The shape of things to come

In this last part of this series, we are going to look forward to see what Current British English will look like in the near future. We can make predictions about the future because it already lives with us: young speakers represent the standard of the near future. That is, we will look at some changes going on today, spreading among younger speakers.

TH-fronting

English has eight fricatives: f v θ ð s z ʃ ʒ. Two of these are disappearing from the speech of many speakers: θ ð. As we have seen elsewhere, this development, referred to as TH-fronting, is a significant simplification of the consonant system of English, it evacuates a whole place of articulation, these two fricatives are the only dental consonants.

Many speakers replace θ by f across the board: think θiŋk > fiŋk, bath baːθ > baːf, month mənθ > mənf, through θruw > fruw, theory θiːrij > fiːrij, pathetic pəθetik > pəfetik, faithful fejθfəl > fejffəl. This event has an impact on phonotactic constraints too: in varieties of English without th-fronting the diphthong aw may only be followed by coronal consonants, including θ: eg mouth mawθ or south sawθ. In th-fronting, the coronal θ turns into a noncoronal consonant, f. As a result aw may now be followed no only by coronals, but also by the labial f, as in mouth mawf or south sawf.

The more frequently a word is used, the more likely this change is. Thus thirty three may be heard as θə:tij frij, ie the θ in thirty, the less frequent word, unchanged, but that in three, the more frequent one, replaced by f.

The other fricative altered by TH-fronting, ð, may have several outcomes. The most common pattern is for it to turn into v after a vowel or a glide: mother məðə > məvə, bathe bejð > bejv, without wiðáwt > wiváwt; and into d elsewhere: then ðen > den, the cat ðə kat > də kat, although oːlðəw > oːldəw.

TH-fronting results in mergers: hearth=half haːf, Ruth=roof ruwf, thallic=phallic falɪk, thawed=ford foːd, thin=fin fin, third=furred fəːd, thorn=faun foːn, thought=fort/fought foːt, three=free frij, throws=froze frəwz; clothe=clove, kləwv, lather=larva laːvə, nether=never nevə, oaths=oaves əwvz, then=den den, thence=dense dens, there=dare deː, they=day dej, etc.

palatalization

Palatalization has been going on for centuries in English. It affects alveolar obstruents (t d s z) turning them into their palatal counterparts (tʃ dʒ ʃ ʒ, respectively) before j. The source of this j is either high vowel gliding or the j preceding uw/uː or their unstressed counterpart ə.

Historically, this process occured almost always obligatorily in an unstressed syllable, as in nature néjtʃə, question kwéstʃən; procedure prəsíjdʒə, soldier sə́wldʒə; pressure préʃə, confession kənféʃən; seizure síjʒə, fusion fjúwʒən. In a number of these examples, there still are morphologically related other words that exhibit the unpalatalized t d s z: procede prəsíjd, press pres, seize sijz, etc. In other cases we can only infer from the etymology (and the spelling) of the word that it contained one of these consonants followed by j earlier (compare, for example, nature with its French counterpart natyr or question and French kestjõ).

There are a handful of cases where palatalization occurred historically before a stressed vowel: mature mətʃuː, sure ʃuː, etc.

In current English, palatalization is extended in two ways:

1. it now occurs generally before a stressed vowel too: Tuesday tjúwzdej > tʃúwzdej, dune djúwn > dʒúwn (now homophonous with June), assume əsjúwm > əʃúwm (or əsúwm), presume prizjúwm > priʒúwm (or prizúwm); note that the two fricatives do not palatalize word initially, so suit can be sjúwt or súwt, but not *ʃúwt, and
2. palatalization now occurs not only before j but also before other “palatal” (strictly speaking postalveolar) consonants, most commonly r and tʃ: trap tʃrap, draw dʒroː, question kweʃtʃən, disregard diʃrigaːd, Israel iʒrejl, etc.

In fact, palatalization can occur serially as long as there is a palatalizable consonant, as in stupid stjuwpid > stʃuwpid > ʃtʃuwpid or strong stroŋ > stʃroŋ > ʃtʃroŋ.

the anticlockwise vowel shift

If we look at changes affecting vowels in current British English we can detect a rather general tendency: front vowels lower, low vowels move back, back vowels raise, and high vowels move towards the front.

The vowel changes shown in the chart are illustrated by the change of vowel transcription symbols from Gimson’s to Lindsey’s (also cf the slides for topic 4). Most vowels change in an anticlockwise direction: front become lower/more open, low vowels become more back, back vowels become higher/more close, and high vowels become more front.The shift is “anticlockwise” because of the arbitrary tradition of having front vowels on the left hand side in the vowel chart. There is one notable exception to this movement of vowels: the vowel part of aw, which although a low vowel moves towards the front (earlier ɑw, current aw).

goose and goat fronting

The fronting of the vowel part of goat (ow > əw) is a British phenomenon, other better-known accents (like General American) retain the earlier ow. Clearly, British English also had ow here as witnessed by the pre-R counterpart of this vowel, oː (eg goat gəwt vs boar boː).In other cases the pre-R vowel is the long version of the vowel part of the diphthong: eg chain tʃejn vs chair tʃeː, clean klijn vs clear kliː, fine fajn vs fire faː. However, we do not observe this phenomenon in CUBE before nonprevocalic l: code kəwd vs cold kowld (vs cola kə́wlə), go gəw vs gold gowld (vs Angola aŋgə́wlə). This is allophonic difference between əw and ow, these are two allophones of the goat vowel.

The fronting of the vowel part of goose (uw > ʉw) is a very similar phenomenon. Note that this change is also indicated by the selection of the CUBE symbol ʉw for goose. Just like in the case of goat-fronting, a nonprevocalic l inhibits goose-fronting too: eg food fʉwd vs fool fuwl, mute mjʉwt vs mule mjuwl. So the goose vowel also has two allophones, ʉw and uw

L-vocalization

A change affecting the speech of a sizeable part of British speakers is the replacement of nonprevocalic l by w. This change occurs only if the l is not followed by a vowel, thus in mill mil > miw, felt felt > fewt, help help > hewp, world wəːld > wəwd. When before a vowel, l’s remain intact: Millie milij, fellow feləw, hello heləw, early əːlij.

We can see that the long vowel əː becomes short before a vocalized l, as in world. Diphthongs also lose their offglide in this environment: tale tejl > tew, owl awl > aw. That is, ː, j, and w are always lost before L-vocalization.

The outcome of this process is different after stressed and unstressed ə. After the stressed vowel, we find the expected output: null nə́l > nə́w, however an unstressed ə and a vocalized l yield u: mental méntəl > méntu, little lítəl > lítu, April éjprəl > éjpru. Interestingly, this changes the phonotactic constraint that restricts the set of word-final vowels to unstressed ə: unstressed u is now also possible word finally.

L-vocalization often results in mergers, the creation of homophonous word pairs. For example, we have seen that tale is now tejw, just like tell.Alternatively, tale téjl > téjəl > téju; feel fíjl > fíjəl > fíju. Likewise, feel may become fíjw, homophonous with fill fil > fiw. The name Cal kal > kaw becomes homophonous with cow or gull gə́l > gə́w with go, etc.

Phonemic splits

L-vocalization and goat/goose-fronting together produce two phonemic splits (whereby an earlier single phoneme splits into two new phonemes. This is shown in the following charts.

We see that the contrast started out as the presence vs absence of an l (present in goal and cold vs absent in go and code). goat-fronting then adds an allophonic difference in the vowels before l by fronting ow to əw, but retaining ow in goal and cold. L-vocalization masks the l, since the w offglide of the diphthong is deleted, thus the w that “comes from” l is indistinguishable from the offglide. The two processes result in the contrast of əw and ow in these (and many other) word pairs, giving rise to a new diphthong phoneme.

A very similar split occurs in the case of uw: fronting adds allophonic ʉw to the system, and L-vocalization masks the cause of the allophony, l, leaving behind contrasting, ie phonemic, uw vs ʉw. The process is detailed in the chart to the right.

The əw–ow and ʉw–uw splits may occur even without L vocalization. There are speakers who have the first of these pairs before a prevocalic l, but the second if the vowel is in the next morpheme: so holy is həwlij (since this is a single morpheme), but holey is howlij (since here the stem hole howl is followed bythe suffix ij, the l is not directly followed by the vowel). Similarly, the words ruler (for drawing lines) is rʉwlə, while ruler (one who rules) is ruwlə. This increases the number of contrasting diphthongs in English.

goose and goat glide fronting

A very recent, therefore not so widespread novelty is the fronting of the glide portion of goose and goat. This means that goose gʉws becomes gʉjs and goat gəwt becomes gəjt.

Listen to the word moment in these two video samples.
click here if you only see white space above
click here if you only see white space above

This glide fronting only occurs in əw and ʉw, that is, it does not occur before l, in fool fuwl or goal gowl.

show me the questions
let’s go back to the contents page