The Early Modern English 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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