། V. The English of the Fifth Period. (A.D. 1460 to present time.) 44. There are really two subdivisions of this period - (1) 1460 to 1520. (2) 1520 to present time. From 1460 to 1520 there is a general dearth of great literary works, but there were two events in this period that greatly affected the language, especially its vocabulary— (1) The introduction of printing into England by Caxton. (2) The diffusion of classical literature. For some peculiarities of Elizabethan English see Abbott's 'Shakespearian Grammar." CHAPTER VI. PHONOLOGY. Letters. 45. LETTERS are conventional signs employed to represent sounds. The collection of letters is called the Alphabet; from Alpha and Beta, the names of the first two letters of the Greek alphabet. The alphabet has grown out of the old pictorial mode of writing. The earliest written signs denoted concrete objects; they were pictorial representations of objects, like the old Egyptian hieroglyphics. Then single sounds were afterwards indicated by parts of these pictures. The alphabet which has given rise to that now in use among nearly all the Indo-European nations, was originally syllabic,1 in which the consonants were regarded as the substantial part of the syllable, the vowels being looked upon as altogether subordinate and of inferior value. Consequently the consonants only were written, or written in full-the accompanying vowel being either omitted, or represented by some less conspicuous symbol. Such is the construction of the ancient Semitic_alphabet-the Phoenician, from which have sprung the Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin alphabets. The oldest English alphabet consisted of twenty-four letters. All except three are Roman characters. Þ (thorn) and p (wên) are Runic letters; is merely a crossed d, used instead of the thorn; i and j, as well as u and v, were expressed by the same character. I A pure syllabic alphabet is one whose letters represent syllables instead of articulations; which makes an imperfect phonetic analysis of words, not into the simple sounds that compose them, but into their syllabic elements; which does not separate the vowel from its attendant consonant or consonants, but denotes both together by an indivisible sign. One of the most noted alphabets of this kind is the Japanese. (See Whitney, p. 465.) 46. The spoken alphabet must be distinguished from the written alphabet. The sounds composing the spoken alphabet are produced by the human voice, which is a kind of wind instrument, in which the vibratory apparatus is supplied by the chorda vocales or vocal chords (ligaments that are stretched across the windpipe), while the outer tube, or tubes, through which the waves of sound pass, are furnished by the different configurations of the mouth. The articulating organs, or organs of speech, are the tongue, the cavity of the fauces, the lips, teeth, and palate, and the cavity of the nostrils, which modify the impulse given to the breath as it arises from the larynx, and produce the various vowels and consonants that make up the spoken alphabet. 47. Vowels are produced by the vibrations of the vocal chords. The pitch or tone of a vowel is determined by the vocal chords, but its quality depends upon the configuration of the mouth or buccal tube. For the formation of the three principal vowels we give the interior of the mouth two extreme positions. In one we round the lips and draw down the tongue, so that the cavity of the mouth assumes the shape of a bottle without a neck, and we pronounce u. In the other we narrow the lips and draw up the tongue as high as possible, so that the buccal tube represents a bottle with a very wide neck, and we pronounce i (as in French and German). If the lips are wide open, and the tongue lies flat and in its natural position, we pronounce a. Between these three elementary articulations there is an indefinite variety of vowel sounds. A, i, u are by philologists called the primitive vowels, and from them all the various vowel sounds in the Aryan languages have been developed. There are two steps in the early developinent of these sounds-(1) the union of a with a; (2) the union of a with i and u. Thus it is seen that long vowels are of secondary formation. Sometimes a full vowel is weakened into a thin one, as a into i or u (Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, &c.). In O.E. and in most of the Teutonic dialects, a is weakened into e, i into e, and u into o. Sometimes a simple vowel is broken into two, as garden into gearden; cp. Lat. castra, O.E. ceaster, English chester; thus in O. E. a is broken into ea (ia); i to eo (io, ie). Sometimes a vowel in one syllable of a word is modified by another in the following syllable-o is affected by i and the sound e is produced, and this change remains even when the modifying vowel has been lost: as Eng. feet, compared with Goth. fôtjus, Old-Sax. fôti, shows that the original form must have been feti. When i is followed by a it becomes e, as O. E. help-an, to help, from the root hilp, help; and u followed by a becomes o: thus from the root bug (Old-Eng. bugan), to bend is formed boga, a bow. 48. Diphthongs arise when, instead of pronouncing one vowel immediately after another with two efforts of the voice, we produce a sound during the change from one position to the other that would be required for each vowel. If we change the a into the i position and pronounce a vowel, we hear ai as in aisle. If we change the a into the position and pronounce a vowel, we hear au as in how. Here too we find many variations, and the less perfect diphthongs, such as oi, &c. 49. Consonants fall under the category of noises. (a) Some are produced by the opening or closing of the organs of speech, in which the breath is stopped and cannot be prolonged. These are called mutes or checks, as G, K, D, T, &c. If the breath is stopped and the veil is withdrawn that separates the nose from the pharynx, we obtain the nasals N, NG, M. (b) If the breath be not wholly stopped, but the articulating organs are so modified as to allow the sound to be prolonged, then we get continuous consonants, called breaths or spirants, as H, TH, F, S, &c. / and r, which belong to this class, are called trills, and are produced by a vibration of certain portions of the mouth (tongue or uvula). (c) The consonants may be classified according to the organs by which they are produced, as gutturals (k, g, ch), palatals (ch, j), linguals (sh, zh), dentals (t, d, th, dh), labials (p, b, f, v). (d) Those sounds produced by a greater effort of the vocal organs are called sharp, as p, f, t, &c. ; if produced by a less effort, they are called flat, as b, v, d. (e) The following table contains the consonants in the English alphabet, arranged according to a physiological plan : · |