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Most dialects of modern English have two high back vowels: the close back rounded vowel found in words like ''goose'', and the near-close near-back rounded vowel found in words like ''foot''. This article discusses the history of these vowels in various dialects of English, focusing in particular on phonemic splits and mergers involving these sounds. ==Historical development== In the Old English vowel system, there was a pair of short and long high back vowels, , both written (the longer vowel is often distinguished as in modern editions of Old English texts). There was also a pair of back vowels of mid-height, , written (the longer one often in modern editions). The same four vowels existed in the Middle English system. The short vowels were still spelt and , but long came to be spelt as , and as . Generally the Middle English vowels descended from the corresponding Old English ones, although there were certain alternative developments – see English historical vowel correspondences. Due to Middle English open syllable lengthening, short /o/ was mostly lengthened to (an opener back vowel) in open syllables; this development can be seen in words like ''nose''. In the Great Vowel Shift, ME long ended up being raised to , in words like ''moon''; ME long was diphthongized, becoming the present-day , as in ''mouse''; and the of ''nose'' was raised and later diphthongized, leading to present-day . At some point, short /u/ developed into a lax, near-close near-back rounded vowel, , as found in words like ''put''. (Similarly, .) According to Roger Lass, this laxing occurred in the 17th century, but other linguists have suggested that it took place potentially much earlier.〔Stockwell, R., Minkova, D. (2002), Interpreting the Old and Middle English close vowels, ''Language Sciences'' 24(3–4), pp. 447–457.〕 The short /o/ remaining in words like ''lot'' has also been lowered, and unrounded in some accents (see low back vowels). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Phonological history of English high back vowels」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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