ON THE PHONOLOGICAL AND ORTHOGRAPHIC DEVELOPMENTS OF AFFRICATES IN ENGLISH

Abstract

本文旨在探討英語塞擦音在音韻及字形上的發展。本文檢視了英語在歷史上三個主要階段的歷時發展。對於塞擦音的演進，古英語軟顎爆發音的顎音化及中古英語及現代英語舌尖爆發音的顎音化扮演了關鍵的角色。塞擦音的另一個來源則是在中古世紀從法語借來的外來詞。在古英語時期，兩種摩擦音的拼寫數量明顯少，到中古英語和近代英語時期數量才顯著上升。

This paper aims at looking into some aspects of the developments of phonological and orthographic affricates in English. Some of the diachronic developments of this class of sounds in all three main periods of the history of the English language are scanned. The palatalisation of velar plosives in Old English and that of alveolar plosives in Middle English and Modern English played a key role in the introduction and development of affricates. Another source of affricates is loanwords, particularly from French in the era of Middle English. The number of the orthographic representations of the two affricate phonemes in Old English at the time of first introduction was noticeably small, but there was a significant increase in number in Middle and Modern English.