The dissertation is a complex study of сonsonantal phonemes’ syntagmatics, registered at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of the word throughout the historical development of the English language. Systematization of the known directions and aspects applied while conducting syntagmatic research within the structural approach proved it expedient to study syntagmatics of the English consonants using systemic, structural-and-functional, valency and phonetic aspects of the distributional direction of the structural approach. The thesis offers a detailed study of the linguistic status of the phoneme as well as its revised definition viewed as an object of linguistic research from the point of its interaction with other phonemes at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of the word, and considering the ability of the human psyche to generalize the anthropophonic properties of the known invariant part of the word. Substantiation of theoretical grounds of the research of consonantal syntagmatics in English proves the expediency of considering it within the three traditional periods of the language development, namely Old English, Middle English and Modern English. The paper also proves the necessity to define the role of reasons for changes in the English consonantal syntagmatics. In particular, the study of the interaction of lingual (structural, functional, anthropophonic) and extralingual (regional, military, migratory, political, religious, ethnic, socio-legal, cultural, economic, etc.) factors made it possible to identify the reasons that caused changes in the English language in general and its phonemic system in particular. The analysis of frequencies of consonantal clusters’ realization at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of the word, registered in the three periods of the English language development, made it possible to (1) establish qualitative characteristics of two-, three-, and four-consonantal clusters typical of the analyzed temporal intervals, (2) describe their specificity of occurring within the word structure, and (3) outline the dynamics of their changes during the historical development of English.
