Early New High German - Phonology and Grammar

Phonology and Grammar

In phonology and morphology, the main linguistic developments of the period are:

• Changes to the long vowels and diphthongs:
  • Diphthongisation of the long high vowels î, û and iu : MHG hût > NHG Haut ("skin").
  • Monophthongisation of the MHG opening diphthongs ie, uo and üe, replacing the lost long high vowels: MHG huot> NHG Hut ("hat")
  • lengthening of stressed short vowels in open syllables: MHG sagen /zaɡən/ > NHG sagen /zaːɡən/ ("say")

which brought consequent changes to

• • verb conjugations
  • syllable structure rules
• The loss of unstressed vowels in many circumstances (MHG vrouwe > NHG Frau ("lady")), which contributed to
  • further simplification of the noun declensions

These changes did not affect all dialects equally, and led to greater divergence between the dialects than in Middle High German.