The system of endings of Old English Nouns

OLD ENGLISH. THE NOUN.

The OE noun had two grammatical or morphological categories: number and case. In addition, nouns distinguished three genders, but this distinction was not a grammatical category. The category of number consisted of two members, singular and plural. The noun had four cases: Nominative, Genitive, Dative and Accusative. The Nom. can be defined as the case of the active agent. The Gen- case was primarily the case of nouns and pronouns serving as, attributes, to other nouns. Dat. was the chief case used with prepositions. The Acc. case was the form that indicated a relationship to a verb. Besides these functions the cases of OE nouns, especially the Ace. case, could be used in some adverbial meanings.

Morphological Classification of Nouns. Declensions.

The most remarkable feature of OE nouns was their elaborate system of declensions, which was a sort of morphological classification. The total number of declensions, including both the major and minor types, exceeded 25. All in all there were only ten distinct endings (plus some phonetic variants of these endings) and a few relevant root-vowel interchanges used in the noun paradigms; yet every morphological class had either its own specific endings or a specific succession of markers. In the first place, the morphological classification of OE nouns rested upon the most ancient grouping of nouns according to the stem-suffixes. Stem-suffixes could consist of vowels (a-stem, i-stem), of consonants (ii-stems), of sound sequences ( ja-stems, -nd-stems). Some groups of nouns had no stem-forming suffix or had a "zero-suffix"; they are usually termed "root-stems" and are grouped together with consonantal stems, as their roots ended in consonants. The loss of stem-suffixes as distinct component parts had led to the formation of different sets of grammatical endings. OE nouns distinguished three genders: Masc., Fem., and Neut. In OE gender was primarily a grammatical distinction; Masc., Fern. and Neut. nouns could have different forms, even if they belonged to the same stem (type of declension).

Other reasons accounting for the division into declensions were structural and phonetic:

Monosyllabic nouns had certain peculiarities as compared to polysyllabic; monosyllables with a long root-syllable differed in some forms from nouns with a short syllable. The majority of OE nouns belonged to the a-stems, s-stems and n-stems. Special attention should also be paid to the root-stems which displayed specific peculiarities in their forms and have left noticeable traces in Mod E. Morphological Classification of Nouns in Old English Division according to stem

Division according to gender

Division according to length of the root- liable

A-stems included Masc. and Neut. nouns. About one third of OE nouns were Masc. a-stems. The forms in the a-stem declension were distinguished through grammatical endings (including the zero-ending). In some words inflections were accompanied by sound interchanges. If a noun ended in a fricative consonant, it became voiced in an intervocal position. These interchanges were not peculiar of a-stems alone and are of no significance as grammatical markers; they are easily accountable by phonetic reasons.

Note should be taken of the inflections -es of the Gen. sg, -as of the Nom. and Acc. Masc. Towards the end of the OE period they began to be added to an increasing number of nouns, which originally belonged to other stems. These inflections are the prototypes and sources of the Mod E pl and Poss. case markers -(e)s and -s. Wa- and ja-stems differed from pure a -stems in some forms, as their endings contained traces of the elements j- and -w- O-stems were all Fem., so there was no further subdivision according to gender.

The other vocalic stems, i-stems and u-stems, include nouns of different genders.

The most numerous group of the consonantal stems were n-stems. N-stems included many Masc. nouns, many Fern. nouns, and only a few Neut. nouns.

The other consonantal declensions are called minor consonantal stems as they included small groups of nouns. The most important type are the root-stems, which had never had any stem-forming suffix.

Date: 2015-01-29; view: 1856