Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 April 2026
Under breaking I include here the change of a front vowel in a stressed syllable to a diphthong by the influence of following velar elements whether these be consonants in the same syllable or vowels in the next. We have to do then with OE consonantal breaking and with ON breaking, and also with that phase of velarization of front vowels in OE which, since the eighties of the last century, has come to be called u-o/a-umlaut. The last is, of course, a velar-vowel breaking. My thesis is that these three phenomena are not only similar in nature but directly related in origin.