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Consonant stems. Declension of n-stem nouns
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The consonant declensions consisted of nouns with the stem originally ending in - n, -r, -s and other consonants.2
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1 Nouns which had a long stem syllable had the zero ending in the Nominative and the Accusative Plural (such as scēap (sheep), land (land), etc.)
2 Declensions of stems other than - n are not analysed here as nouns belonging to them are few and show a tendency to fall under other declensions.
Table 6-3. Declension of a-stem nouns
| Gender | Masculine | Neuter | |
| Case | |||
| Singular | Nominative | fisc (fish) | scip (ship) |
| Genitive | fisces | scipes | |
| Dative | fisce | scipe | |
| Accusative | fisc | scip | |
| Plural | Nominative | fiscas | scipu |
| Genitive | fisca | scipa | |
| Dative | fiscum | scipum | |
| Accusative | fiscas | Scipu |
The n-stem class was formed by nouns of all the three genders, such as nama (name) — masculine, tunge (tongue) — feminine, eaӡe (eye) — neuter.
Table 6-4. Declension of n-stem nouns
| Grender Case | Masculine | Feminine | Neuter | |
| Singular | Nominative Genitive Dative Accusative | nama (name) naman naman naman | tunge (tongue) tungan tungan tungan | eaӡe (eye) eaӡan eaӡan eaӡe |
| Plural | Nominative Genitive Dative "Accusative | naman namenanamum naman | tungan tungenatungum tungan | eaӡan eaӡena eaӡum eaӡan |
The n -stem was the most important among all the consonant stem declensions. This class of nouns was composed of common words. The group was very extensive in Old English and like the a -stem declension it exhibited a tendency to spread its forms over other declensions.
The original stem-suffix - n may be observed in the majority of case forms, but very often the grammatical ending had been dropped in the pre-written period; this phenomenon gave rise to a well-marked homonymity of the noun forms of the declension. Five case forms of the masculine and the feminine genders — all the Singular with the exception of the Nominative and the Nominative and the Accusative plural are homonymous, in case of neuter nouns only four forms are homonymous, as the Accusative case of neuter nouns is homonymous to the Nominative.
Gender oppositions in this declension are also not distinct, the masculine nouns being different from the feminine only in the Nominative Singular and from the neuter — in the Nominative and the Accusative Singular.
Declension of root-stem nouns
Root-stems require special consideration. This class was not extensive and stood apart among other Old English nouns due to peculiarities of form-building which was partly retained in Modern English.
Unlike other classes the root-stem nouns such as man (man, masculine), mus (mouse, feminine) originally had no stem-suffix and the grammatical ending was added directly to the root. As a result of that in the Dative Singular and the Nominative and the Accusative Plural the root-vowel had undergone palatal mutation due to the [ i ]-sound in the grammatical ending of these forms. Later the ending was dropped and vowel interchange remained the only means of differentiating the given forms in the paradigm.1 The endings of the rest of the forms are built up on analogy with those of the a -stems, hence the difference between genders can- be observed only in the Genitive Singular — -es for the masculine, - e for the feminine.
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Table 6-5. Declension of root-stem nouns
| Gender Case | Masculine | Feminine | |
| Singular | Nominative Genitive Dative Accusative | man (man) mannes man man | mūS (mouse) mūse mȳs mūs |
| Plural | Nominative Genitive Dative Accusative | men manna mannum men | mȳs mūsa mūsum mȳs |
Homonymity of forms in Old English
And its influence on the further development
Of noun forms
In the prehistoric period of the development of the English language each case had an ending typical of its uninflected form. In the course of the development of the English language, however, due to various semantic and phonetic changes different cases began to develop similar endings within one and the same paradigm; this phenomenon gave rise to the well-marked
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1 The feminine nouns with the short root had the ending -u in the Nominative and the Accusative Singular, and -e in the Nominative and the Accusative Plural.
homonymity of case-forms in English. The reference table given below show the principal noun suffixes in Old English. The table serves to prove that the twenty-four word-forms which built up the noun paradigm had but nine materially different endings.
The most distinct among them are:
-es — genitive singular, masculine and neuter
-a/ena — genitive plural, all genders
-um — dative plural, all genders
-as — nominative and accusative plural, masculine.
As for the rest of the forms their mutual homonymity is considerable. For example, nouns with the stem originally ending in - a show gender differences only in the plural, all the forms in the singular but the nominative being homonymous, irrespective of gender and case differences.
The existence of different endings of nouns grammatically alike and homonymous endings of nouns grammatically different testifies to a certain inadequacy of the morphological devices of the Old English noun to show the relation of the noun to other words in the sentence and a need for the development of new means to denote the grammatical meanings formerly denoted morphologically.
Table 6-6. Reference table of the principal grammatical noun suffixes in Old English
| Gender Stem Case | Masculine | Feminine | Neuter | |||||||||
| a | u | n | ō | i | u | n | a | i | n | |||
| Singular | Nominative | — | e | u/o | a | u | __ | u/o | e | _ | -/e | e |
| Genitive | es | es | a | an | e | e | a | an | es | es | an | |
| Dative | e | e | a | an | e | e | a | an | e | e | an | |
| Accusative | — | e | a | an | e | -/e | a | an | — | e | e | |
| Plural | Nominative | as | e/es | a | ana | e | a | a | n | u/o | u | an |
| Genitive | a | a | a | ena | a | a | a | ena | a | a | ena | |
| Dative | um | um | um | um | um | um | um | um | um | um | um | |
| Accusative | as | e/as | a | an | a | e | a | an | u/o/- | u | an |
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THE NOMINAL SYSTEM
Table 1. Declinable parts of speech in Old English
| Categories | |||
| Parts | Gender | Number | Case |
| of speech | |||
| Noun | + | + | + |
| Pronoun | + | + | + |
| Adjective | + | + | + |
| Numeral | + | + | + |
Table 2. Gender
| Masculine | Male beings fæder (father) sunu (son) cyning (king) | Lifeless things hlāf (bread) stān (stone) hrōf (roof) | Abstract notions stenc (stench) fær (fear) nama (name) dōm (doom) |
| Feminine | Female beings mōdor (mother) dohter (daughter) cwēn (queen) ӡōs (goose) | Lifeless things tunge (tongue) meolc (milk) | Abstract notions trywðu (truth) huntinӡ (hunting) lufu (love) |
| Neuter | Living beings cicen (chicken) hors (horse) mæӡden (maiden) | Lifeless things ēaӡe (eye) scip (ship) | Abstract notions mōd (mood) riht (right) |
Table 3. Number
| Nominative Singular | Nominative Plural |
| fisc (fish) ēaӡe (eye) tōð (tooth) scip (ship) | fiscasēaӡantēð scipu |
Table 4. Different stem-suffixes
| Nominative plural a-stemē-stemn-stem stān-as (stones) car-a (cares) nam-an (names) |
Table 5. Declensions in Old English
| Declension | Vowel (strong) | stems | Consonant (weak) | stem | Root stems | ||
| Case and number | a ō | u | i | n | r | s | |
| Nom. Sing. Nom. Plur. | stān cam (stone)(care) stānas cara | sun (son) suna | wine (wine) wine | nama (name) naman | fæder (father) fæderos | lamb (lamb) lamb | fōt (foot) fēt |
Table 6. Declension of a-stem nouns
| Gender | Masculine | Neuter | |
| Case | |||
| Singular | Nominative | fisc (fish) | scip (ship) |
| Genitive | fisces | scipes | |
| Dative | fisce | scipe | |
| Accusative | fisc | scip | |
| Plural | Nominative | fiscas | scipu |
| Genitive | fisca | scipa | |
| Dative | fiscum | scipum | |
| Accusative | fiscas | Scipu |
Table 7. Declension of n-stem nouns
| Grender Case | Masculine | Feminine | Neuter | |
| Singular | Nominative Genitive Dative Accusative | nama (name) naman naman naman | tunge (tongue) tungan tungan tungan | eaӡe (eye) eaӡan eaӡan eaӡe |
| Plural | Nominative Genitive Dative "Accusative | naman namenanamum naman | tungan tungenatungum tungan | eaӡan eaӡena eaӡum eaӡan |
Table 8. Declension of root-stem nouns
| Gender Case | Masculine | Feminine | |
| Singular | Nominative Genitive Dative Accusative | man (man) mannes man man | mūS (mouse) mūse mȳs mūs |
| Plural | Nominative Genitive Dative Accusative | men manna mannum men | mȳs mūsa mūsum mȳs |
Table 9. Reference table of the principal grammatical noun suffixes in Old English
| Gender Stem Case | Masculine | Feminine | Neuter | |||||||||
| a | u | n | ō | i | u | n | a | i | N | |||
| Singular | Nominative | — | e | u/o | a | u | __ | u/o | e | _ | -/e | E |
| Genitive | es | es | a | an | e | e | a | an | es | es | An | |
| Dative | e | e | a | an | e | e | a | an | e | e | An | |
| Accusative | — | e | a | an | e | -/e | a | an | — | e | E | |
| Plural | Nominative | as | e/es | a | ana | e | a | a | n | u/o | u | An |
| Genitive | a | a | a | ena | a | a | a | ena | a | a | ena | |
| Dative | um | um | um | um | um | um | um | um | um | um | um | |
| Accusative | as | e/as | a | an | a | e | a | an | u/o/- | u | An |
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LECTURE 7.
OLD ENGLISH GRAMMAR
THE VERBAL SYSTEM
King Edward the Confessor (1042-1066) with his servant, fragment of a contemporary embroidery ("Bayeux tapestry", or "Queen Mathilde's tapestry", Musee de Bayeux).
List of principal questions:
1. General survey of finite and non-finite forms of the verb
2. Grammatical categories of the finite forms of the verb
2.1. Person
2.2. Number
2.3. Tense
2.4. Mood
3. Morphological classification of verbs
3.1. Strong verbs
3.2. Weak verbs
3.3. Irregular verbs
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