OLD ENGLISH GRAMMAR. THE NOMINAL SYSTEM

OE possessed a well-developed morphological system.
A synthetic, or inflected type of language = it showed the relations between words and expressed other grammatical meanings mainly with the help of simple (synthetic) grammatical forms:
grammatical endings, sound interchanges in the root, grammatical prefixes, and suppletive formation.
No analytical forms in OE. Towards the end of the period some analytical verb-forms began to develop.

The noun
Grammatical categories:
gender,
number,
case.

The OE Noun: GENDER
The grammatical gender =
the natural gender of the person
wifman (woman) - masculine
stān (stone, masculine)
bān (bone, neuter)
cwen (queen, feminine)

The OE Noun: GENDER

The OE Noun: GENDER

The OE Noun: GENDER

The OE Noun: GENDER
Nouns originally formed
with the help of the suffix -* an - Masculine
OE hunta ‘hunter’
by means of the suffix – Þu - Feminine
OE mærðu ‘glory’
lænӡðu (NE length), etc.

The OE Noun: GENDER
talu (NE tale) – Feminine
sunu (NE son) - Masculine

Number

Case
4 cases
Nominative,
Genetive,
Dative
Accusative

Case
Nominative - subject
The rest of the case-forms, alone or preceded by prepositions, - objects, or adverbial modifiers
The Genetive case - mostly when a noun served to modify another noun
Þæs cyninʒes brōÞur ‘that king’s brother’
as an object
he ðær bād westanwindes ‘he waited there for westen wind’.

Case
different stem-suffixes originally in Old English acquired materially different endings in the same case, for example:
Nominative plural
a-stem ō-stem n-stem
stan-as car-a nam-an

Declensions in Old English

Morphological classification of Nouns in Old English

Vowel-Stems. Declension of a-stem nouns
hlāf (bread)
hwǣrte (wheat)
hors (horse)
fisc (fish)
scip (ship)

Vowel-Stems. Declension of a-stem nouns

Vowel-Stems. Declension of a-stem nouns
The Neuter a-stems differed only in Nom. And Acc. Plural
Short stems:–u
–u ending disappeared after long syllables > Plural = Singular
Eventually the nouns house, thing, word, wife and others acquired the regular ending –s.

Vowel-Stems. Declension of a-stem nouns
long-stemmed variant:
no inflection in Nominative and Accusative Singular
no inflection in the Plural (Nom. and Acc.).
The traces of of Neuter long a-stems =
irregular plural forms in ModE:
sheep, deer, swine

Consonant stems.
Declension of n-stem nouns
The weak n-declension:
many masculine and feminine nouns
e.g. nama (name) – masculine, tunge (tongue) – feminine)
but only two nouns of the neuter gender:
ēaʒe (eye) and ēare (ear).

Declension of n-stem nouns

Declension of n-stem nouns
ox-en-a
R. имена, имен,
семеня, семян

Declension of root-stem nouns

Declension of root-stem nouns
ō > ē : the influence of the sound [i] in the endings of those cases (palatal mutation).
The pre-written * fōtiz (Nomin. Plural) and *fōti (Dative Singular) > *fētiz and *fēti > fēt
After the loss of the endings:
the only distinguishing feature between the forms fōt and fēt > ModE.

Declension of root-stem nouns
OE Singular tōþ – Plural
ʒōs – Plural ʒēs
mann – Plural menn
mus – Plural mys

Declension of root-stem nouns
Prof. A.I. Smirnitsy:
1. These words are used very frequently >
the influence of analogy > the greatest number of irregularities (the verb to be, the personal pronouns, etc)
2. The difference between the Singular and the Plural: grammatical + lexical (an additional “collective” meaning)
Cf. человек – люди

R-stem declension
IE [s] > [z] (Verner’s Law)
In West Germanic [z] > [r] (Rhotacism)
OE Nominative, Accusative Singular
lamb ǣʒ cealf cild
lamb egg calf child
OE Nominative, Accusative Plular
lambru ǣʒru cealfru cildru

R-stem declension
MidE cildru – childre + n >
ModE children

Homonymity of forms in Old English and its influence on the further development of noun forms
-es — genitive singular, masculine and neuter
-a/ena — genitive plural, all genders
-um — dative plural, all genders
-as — nominative and accusative plural, masculine

Reference table of the principal grammatical noun suffixes
in Old English

OLD ENGLISH GRAMMAR.
THE NOMINAL SYSTEM.
The Pronoun
Classes of pronouns in Old English:
personal
possessive
demonstrative
interrogative
relative
indefinite

The Pronoun
Grammatical categories:
gender
number
case

The personal pronoun
Gender
Three genders:
Masculine
Feminine
Neuter
Different forms for different genders - only in the third person singular,
the rest of the forms - indifferent to gender

The personal pronoun

The personal pronoun
Number
In the first and second person - three categorial forms: singular, dual and plural, for instance:
Singular Dual Plural
ic (I) wit (two of us) wē (we more than two)
Þū (you one) ʒīе (two of you) ʒē (you more than two)

The personal pronoun
Case
Personal pronouns (noun-pronouns) –
a 4-case system:
Nominative
Genitive
Dative
Accusative

The personal pronoun

Declension of the personal pronoun Ic

The personal pronoun
The Genetive case of personal
pronouns: forms of the oblique cases
(as objects) & an attributive function
e.g. his modor, sunu mīn
The Genetive case of personal pronouns – possessive pronouns mīn, þīn, hīs, hire, ūre

Other pronouns
Grammatical categories:
gender (masculine, feminine and neuter)
number (singular and plural)
case (five categorial forms:
Nominative
Accusative
Dative
Genitive
Instrumental

Demonstrative Pronouns

Demonstrative Pronouns
Modern demonstrative “this”, “these”, “those” < OE pronouns with full demonstrative power (Masculine þes, Feminine þēos, Neuter þis).
That < OE þæt Neuter for sē.

OE Demonstrative Pronouns
OE pronouns with weakened demonstrative power - before nouns. The demonstrative meaning approached that of the definite article developed from the pronoun sē, sēo, þæt in Middle English

OE Demonstrative Pronouns
The Instrumental case form þӯ:
Modern English:
the more, the better.

The adjective
OE adjectives: the categories
number (singular and plural)
gender (M., F., N.)
case (N., G., D., A., Instr.)
comparison (3 degrees – positive, comparative and superlative)
a certain category of “definiteness” – “indefiniteness” connected with the two-fold declension of adjectives (Definite - if the noun had another attribute – a demonstrative pronoun, and Indefinite - otherwise

Declension of adjectives

Degrees of comparison of Adjectives
The degrees of comparison were expressed synthetically, namely:
a) by means of suffixation:
heard — heardra — heardost (hard)
OE –ra, - ost < Germanic *-ozan and *ōsta
(z > r due to Verner’s Law).

Degrees of comparison
by means of vowel gradation plus suffixation:
eald — ieldra — ieldest (old)
Germanic suffixes of comparison *izan, *ista + palatal mutation (the root-vowel ea ← the original stem-forming suffix -i

Degrees of comparison
by means of suppletive forms
ʒōd — bettra — betst (good),
yfel — wyrsa — wyrst (bad),
mycel — māra — mǣst (‘great’, much),
lӯtel — lǣssa — lǣst (little)

The Adverb
The adverb in OE : only comparison
The comparative: + –or
The superlative: + –ost
E.g. hearde ‘severely’ – heardor – heardost.

The Adverb
The most productive adverb-forming suffix:
–e
By origin it was the ending of the instrumental case, neuter of strong declension of adjectives.
The adverbialisation of this case-form → many adverbs of adjectival nature
Cf. dēop (deep) – dēope (deeply),
lanʒ (long) - lanʒe
ночью, верхом, боком

The Adverb
OE adjectives:nouns + –līc
e.g. frēondlīc, cræftlīc (‘skillful’) +
–e (frēondlīce, cræftlīce)
Gradually a great number of adverbs in –līce > –līce was regarded as an adverbial suffix which could be used beside or instead of –e.
E.g. hearde and heardlīce.
Later –līce developed into – ly

Grammatical categories of declinable parts of speech

There were three kinds of declensions ‑ noun, pronoun (with two subdivisions) and adjective. They had the same grammatical categories, the main difference being in the quantity of the categorial forms of number (three number-forms in personal pronouns) and case (four case-forms ‑ nouns, five case-forms ‑ personal pronouns and adjectives).