Regularities of the English consonantal clusters development

Abstract

The paper presents the results of a complex study of Ñonsonantal phonemes' syntagmatics, registered at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of the word throughout the historical development of the English language. The analysis of frequencies of consonantal clusters' actualization allowed the author to characterize the regularities of their occurring within the word structure as well as describe dynamics of their changes during the history of English. The following issues common for different languages are the main aspects for consideration of the problem elaborated in the paper: the emergence of new phonemic sequences (combinability), the occurrence of phonemic changes at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of the word, the emergence of new phonemes and phonologization processes of the already existing ones, new functional load of phonemes and their ability to combine, the suitability of consonants to join new clusters, the study of the phenomenon of phonemic borrowing, substitution processes, the study of the consonantal clusters' structures as well as frequencies of their occurrence. The research methodology is based on the classification of linguistic features of consonantal clusters as well as envisages their description in correlation with the historical period of the feature manifestation, the position of the cluster in the word, the number of phonemes in a cluster, the ratio of voice and noise, the place and manner of consonant articulation.