The Strong Declension of Nouns

Morphology. Nouns

The Grammar Structure of Old English

LECTURE4

Stress

In OE like in all Germanic languages the stress is fixed on the first syllable of the root. If a word begins with a prefix the stress also falls on first syllable of the root. In adverbs consisting of a preposition and a noun the stress also falls on the first syllable of the root of the noun: on’ginnan - to begin; of ‘dune-“down”.

1. General characteristics of the OE grammar structure.

2. Short characteristics of OE nouns.

3. The strong declension of nouns.

4. The weak declension of nouns.

5. A separate group of nouns.

6. OE adjectives and adverbs.

7. OE pronouns.

OE was a synthetical language, it means a flectional language. In this respect it resembles MnE. The relations between the words in a sentence were reflected by means of flections, that’s why the order of words was not restricted. The place of a word in a sentence was not fixed and it was possible to move words from place to place without changing the meaning of a whole sentence.

OE nouns had the grammatical categories of gender, number and case (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative). Besides nouns were divided into strong and weak. Nouns were considered to be strong if they had vowel stems and if nouns had consonant stems they were considered weak. A stem is a vowel or a consonant standing between the root and the flexion. The grammatical gender of OE nouns sometimes reflected the real gender of noun: mann, fæder, sunu - masc.;

mõdor, dõhtor, - fem. Sometimes when the inanimate objects were concerned the grammatical gender didn’t reflect any real gender at all: fot, ende, nama - masc.; tunze (tongue), burch (крепость) – fem.; scip, word - n.

Sometimes the grammatical gender contradicts the real gender, e.g wif - n.; wifman, wimman - masc.; mæzden - (das Mädchen) - n.; OE nouns had two numbers: singular and plural.

A noun was considered to be strong if it had a vowel stem. A stem is a sound (a vowel or a consonant) standing between the root and the flexion.

To the nouns of the so-called a - stem belong masculine and neuter nouns. All the masculine and neuter nouns are declined like that:

Masculine Neuter (monosyll)

Sing. Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural

Short syllable Long syllable

N stān stānas scip scipu ‘ship’ bān bān ‘bone’

G stānes stāna scipes scipa bānes bāna

D stāne stānum scips scipum bāne bānum

A stān stānas scip scipu bān bān

The declension of a neuter a-stem noun depends on the quantity of syllables in the word and also on the length of the root vowel.

Nouns having more than one syllable with a short root vowel were declined like this (resed «house»):

Singular Plural Singular Plural

Short syllable Long syllable

Neuter N. reced reced ‘building nīeten nīetenu

(dissyllabic) G. recedes recede nīetenes nīetena

D. recede recedum nīetene nīetenum

A. reced reced nīeten nīetenu

ja - declension of nouns. These nouns a special type of a-stems. Their root vowel undergoes mutation under the influence of an original - j - in the stem:

Masculine Neuter

N ende endas cyn (n) cyn (n)

G endes enda cynnes cynna

D ende endum cynne cynnum

A ende endas cyn (n) cyn (n)

The difference between the pure and wa - stem is that «w» appeared before the flexion in all the cases except N. and Acc. Singular:

Sing p1 sing p1

N bearu (masc. wood) bearwas bealu bealu

G bearwes bearwa bealwes bealwa

D bearwe bearwum bealwe bealwum

A bearu bearwas bealwu bealu

o - stem. Only feminine nouns belong to this stem:

N fõr fõra

G fõre fõra

D fõre fõrum

A fõre fõra

To jo - stem also belong feminine nouns. These are a special type of o -stems. Their root vowel has undergone mutation induced by an original - j - in the stem:

N bryc3 bryc3a ‘bridge’

G bryc3e bryc3a

D bryc3e bryc3um

A bryc3e bryc3a

wo-stem. These are also a special of o -stems:

N mǣd (луг) mǣdwa sceadu sceadwa ‘shade’

G mǣdwe mǣdwa scedwe sceadwa

D mǣdwe mǣdwum sceadwe sceadwum

A mǣdwe mǣdwa sceadwe sceadwa

i-stem. Nouns of all the three genders may belong to it. The root vowel has undergone mutation:

N hyll hyllas ‘hill’ (masc.)

G hylles hylla

D hylle hyllum

A hyll hyllas

u-stem. Masculine and feminine nouns belonged:

Masculine Feminine

Sing. Plur. Sing. Plur.

N sunu suna duru dura ‘door’

G suna suna dura dura

D suna sunum dura durum

A sunu suna duru dura

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