The Early Modern English Period

4. What subsystems of English (such as e.g. spelling) were most strongly affected by the process of standardisation in this period?

5. The Great Vowel Shift

• mismatch between spelling and pronunciation: begun in ME, spelling fixed by early XVI century, but the sound kept changing).
• change of quality of all long vowels (stressed syllables)
• standardization of the language: synthetic -> analytic
• most significant of all phonological developments in English
• change in pronunciaion of verb tense

GRAMLEY STEPHAN. The history of English: an introduction. New York: Routledge, 2012, xxv, 123-154 pp.

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