System of Declensions

Middle English

System of Declensions

Though the stem-suffixes merged with the root, declensions were still existent in OE and were based on the former IE stem-suffixes:

a-stem – the most numerous declension (M, N):

Case	Masculine	Neuter
Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Nom, Acc	fisc	fiscas	dēor	dēor!
Gen	fisces	fisca	dēores	dēora
Dat	fisce	fiscum	dēore	dēorum

Traces of a-stem in Modern English:

· -es (M, Sg, Gen) à ‘s (student’s book) – Possessive Case;

· -as (M, Pl, Nom) à -(e)s (watches, books) – plural ending for the majority of nouns;

· -  (N, Pl, Nom) à zero ending (deer, sheep) – homogeneous Sg and Pl.

n-stem (M, N, F):

Case	Masculine
Singular	Plural
Nom	nama	naman
Gen	naman	namena
Dat	naman	namum
Acc	naman	naman

Traces of n-stem in Modern English:

· -an (M, Pl, Nom) à -en (oxen, children, brethren) – irregular plural ending.

root-stem – never had stem-suffix, words consisted of just a root(M, F):

Case	Masculine
Singular	Plural
Nom, Acc	fōt	fēt
Gen	fotes	fōta
Dat	fēt	fōtum

Traces of n-stem in Modern English:

· root-sound interchange (M, Pl, Nom) à root-sound interchange (men, geese, mice) – irregular Plural.

Most changes occurred to the Noun in ME.

In ME the declensions disappeared due to the reduction of endings. As far as the Case endings were reduced to one or two, there remained no distinction between the Case forms of different declensions and there was no necessity any more to distinguish these declensions.

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