels: the close back rounded vowel
Close back rounded vowel
The close back rounded vowel, or high back rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is u....
/u/ found in words like goose, and the near-close near-back rounded vowel /ʊ/ found in words like foot. This article discusses the history of these vowels in various dialects of English, focusing in particular on phonemic splits and mergers involving these sounds.
Foot–goose merger
The foot–goose merger is a phenomenon that occurs in Scottish EnglishScottish English
Scottish English refers to the varieties of English spoken in Scotland. It may or may not be considered distinct from the Scots language. It is always considered distinct from Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic language....
, Ulster
Ulster
Ulster is one of the four provinces of Ireland, located in the north of the island. In ancient Ireland, it was one of the fifths ruled by a "king of over-kings" . Following the Norman invasion of Ireland, the ancient kingdoms were shired into a number of counties for administrative and judicial...
varieties of Hiberno-English
Hiberno-English
Hiberno-English is the dialect of English written and spoken in Ireland .English was first brought to Ireland during the Norman invasion of the late 12th century. Initially it was mainly spoken in an area known as the Pale around Dublin, with Irish spoken throughout the rest of the country...
, Malaysian English
Malaysian English
Malaysian English , formally known as Malaysian Standard English , is a form of English used and spoken in Malaysia as a second language...
and Singaporean English, where the vowels /ʊ/ and /uː/ are merged. As a result, pairs like look/Luke are homophones and good/food and foot/boot rhyme. The merged vowel is usually /ʉ/ or /y/ in Scottish English
Scottish English
Scottish English refers to the varieties of English spoken in Scotland. It may or may not be considered distinct from the Scots language. It is always considered distinct from Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic language....
and /u/ in Singaporean English. The use of the same vowel in "foot" and "goose" in these dialects is not due to phonemic merger, but the appliance of different languages' vowel system to the English lexical incidence. The full–fool merger
English-language vowel changes before historic l
In the history of English phonology, there have been many diachronic sound changes affecting vowels, especially involving phonemic splits and mergers. A number of these changes are specific to vowels which occur before .-Salary–celery merger:...
is a conditioned merger of the same two vowels before /l/, making pairs like pull/pool and full/fool homophones.
Foot–strut split
The foot–strut split is the split of Middle EnglishMiddle English
Middle English is the stage in the history of the English language during the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the four centuries between the late 11th and the late 15th century....
short /u/ into two distinct phonemes /ʊ/ (as in foot) and /ʌ/ (as in strut) that occurs in most varieties of English; the most notable exceptions being those of Northern England and the English Midlands.
The origin of the split is the unrounding of /ʊ/ in Early Modern English
Early Modern English
Early Modern English is the stage of the English language used from about the end of the Middle English period to 1650. Thus, the first edition of the King James Bible and the works of William Shakespeare both belong to the late phase of Early Modern English...
, resulting in the phoneme /ʌ/. In general (though with some exceptions), this unrounding did not occur if /ʊ/ was preceded by a labial consonant (e.g., /p/, /f/, /b/) and followed by /l/, /ʃ/, or /tʃ/, leaving the modern /ʊ/. Because of the inconsistency of the split, the words put and putt became a minimal pair
Minimal pair
In phonology, minimal pairs are pairs of words or phrases in a particular language, which differ in only one phonological element, such as a phone, phoneme, toneme or chroneme and have distinct meanings...
, distinguished as /pʊt/ and /pʌt/. The first clear description of the split dates from 1644.
In non-splitting accents, cut and put rhyme, putt and put are homophonous as /pʊt/, and pudding and budding rhyme. However luck and look are not necessarily homophones; many accents in the area concerned have look as /luːk/, with the vowel of goose.
The absence of this split is a less common feature of educated Northern English speech than the absence of the trap–bath split. The absence of the foot–strut split is sometimes stigmatized, and speakers of non-splitting accents often try to introduce it into their speech, sometimes resulting in hypercorrection
Hypercorrection
In linguistics or usage, hypercorrection is a non-standard usage that results from the over-application of a perceived rule of grammar or a usage prescription...
s such as pronouncing pudding /pʌdɪŋ/.
The name "foot–strut split" refers to the lexical set
Lexical set
- Wells Standard Lexical Sets for English :The Standard Lexical Sets for English introduced by John C. Wells in Accents of English are in wide usage...
s introduced by Wells (1982), and identifies the vowel phonemes in the words. From a historical point of view, this name is inappropriate because foot and strut did not rhyme in Middle English (foot had Middle English /oː/ as its spelling suggests).
| mood goose tooth |
good foot book |
blood flood brother |
cut dull fun |
put full sugar |
||
| Middle English | oː | oː | oː | u | u | |
| Great Vowel Shift | uː | uː | uː | |||
| Early Shortening | u | (u) | (u) | |||
| Quality Adjustment | ʊ | ʊ | ʊ | |||
| Foot–Strut Split | ɤ | ɤ | ||||
| Later Shortening | ʊ | (ʊ) | ||||
| Quality Adjustment | ʌ | ʌ | ||||
| RP Output | uː | ʊ | ʌ | ʌ | ʊ | |
In modern standard varieties of English, e.g. RP and General American, the spelling is a reasonably good guide to whether a word is in the FOOT or STRUT lexical sets. The spellings o and u nearly always indicate the STRUT set (common exceptions are wolf, woman, pull, bull, full, push, bush, cushion, wuss, put, pudding and butcher), while the spellings oo and ould usually indicate the FOOT set (common exceptions are blood and flood). The spellings of some words changed in accordance with this pattern: e.g. wull became wool and wud became wood. In some recent loan words such as Muslim both pronunciations are found.
Merger of Middle English /y/, /eu/, and /iu/
Middle English distinguished the close front rounded vowelClose front rounded vowel
The close front rounded vowel, or high front rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is y...
/y/ (occurring in loanwords from Anglo-Norman
Anglo-Norman language
Anglo-Norman is the name traditionally given to the kind of Old Norman used in England and to some extent elsewhere in the British Isles during the Anglo-Norman period....
like duke) and the diphthong
Diphthong
A diphthong , also known as a gliding vowel, refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: That is, the tongue moves during the pronunciation of the vowel...
s /iu/ (occurring in words like new) and /eu/ (occurring in words like few).
By Early Modern English
Early Modern English
Early Modern English is the stage of the English language used from about the end of the Middle English period to 1650. Thus, the first edition of the King James Bible and the works of William Shakespeare both belong to the late phase of Early Modern English...
, these three vowels merged as /ɪu/, which has remained as such in some Welsh, northern English, and American accents in which through /θɹuː/ is distinct from threw /θɹɪu/. In the majority of accents, however, /ɪu/ later became /juː/, which, depending on the preceding consonant, either remained or developed into /uː/ by the process of yod dropping, hence the present pronunciations /d(j)uːk/, /n(j)uː/, and /fjuː/.
Shortening of /uː/ to /ʊ/
In a handful words, including some very common ones, the vowel /uː/ was shortened to /ʊ/. In a few of these words, notably blood and flood, this shortening happened early enough that the resulting /ʊ/ underwent the "foot–strut split" and are now pronounced with /ʌ/. Other words that underwent shortening later consistently have /ʊ/, such as good, book, and wool. Still other words, such as roof, hoof, and root are in the process of the shift today, with some speakers preferring /uː/ and others preferring /ʊ/ in such words. For some speakers in Northern England, words ending in -ook such as book, cook still have the long /uː/ vowel.Ruin smoothing
Ruin smoothing is a process that occurs in many varieties of British EnglishBritish English
British English, or English , is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere...
where bisyllabic /uː.ɪ/ becomes the diphthong [ʊɪ] in certain words. As a result, "ruin" is pronounced as monosyllabic [ˈɹʊɪn] and "fluid" is pronounced [ˈflʊɪd].
See also
- Phonological history of the English languagePhonological history of the English languageThe phonological history of English describes changing phonology of the English language over time, starting from its roots in proto-Germanic to diverse changes in different dialects of modern English....
- Phonological history of English vowelsPhonological history of English vowelsIn the history of English phonology, there were many diachronic sound changes affecting vowels, especially involving phonemic splits and mergers.-Great Vowel Shift and Trisyllabic laxing:...
- Phonological history of English consonantsPhonological history of English consonantsThe phonological history of English consonants is part of the phonological history of the English language in terms of changes in the phonology of consonants.-H-cluster reductions:* The wine–whine merger is the merger of with...
- English consonant-cluster reductions
- Yod dropping