Old English Morphology. Old English Nouns 4 страница

Other examples of this group are: masculine - junta (man), wita (wise man), steorra (star), топа (moon), dema (judge), flota (ship, fleet), intinja (case), pie ja (play, game), draca (dragon), hara (hare), oxa (ox); neuter - baje (eye), cofa (chamber, repository); feminine - eorde (earth), heorte (heart), sunne (sun), hearpe (harp), midde (middle), cirice (church), cwme (woman), flan (arrow).

Nouns belonging to the group of -n- stems were numerous, and later there was very strong, but nevertheless pronounced, tendency to adopt though the ending of the plural form by other nouns. Due to this tendency such hybrids as brethren and children appeared in Middle English and are preserved up to now.

The nouns belonging to -r-stems were of masculine and feminine gender, the group is a closed system. It included only the terms of kinship. The endings here are scarce; a distinctive feature is that the dative case singular had a mutated vowel.

m m f

Singular

Nom. fæder brōðor mōdor

Gen. fæder(es) brōðor mōdor

Dat. fæder brēðer mēdor

Асc. fæder brōðor mōdor

Plural

Nom. fæderas brōðor mōdru(-a)

Gen. fædera brōðra mōdra

Dat. fæderum brōðrum mōdrum

Асc. fæderas brōðor mōdru(-a)

father brother mother

Other nouns are dohtor (daughter), sweostor (sister) Such nouns existed in other languages, too. Ukrainian noun мати might be mentioned as a relic of former -r- stems (матері), and in Russian мать and дочь preserved the -r- suffix in plural and in indirect cases.

Less numerous and less significant for the development of the present-day nominal system are the nouns that had other consonants as a stem-forming suffix, -s- stems had had this suffix in older times, in Old English due to rhotacism they changed it into occasional appearance of -r- sound in indirect cases. They are all neuter.

n n n

Singular

Nom. lamb cealf cild

Gen. lambes cealfes cildes

Dat. lambe cealfe cilde

Acc. lamb cealf cild

Plural

Nom. lambru cealfru cild, cildru

Gen. lambra cealfra cilda, cildra

Dat. lambrum cealfrum cildum

Acc. lambru cealfru cild, cildru

lamb calf child

So, in the present-day plural form children we find the remains of the Old Endlish stem-forming suffix -s- turned through rhotacism into -r-. The -еn-suffix was added later, in Middle English, by analogy with the inflection of another influential group of nouns.

Although not very numerous, it has left traces of the former stem-forming suffix in present-day Ukrainian and Russian, too (небо - небеса, небесний, чудо - чудеса, чудесніш).

Comparatively new for Old English are several substantivated participles forming a separate group of -nd- stems.They are all masculine and their declension combines the peculiarities of the declension of -a-stems and, to some extent, -r- stems as they all denote persons (they may form their plural form without any ending). Here the paradigm of the noun looks like following:

Singular

Nom. frēond

Gen. frēondes

Dat. frēonde

Acc. frēond

Plural

Nom. frēondas, frīend, frēond

Gen. frēonda

Dat. frēondum

Acc. frēondas, frīend, freond

friend

Here belong also such words as fēond (accuser), wealdend (ruler), wīзend (warrior), scyppend (creator), brimlī ðend (seafarer) etc.The system of endings of the Old English nouns can be represented as follows:

stems	-a-	-ō-	-i-	-u-	-n-	root	-r-	-s-	-nd-
	stems	stems	stems	stems stems	stems	stems	stems	stems
gender	m n	fem	m n f	mf	m f n Singular	m f	mf	n	in
Nom	-	-u	-e/-	-u	-a/-e/-	-/u	-/-	-	-
					e
Gen	-es	-e	-es/-es/-e	-a	-an	-es/-e	-/-es	-es	-es
Dat	-e	-e	-e/-e/-e	-a	-an	mutated vowel	mutated vowel	-e	-/-е/ mutated vowel
Acc		-e		-a	-an/-e Plural	-/-	-/-	-	-
Nom	-as/u	-a	-e/- eas/- u/-a	-a	-an	mutated vowel	-/-as/-u/-a	-ru/-	-as/-/ mutated vowel
Gen	-a	-a	-ea/-a/-a	-a	-ena	-a	-a	-ra	-a
Dat	-um	-um	-um	-um	-um	-urn	-urn	-um/-rum	-um
Ace	-as/u	-a	-e/- eas/- u/-a	-a	-an	mutated vowel	-/-as/-u/-a	-ru	-as/-/ mutated vowel

The morphological system can be represented differently, if we take into account only the existing Old English noun forms. Nevertheless, though it might seem more logical, the system does not become simplier, and what is more then the chain of systematic changes seems to be broken. Randolph Quirk and C.L. Wrenn (Old English Grammar London 1955), for instance, suggest the following classification:

A - General Masculine Declension - cyninз (king), stāin (stone), fæder (father)

В - General Neuter Declension -scip (ship), land (land), wife (punishment)

С - General Feminine Declension - talu (tale), зlōf (glove)

D - the -an Declension - зuma (man), byrnee (coat of mail), ēaзe(eye)

E- Irregular Declensions: (a) - a-plurals sunu (son), hand (hand)

(b) - ru -plurals æз (egg), lamb (lamb)

(c) - uninflected plurals sceap (sheep), brōðor (brother), rīdend (rider)

(d) – mutated plurals: fōt (foot), mūs(mouse), lūs (louse).

The nouns from root stems group comprises the nouns that never had a stem suffix; hence it had a mutated root vowel, for formerly case endings might have had a front vowel, which no longer was present in Old English. The group was not numerous (more than 20 nouns), but the words belonging to it were characterised by high frequency of use - they were the nouns used in everyday speech and therefore remained the most conservative - a group of exceptions with mutated root vowel preserved the majority of nouns belonging to this class:

m f n

Singular

Nom. mann 3ōs scrud

Gen. mannes 3ōse scrudes

Dat. menn 3ēs scryd

Асc. mann 3ōs scrud

Nom.

menn

3ēs

scrudu

Gen. manna 3ōsa scruda

Dat. mannum 3ōsum scrudum

Асc. menn 3ēs scrudu

man goose clothing

Other nouns of this class are all compound nouns containing the morpheme man: wimman (woman), ssemann (seaman, viking), ealdorman (nobleman, leader) and also root-words tod (tooth), fat (foot), mas (mouse), lüs (louse), hoc- (book), clc (oak), burh/burj (fortress, town).

Old English Pronouns

Pronoun as a part of speech is a very specific class of words; it does not have meaning, it simply points to something mentioned earlier or situated within the range of visibility of the speakers. Hence we can see that pronouns have frequency even greater than they have nowadays when the rules of indication have been worked out and certain correlations established.

There are several types of pronouns in Old English: personal, demonstrative, definite, indefinite, negative and relative. Not all of them are equally developed; they are different in the type of deixis; the very existence of some classes is sometimes disputed. But no one ever denied the existence of:

Personal pronouns, that constitute a system of words replacing nouns; they are also called noun-pronouns.

In Old English they had 3 persons: the first, the second and the third

3 numbers: singular, plural and the remains of the dual number in the second person 3 genders: masculine, feminine, neuter

The table of declension of the personal pronouns is as follows:

Dual

Nom. wit 3it

Gen. uncer incer

Dat. Unc inc

Acc. uncit incit, inc

Plural

Nom. we hie, hi, hy, heo

Gen. ure, user hira, heora, hiera, hyra

Dat. us him, heom

Acc. usic us hie, hi, hy, heo

The genitive case of personal pronouns might be used as possessive; the pronouns of the 1st and 2nd persons were declined, and might be considered a separate class of pronouns; the 3rd person pronouns were not declined (compare them with the Ukrainian - мій син, моя донька, моє село, мої сини, мого сина but його син, його донька, його село, його сини, його сина).

The personal pronouns seem to preserve in the course of time more forms than the other classes. It is to be noted that the plural form of the personal pronouns is of a specific nature, we is not ic + ic; it is ic + би or je; J eis not more than one ðū, it is ðū+ someone else, number indefinite. However it is believed that polite je denoting only one person is found very early in the Old English (for бу me бунд betre, Towswe бупсб- because of this, I think it would be better, if you think so, writes Alfred politely addressing Warfert bishop in the Preface to his translation of Cura Pastoralis)

In combination with personal pronouns could also serve as reflexive: him seolfum; swa ðū self talcist (as thou sayest thyself, or to be more modern, as you yourself say); we тазоп us sylfe (we may ourselves).

Demonstrative pronouns are se(that) and des (this), the first indicating something far and the second something near; occasionally in colloquial speech the third pronoun jeon — yonder, something still more distant and farther. They had three genders, two numbers and five cases in the singular and four in the plural and agree in number, gender and case with the nouns they modify.

These pronouns are especially important for the development of the language because they are the most frequently used as noun determiners and through agreement it indicated the noun's number, gender and case That was especially important because in Old English some classes of nouns already had few endings. Besides, in a number of cases they already had a weakened meaning which approached the function of an article. So, for instance, the form of the noun sum - suna might render the meanings of the genitive, dative and accusative in the singular and nominative, genitive and accusative in the plural. If it was modified by a demonstrative pronoun, almost no ambiguity arose:

dxs suna - gen.; дгёт suna dat.; done suna accus. sg.; da suna nom., accus., dara suna — gen. pi. des (this) had the following forms in declension.

Pronoun hwilc is declined like a strong adjective. hwilc eower hsefdhundteontij sceapa (which of you has one hundred sheep?)

and hwilcera manna faeder is /arе? (and of which of the men ishe the father?)

Definite pronouns include the following: аё Ic (each), jehwa/asjhwa (everyone), jehwaet/aejhwset (everything), jehwilc/аёjhwilc (each, every), sender/aejhweder (each of two, every), swilc (such), se ilea (the same). All but the last decline like strong adjectives, and seilca is always declined weak. on ddewn lacum (on each lake) jehwa cristenra manna (every Christian man) an time cymd Ure aejhwylcum (once (one time) to each of comes.) aejhweder ende П д on sae (each of the ends lies on the sea) se ilea Dauid (this same David)

Indefinite pronouns include such as sum, aemj. They are used in preposition to nouns and are declined like strong adjectives. Another indefinite pronoun is man, used as in this function in the meaning any individual, anyone, or people in general (compare the use of pronoun they in present- day English, in combinations like they say or man sagt in German).

hē at sumum cirre wolde fandian (at some time he wanted to explore...) aenij here don mihte (that any army could do) man sceolde his here mettian and horsian (that his army should be fed and supplied with horses)

Negative pronouns are formed by fusion of a negative particle ne- with indefinite pronoun aenij and numeral an in its pronominal function. They are nan and naenij, and are declined like the corresponding words without the particle ne-him пае nij widstod (no one opposed him) nan man ne bude benorSan him (no one lived to the north of him) Relative pronoun де is found fairly often in Old English texts, it introduced relative clauses and was later replaced by a group of pronouns and adverbs {that, which, where, when, how:

on dam aeftran jeare де se arcebiscop wses Jem arty rod (on the next year in which or when the archbishop was tortured to death...);

si о sci r hatte Halgoland де he on bude (his shire (land) on which he lived was called Helgoland.

Old English Adjectives

Most historians agree that the number of adjectives in Old English not very significant. There are primary adjectives, dating back fromold times and derivative adjectives made by adjective-forming suffixes H nouns. The adjectives of those times are similar to our Slavic adjectives, that is, this part of speech agrees with the noun it modifies in number, gender and case. Consequently, the adjectives have the same categories as the nouns do. Besides, they have categories which are purely adjectival.

The adjective in Old English had the following categories: number - the singular and the plural; gender - masculine, neuter and feminine; case 4/5 (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative and partly instrumental).

Besides, the adjectives had two declensions, strong and weak (we may compare them to 2 forms in Ukrainian зелений гай /зелен клен, though in Ukrainian the second is found only in the nominative case, or Russian красная лента/красна девица, where the indirect cases of the latter combination will be красны девицы, красну девицу, etc.). The weak form of the adjective is used after a demonstrative pronoun, a personal pronoun or a noun in the genitive case, no matter whether the adjective is before the noun or after it and may be a stable epithet to the noun. When the adjective is not so accompanied, or is preceded by an adjective of quantity or number, it is declined strong.

Specifically adjectival categories are the degrees of comparison - the positive, the comparative and the superlative. These are characteristic only for the qualitative adjectives.

All in all, each adjective might theoretically have up to sixty forms. In reality there are much fewer forms, because not all the adjectives had degrees of comparison, and case and gender endings in many cases might coincide (compare in Ukrainian: великий будинок, велика_кімната, велике вікно- великі_будинки/ кімнати/вікна; великого будинку/вікна).

The paradigm of adjectives was rich in forms. The same endings were found in declension of participles that were declined in Old English and agreed with the nouns they modified (for comparison we may take Ukrainian case endings that are almost the same for the adjectives and for the participles).

Qualitative adjectives had degrees of comparison (positive, comparative and superlative). The forms of the comparative and the superlative degree are made synthetically, by adding suffixes -ra and -ostZ-est. soft - softra - softost (soft) blaze - blsecra - blacost (black) The number of syllables in the adjective did not affect the rule - even polysyllabic adjectives may take these suffixes.