Editing Great Vowel Shift (section)

===Later mergers===
During the first and the second phases of the Great Vowel Shift, long vowels were shifted without merging with other vowels, but after the second phase, several vowels merged. The later changes also involved the Middle English diphthong {{IPA|/ɛj/}}, as in ''day'', which often (but not always, see the [[Pane-pain merger|''pane-pain'' merger]]) monophthongised to {{IPA|/ɛː/}}, and merged with Middle English {{IPA|/aː/}} as in ''mate'' or {{IPA|/ɛː/}} as in ''meat''.{{sfn|Görlach|1991|pp=68–69}}

During the 16th and 17th centuries, several different pronunciation variants existed among different parts of the population for words like ''meet'', ''meat'', ''mate'', and ''day''. Different pairs or trios of words were merged in pronunciation in each pronunciation variant. Four different pronunciation variants are shown in the table below. The fourth pronunciation variant gave rise to Modern English pronunciation. In Modern English, ''meet'' and ''meat'' are merged in pronunciation and both have the vowel {{IPA|/iː/}}, and ''mate'' and ''day'' are merged with the diphthong {{IPA|/eɪ/}}, which developed from the 16th-century long vowel {{IPA|/eː/}}.{{sfn|Görlach|1991|pp=68–69}}<!-- Görlach cites Samuels (1972: 147) for variants I, II, and III, and adds the pronunciation given by John Hart. In the table below, Hart's variant is number 1, and Görlach's I, II, II are numbers 3, 2, 4. -->
{| class="wikitable"
|+ Meet-meat mergers
! rowspan="2" | Word !! rowspan="2" | Middle<br>English !! colspan="4" | 1500s pronunciation variants
|-
! 1 !! 2 !! 3 !! 4
|-
! meet
| {{IPA|/eː/}} || {{IPA|/iː/}} || {{IPA|/iː/}} || {{IPA|/iː/}} || rowspan="2" | {{IPA|/iː/}}
|-
! meat
| {{IPA|/ɛː/}} ||  rowspan="2" | {{IPA|/ɛː/}} || rowspan="3" | {{IPA|/eː/}} || {{IPA|/eː/}}
|-
! day
| {{IPA|/ɛj/}}|| rowspan="2" | {{IPA|/ɛː/}} || rowspan="2" | {{IPA|/eː/}}
|-
! mate
| {{IPA|/aː/}} ||  {{IPA|/æː/}}
|}

Modern English typically has the [[Meet–meat merger|''meet''–''meat'' merger]]: both ''meet'' and ''meat'' are pronounced with the vowel {{IPA|/iː/}}. Words like ''great'' and ''steak'', however, have merged with ''mate'' and are pronounced with the vowel {{IPA|/eɪ/}}, which developed from the {{IPA|/eː/}} shown in the table above. Before historic {{IPA|/r/}} some of these vowels merged with {{IPA|/ə/}}, {{IPA|/ɛ/}}, {{IPA|/ɪ/}}, {{IPA|/ʊ/}}