ENGL 202
Prof. G. Steinberg
Sound Changes

 Identify the sound changes that are operating in the following examples.  Don’t worry about accounting for changes in vowel sounds (other than ellipsis and intrusion), but be sure to account for every consonant change.  NOTE:  The affricate [tš] is the equivalent of c with a caret -- the IPA symbol for the "ch" sound.

1. Old English /habban/ Þ   Modern English “have” /hæv/
   
   
   
   
   

2. West Germanic /bisokyan/ Þ   Old English /besetšan/ Þ   Modern English “beseech” /b¶sitš/

3. Indo-European *wlpo Þ   Latin /lupus/ Þ  Spanish /lobo/

4. Indo-European *wlpo Þ   Old English /wulf/

5. early Old English /wulfas/ Þ   Old English /wulvas/ Þ   Modern English “wolves” /wulvz/

6. formal speech /dIdhihItyu/ Þ   fast speech /dIdihItšu/ (“Did he hit you?”)

7. Proto-Germanic /kirike/ Þ   Old English /tširitš¶/ Þ   Modern English /tš¶rtš/ “church”

 Click here to go to the course syllabus.