LECTURE 3 HISTORICAL MORPHOLOGY The Evolution of the

LECTURE 3 HISTORICAL MORPHOLOGY The Evolution of the Nominal System The Evolution of the Verbal System

Main form-building means in OE OE was a synthetic language, or inflected type of language. It means that the relations between words were expressed with the help of inflections (флексии). We are going to follow the development of grammar and see the way English turned into an analytical language.

The Nominal Parts of Speech Noun Adj masc, the er fem, Pron (dem) Gend Pron (pers) the same + same only 3 rd neutral person singular Num Singular, the ber Plural the same + dual (двойств енное) Case Nominat the same 4 > than ive same + (5) 3 Genitive Instru Acc. Dative, mental Was Accusati (for going ve (4) strong out adj) The Nominal Parts of Speech OE was a synthetic language with a very complex nominal system. Nominal parts of speech had the following categories:

The OE noun system: grammatical categories. I. The OE Noun: grammatical categories: number (Sg, Pl) case (4) Nom, Gen, Dat, Acc. gender (3) m, f, n Number and case forms often had different endings as their markers, while gender was often unmarked.

Types of Declension The main division is into 3 types: strong, weak and root declensions. This division historically depended on the IE stem-building suffixes (Cf. Ru: врем-ен-а, неб-ес-а, доч-ер-и). In OGmc those suffixes generally fused with the root or ending and thus became difficult to observe. However the declensions of nouns depended on their former IE suffixes and on gender. If we take into account different endings, English noun had about 25 different declensions. Roughly we can make 3 basic divisions: strong declension: -a, -o, -u, -i stems (vocalic). weak declension: -n stem (consonantal). minor declensions: r-stem, s-stem, root-stem The root declension with its approximately 20 members stands apart, because it never had a stem-building suyffix and as a result its back root vowels were not protected from i-mutation in Dat. Sg. & Nom. , Ac. Pl. ( Nom. Sg. fōt, D. Sg. fēt, Nom. , Ac. Pl. fēt). Mod E plurals like men, feet, mice continue to represent this very old IE type. Vocalic and -n stems were much more numerous. And here historically the paradigm of Masculine -a stem nouns is of paramount importance. Why? Because in this very paradigm we can point out the endings which still survive in Mod. E though in reduced form, moreover they have become standard markers of Pl. & Gen.

Types of Declension (2) sg. pl. Nom. stānas Gen. stānes stāna Dat. stāne stānum Acc. The largest group of nouns was represented by astem masculine nouns. A-stem nouns made up the largest group in OE and it was this class which served as a model for the whole English noun system (was productive). The modern Gen. case endings –es and the plural number can be traced back to this type of nouns. The modern English plurals oxen, children, brethren owe their ending –en to the –n stem nouns in OE. OE oxan (pl. , N. , Acc. ) → reduction → ME oxen → NE oxen

ME Changes in the Noun System ME changes in the N system were of cardinal character. The major of them were as follows: 1) The division into types of declension disappeared. 2) Gender as a category disappeared as well (11 – 12 th cc. ). 3) The former 4 -case system was simplified to a 2 -case system. OE ME Nom. Ac. > Common Case Dat. Gen. Possessive Case 4) The former different plural markers (-u, -a, -e, -an) were generally leveled under one, Namely -es on analogy with a-stem Masc. Nouns E. g. : OE scipu > shipes, naman > names. Thus the above changes could be summed up as directed towards overall simplification and greater regularity. And it should be noted and stressed that those changes often started and became active in the North & North East, i. e. areas where Scandinavian influence remained perceptible.

The reasons for changes (overall simplification) 1). The first reason is the word-stress. Fixing the stress on the root syllable presupposes the reduction of different endings to the neutral vowel [ə]. The endings representing different declensions coincided in one [ə]. So they could be lost, because they carried no grammatical meaning. 2) The growing number of prepositions whose function basically coincides with that of cases. (Cf. : the arrival of the son = the son’s arrival. ) 3) The gradual fixation of word order which helps to distinguish between the S (subject) & O (object). (Cf. Ru: Мать любит дочь. Дочь любит мать. ). 4) The influence of Scandinavian dialects.

The Adjective The E Adj. is a part of speech where the tendency for simplification was realized most vividly. If compared with Mod. E the Adj in OE presents a far more complex system with its 5 grammatical categories. These were as follows: 1) Gender – 3 2) Number – 2 3) Case – 5 (the 5 th being Instrumental) All the 3 gender forms showed syntactical agreement with nouns they modified & were expressed by inflections. (Cf. Ru: синий платок, синяя косынка, синее море, синие глаза).

Strong and Weak Declension of Adjectives in OE (2) Nom. sg. gōd mann indefinite sē (этот) gōda mann definite masc. 4) One of the most important features is a double declension. This is a common feature for all Germanic languages (preserved in German). Generally the paradigm was a very complex one. Adjectives had two types of declension: strong and weak (terms offered by Jacob Grimm). Modern historians call them indefinite (str. ) and definite (weak). Type of declension depended on: 1) the position in the sentence; 2) presence or absence of determiner; 3) degree of comparison. When the adjective was used attributively and was preceded by a determiner (demonstrative or possessive pronoun) it was declined weak. When used as a predicative or without a determiner (demonstrative or possessive pronoun), the adjective was declined strong. The comparative/superlative degree was always weak. Weak declension was associated with definiteness, and strong with indefiniteness.

The Adjective (3) 5) Degrees of comparison, the same 3 as now but unlike Mod. E, there were no analytical forms of the type more important, the most important. The existing synthetic forms were built with the help of sfs. : - ra for the Comparison degree -ost/est for the superlative degree This considerable number of grammatical categories made the OE adj paradigm very bulky, with almost 50 positions in it. However, those numerous positions were filled in with only 11 forms displaying different inflections, which produced a large number of homonymous forms. This could not but make the adj. paradigm vulnerable and prone to radical changes in the period to come.

ME Changes of Adjs. Reduction of unstressed endings increased the number of homonymous forms in the declension of adjs, having leveled most of them under [ə] –e. This meant that the E. adj endings lost their former distinctive features altogether and made the remaining ending –e practically useless (noninformative), which led to its loss in LME (14 – 15 cc. ). Thus the E. Adj became an unchangeable word (part of speech) & was left with one grammatical category only – degrees of comparison. And it was in ME that a new analytical way of building comparative & superlative forms by using words more & most emerged.

Demonstrative Pronouns Categories: Gender (3) Number (2) Case (5, including instrumental) The paradigm was similar to that of the Adjective. They belonged to a very ancient class of words based on the IE roots (Ru: сей, тот) masc sē (→the) đes fem sēo đēos neut. Đæt (→ that) đis (→this)

Personal Pronouns Case 1 st person sg. 1 st person pl 2 nd person sg 2 nd person pl 3 d person, sg. , masc. 3 d person, sg. , fem. 3 d person sg. , neut. 3 d person, pl Nom. ic wē þū gē hē hēō hit hīē Gen. mīn ūre þīn ēōwer his hire his hiera Dat. mē ūs þē ēōw him hire him Acc. mē ūs þē ēōw hine hīē hit hīē • person - 3 • case - 4 (Nom, Gen, Dat, Acc) • number - 3 ( the dual was to be found in the 1 st and 2 nd persons) • gender - 3 (was to be found in the 3 rd p. Sg only) The suppletivity was inherited from IE. Cf: Ru я-меня, мне, ORu мя Changes started in LOE, when the Dative forms began to replace the Acc. (me instead of mec, us instead of usic). In EME the dual forms disappeared.

nd Personal Pronouns (2 person) 2 nd person OE Nom. , Sg. ƥū Pl. gē ME thou [ɵu: ] ye [je: ] ENE thou [рaʊ] ye [ji: ] Both forms have become archaic and survive in the Bible or poetry, having been replaced in spoken and standard E by you ( > OE Dat. Pl. ēow) The main cause of the loss of thou - the influence of the Fr. etiquette, i. e. extralinguistic. The cause of the loss of ye was phonetic, i. e. the nearhomonymy of ye & we.

Personal Pronouns (3 d person) OE Nom hē hēo hit hīe, hēo EME he he (h)it hē, hī The homonymy had to be eliminated: 1) Fem. he was replaced by the Fem. Dem. sēo (Cf. Ru оная, он, etc. ) 2) the Pl he, hi were replaced by they, the pron. borrowed from Scandinavian dialects

The Evolution of the Verbal System The OE verb, like the noun and adjective, was a highly inflected part of speech. There were no analytical forms. I. Finite forms had 4 grammatical categories: 1. tense – 2 (present & past) 2. mood – 3 (Indicative, Imperative, Subjunctive) 3. person – 3 4. number – 2 Note: the idea of futurity could be expressed by using: a) Present forms plus adverbials of future (Cf. Ru: Он приезжает завтра) b) Subjunctive forms

Morphological Types Nearly all of the OE verbs were distributed between two major types: strong and weak. Two minor types were preterit-present and anomalous. strong weak the past tense is formed by changing the past tense is formed with the help of the root vowel rīsan – räs dental suffix līcian - līcode participle II is formed with the help of the suffix –en. In some classes accompanied by dental suffix līcian – līcod, cēpan – cēpt the change of the root vowel beran – boren IE type Germanic type root words – non-derivatives, from nouns, adjectives or strong verbs non-productive the only productive type about 300 words (1/4 of all verbs) about 900 (3/4 of all verbs) in all German languages divided into 7 in OE subdivided into 3 classes, in Gothic – 4 classes 4 principal parts: Infinitive, past sg. , past pl. , 3 principal parts: Infinitive, past, participle II