OLD ENGLISH MOPHOLIGY
A. Nouns
Old English nouns are inflected for number and case. Like Modern English, the category of
number is represented by singular and plural. In general any nouns can appear in either the singular or
the plural, as necessary. Interestingly, there is one other number category found sometimes in OE,
namely the dual. OE wit “we two”, git “you two”.
Opposed both to singular and plural, the dual refers to objects that come in pairs: for example
someone’s hands. Although a number of Indo-European languages show a fairly free use of this number
in many nouns, in Germanic the dual is not found in nouns at all, but only in pronominal and verbal
systems, as we can see below.
Case too is a very important category for Old Germanic languages. Normally, scholars
distinguish five cases for Proto-Germanic:
NOMINATIVE,
GENETIVE,
DATIVE,
ACCUSATIVE and
INSTRUMENTAL
Categories of number and case intersect, so that we may speak about Nominative singular and
Nominative plural, and so on.
The category of gender is fundamentally different from the previous two. Whereas any given
noun may at one time appear in either number or in any case, the same does not hold true for gender.
Each noun has but a single gender associated with it, which remains constant whatever happens. Three
genders are found in all Older Germanic languages, including English:
MASCULINE,
FEMININE AND
NEUTER
As the names indicate, at some time in the past these categories may have had to do with genuine
biological gender, but by Germanic times such a connection is tenuous at best. Although arbitrary and
probably meaningless, the genders do exert a powerful influence. Among other things, they regulate the
forms of adjectives and articles accompanying nouns.
In addition to the three genders, one must reckon with another arbitrary subdivision of nouns: the
inflectional classes. The older Germanic languages had upwards of twenty such classes, depending on
how one counts them, each of which can be said to have its own unique set of case and number endings.
DECLENSIONS
In OE, as in the older periods of the other Germanic languages, nouns are divided into two great
classes, according as the stem originally ended in a vowel or consonant. Nouns, whose stems originally
ended in a vowel, belong to the vocalic or so-called Strong declension. Those, whose stems end –n,
belong to the Weak declension.
STRONG DECLENSION (=VOCALIC)
WEAK DECLENSION (=CONSONANTAL)
The division into classes is based on the original structure of Germanic noun. It is assumed that
in Proto-Germanic nouns had a three-element structure, namely root, stem-forming suffix and ending.
The medial element stem-forming suffix can only be traced in some forms of Gothic word:
2
DATIVE PLURAL
a-declension
Dag – a - m
ō-declension
Gib – ō - m
i-declension
Gast – i – m
u-declension
Sun – u - m
n-declension
Hana
In OE the Vocalic or Strong declension in –a- (PIE –o-) comprises masculine and neuter nouns
only. The latter are divided into short-syllable and long-syllable ones. The short-syllable nouns end in –
u in NOM, ACC plural, long-syllable ones have no endings.
a-stem
PLURAL
MASCULINE
NEUTER
stan-as
scip-u
stan-a
scip-a
stan-um
scip-um
stan-as
scip-u
SINGULAR
MASCULINE
NEUTER
NOM stan
scip
GEN stan -es
scip-es
DAT stan -e
scip-e
ACC stan
scip
NEUTER
heofod-u/hefdu
hefd-a
hefd-um
heofod-u
Stems in –a could be supplemented by the preceding sonorant sounds –j- or –w-, in which case
the reconstructed suffix had the form of *-ja- or *-wa-. The nouns that fall under *-ja- or *-wadeclension were subject to i-umlaut, e.g. Gothic kuni – OE cynn.
Stems in -ō- comprise only feminine nouns. They are also divide into short and long-syllable
ones. The variants of this stem are –jo- and –wo-.
-ō-stem
NOM
GEN
DAT
ACC
SINGULAR FEMININE
giefu “дар”
lār “учення”
gief-e
lār-e
gief-e
lār-e
gief-e
lār-e
gief-a
gief-a
gief-um
gief-a
PLURAL FEMININE
lār-a
lār-a
lār-um
lār-a
Stems in –i- comprise masculine, neuter and feminine nouns. The masculine and neuter paradigm
correspond to –a-stem paradigm.
i-stem
SINGULAR
MASCULINE NEUTER
NOM mete
spere
GEN -es
-es
DAT -e
-e
ACC -e
-e
FEMININE
bēn
-e
-e
-e
PLURAL
MASCULINE NEUTER
met-as
sper-u
-a
-a
-um
-um
-as
-u
FEMININE
bēn-a
-a
-um
-u
Stems in –n- include all three genders
n-stem
SINGULAR
PLURAL
3
MASCULINE
FEMININE
MASCULINE
FEMININE
NOM hunta “мисливець”
GEN DAT ACC -an
sunne “сонце”
-an
hunt-an
-
sunn-an
-
There are also minor declensions like –root, -es-, -er-declensions, etc. When analyzing OE texts
one has to remember that all nouns have the ending –um for the dative plural in all declensions, and
most have –a for genetive plural, and many masculine nouns have a genitive singular in –es, and
accusative, nominative plural in –as. But in no nouns is a distinction made between nominative plural
and accusative plural. OE relied a good deal for its case distinctions on the adjectives, which had
preserved more distinctive endings than the nouns, and on the demonstrative pronoun sē, which still had
a large number of forms for different cases and genders.
ADJECTIVES
Adjectives had different inflections for different genders, and had to agree with the noun in
gender. In OE like in Proto-Germanic there two distinct sets of inflections for the adjectives, called the
strong and the weak declensions of the adjective. The distinction between the strong and the weak forms
of the adjective is traced in OE gōd mann “a good person” – strong from, and the weak form sē gōda
mann. Weak declension of adjectives corresponds to the weak declension of nouns (in –n-), though it
differs from weak declension of nouns in genitive plural, where we can find the ending –ra. The latter is
a borrowing from the strong declension due to the analogy process.
Adjectives have the categories of case, gender and number, degrees of comparison. They are
declined in accordance with relevant stems. Unlike nouns, adjectives may have five cases, including
Instrumental.
Degrees of comparison: PG suffixes of the relative degree *iza and *-oza had undergone the
rhotacism and the reduction of the first vowel; in OE they coalesced in-ra. PG superlative suffixes *-ist,
*-ost- > OE –est, -ost. In those adjectives, where reletive degree suffix ascend to *iza and *-ist, the root
vowel was subject to i-mutation. In the adjectives, whose suffixes ascend to *oza and *-ost original
vowels correspond to comparison forms.
Heard “жорсткий, загартований” – heardra – heardost
Hwæt “хоробрий”
- hwætra – hwatost
Some adjectives have the suppletive forms of comparison, e.g:
Gōd – betera, bettra – betst
Yfel – wiersa, wyrsa – wierrest, wyrst
Micel – māra - mæst