OLD ENGLISH PHONETICS

Accentuation system
dynamic stress fixed on the first root syllable:
agāne (gone);
ʒesēon (see);
ʒaderian (gather)

Polysyllabic words and compounds - two stresses:
chief (on the first component)
secondary.
Grammatical endings were unstressed:
hlaforde – hlaford (lord);
cyninʒe - cyninʒ (king);
æþelinʒʒa – æþelinʒ (nobleman)

Verb prefixes were unaccented:
a-'risan (arise),
mis-'faran (go astray).
In adjectives and nouns the stress shifted onto the prefix:
'or-eald (very old),
'to-weard (towards),
'mis-dæd (misdeed).

In words derived from the same root, word stress distinguished nouns from verbs:
'and-swaru (noun) –
and-'swarian (verb) – answer;
‘onʒin (noun) - on'ʒinnan (verb) – beginning, begin.

OE system of consonants
14 consonants:
p, b, m, f, t, d, n, s, r, I, þ (ð), c, ʒ, h
some of the modern sounds were non-existent:
[ʃ], [ʒ], [ʧ], [ʤ]

Consonants

All the consonants fell into
sonorants (m, w, n, r, l, ŋ, j) and
noise consonants.
Noise consonants were subdivided into
voiced plosives (b, d, g)
voiceless plosives (p, t, k)
voiced fricatives (v, ð, z, γ )
voiceless fricatives (f, θ, h, x ).
Sometimes voicing was the only point of difference between allophones - variants of a phoneme depending on the phonetic surrounding and serving to distinguish between words.

Palatalised sounds (k’, g’, x’, γ ‘ ) -- not typical of MnE.
Short and long consonants:
/f, s, n/
/p, g / were doubled in spelling to indicate length - part-time, big game.
Difference in length was semantic (and distinguished in the intervocal position) :
hopian /p/ - to hope
hoppian /p:/ - to hop
cwelan /l/ – to die
cwellan /l:/ - to kill
mete /t/ - to meet
mette / t: / - met

In OE consonants were subjected to the processes of:
- voicing - devoicing;
- doubling;
- metathesis;
- Grimm's law;
- Verner's law;
- hardening;
- rhotacism.

Voicing - devoicing
f, þ, ð, s are voiced in intervocal position:
hlaf [f] (bread) – hlaford [v] (breadkeeper)
ʒos [s] — ʒoses [z] (goose, Nom. sing. – Gen. sing.)
toð [θ] — toðes [ð] (tooth, Norn. sing. - Gen. sing.)

Palatal – velar articulation
The phoneme denoted by the letter с —
palatal [к'] (before the vowel i ):
cild (child) ,
scip (ship)
velar [k] (in the majority of cases):
can (can),
climban (to climb).

phoneme denoted by the letter ʒ:
voiced velar plosive [g] at the beginning of the word before back vowels or consonants or in the middle of the word after n:
ʒod (good),
ʒretan (to greet, to address),
ʒаnʒаn (to go)
voiced velar fricative [γ] in the middle of the word between back vowels:
daʒas (days)
voice palatal fricative [j] before and after front vowels:
dæʒ (day),
ʒeаr (year)

Doubling
prolonging the consonant sound (except for /r/) to indicate long vowels.
badi – bedd (bed);
fulian –fyllan (become foul).

Metathesis
a phonetic change in which two sounds exchange their places:
brid - bird;
drit - dirt;
forst -frost;
grapsen — grasp;
moudle - mould.

Grimm's law
The voiceless plosive consonants [p], [t], [k] of non-Germanic Indo-European languages shifted in Germanic languages into the voiceless fricative consonants [f], [θ], [h]:
пена -fama (foam)
пять - fiv (five)
три - θrie (three)
ты - þu (thou)
кров - hrof (roof)
kardia - heorte (heart)
octo - eahta (eight)

Verner's law
there are certain words in Germanic languages where instead of the expected voiceless fricative consonants we find voiced plosive consonants. These "exceptions" to the rule are a result of the further development of the fricative consonants which appeared in Germanic languages after the first consonant shift.

Verner's law
The Germanic voiceless fricative consonants [f], [θ], [h] which appeared due to Grimm's law later became voiced if they were found after unstressed vowels:
IE Early PG Late PG OE
pa`ter > fa`θar > fa`ðar > >`faðar > >> `fadar
t → θ in accordance with Grimm's law, but as the stress in the word " fa`ðar " was on the 2nd syllable, the voiceless fricative consonant [θ] became voiced [ð]; later the voiced fricative consonant [ð] underwent "hardening" and became [d].

Hardening
the transition of IE /ð, v, γ / into /d, b, g/ initially and after nasals, turning fricatives into plosives.
IE Early PG Late PG OE
pa`ter > fa`θar > fa`ðar > >`faðar > >> `fadar
I.E. [t] > Com. Germ. [θ] > [ð] > OE [d]
Grimm's law - Verner's law - hardening

Rhotacism
Verner's law also affected a 4th consonant — [s]. [s] > [z] after unstressed vowels — later [z] became [r] — the change [z] > [r] is called rhotacism.
Verner's law explains the appearance of "consonant gradation" in strong verbs:
cweðan cwæð cwædon cweden (say)
ceosan ceas curon coren (choose)

OE system of vowels
a) The quantity and the quality of the vowel depended upon its position in the word. Under stress any vowel could be found, but in unstressed position there were no diphthongs or long monophthongs, but only short vowels.
b) The length of the stressed vowels (monophthongs and diphthongs) was phonemic :
metan (to measure) — mētan (to meet)
pin (pin) — pīn (pain)
god (god) — gōd (good)
c) There was an exact parallelism of long and short vowels:
Short: monophthongs - а о e u i æ у; diphthongs - ea eo
Long: monophthongs - ā ō ē ū ī æ ÿ; diphthongs - ēа ēо

The macron ( ¯ ) above a vowel indicates that the vowel is long: ē = [e:] þēs [θe:s]
Within an OE diphthong the first element makes the nucleus and is pronounced with more force and clarity than the second element: hēah [hea:χ]
у stands for a front vowel [y], like in the French word “rue”: суninʒ [kуniŋg]

Monophthongs in OE developed from PG sounds in the process of fronting. So Germanic [a] and [a:] split into several vowels:
a – æ, o, a
ā: - æ:, o:

diphthongs were produced as the result of “fracture", or "breaking". It is diphthongisation of the short vowels [a] and [e] before certain consonant clusters:
-a turned into ea before
h + cons. æhta –eahta (eight),
l + cons. æld – eald (old),
г + cons. arm — earm (arm),
final h sah – seah (saw).
- e turned into eo before
lc, melcan —meolcan (to milk),
lh, selh — seolh (seal),
h, feh – feoh (cattle).
r + cons.: herte – heorte (heart)

Diphthongs also appeared as the result of diphthongisation. A back vowel (a, o, u) in the suffix turned the stressed root vowel into a diphthong:
sifun – siofon (seven),
swestar – sweostar (sister),
hefon – heofon (heaven).

i-umlaut, or "palatal mutation" is fronting of a vowel in the root under the influence of i, j in the succeeding syllable. Sometimes it also involved doubling of the root consonant:
badi — bedd,
fulian — fyllan.

Certain vowels could be lengthened as the result of the loss of consonant:
funf – fif (five).
In such cases the law of compensation was applied. If one consonant was lost in a word, the previous vowel had to be lengthened or the consonant doubled.
This law was essential because the loss of sounds could disturb the accentuation pattern – the sequence of stressed and unstressed syllables in an utterance.