Lecture 9 The Evolution of the English Noun

Lecture 9 The Evolution of the English Noun and Adjective

» To consider the background of the evolution of the 2 parts of the English nominal system: noun and adjective 1. Aim

Gender » 3 gender-forms: masculine, feminine and neuter; » correspondence between the meaning of the word and its grammatical gender is hard to trace; neuter: cicen (chicken), hors (horse), etc. masculine: wifman (woman) stān (stone, masculine), bān (bone, neuter), cwen (queen, feminine) 2. 1. Old English Noun

2. 2. Old English Noun

Number 2. 3. Old English Noun

Declension » Vowel (strong) declension: the a-stem, the ōstem, the u-stem and the i-stem. » Consonant (weak) declension: stems originally ending in -n, -r, -s and some other consonants. » Root-stem declension: by adding the ending directly to the root. 2. 4. Old English Noun

2. 5. Old English Noun

Declension of a-stem nouns » common everyday words that formed the very core of the word-stock: hlāf (bread), hwǣrte (wheat), hors (horse), fisc (fish), scip (ship), etc. 2. 6. Old English Noun

2. 7. Old English Noun

Declension of n-stem nouns » Nouns with the stem originally ending in -n, -r, s and other consonants. » Formed by nouns of all the three genders, such as nama (name. ) — masculine, tunge (tongue) — feminine, еаʒе (eye) — neuter. 2. 8. Old English Noun

2. 9. Old English Noun

Declension of root-stem nouns » Not extensive class that stood apart among other Old English nouns. man (man, masculine), mūs (mouse, feminine) 2. 10. Old English Noun

2. 11. Old English Noun

Declension 3. 1. Middle English Noun

Number 3. 2. Middle English Noun

Case 3. 3. Middle English Noun

Irregular noun forms a) nouns going back to neuter gender which had no ending in the nominative and accusative plural even in Old English: sheep — sheep (OE scēap — scēap) deer — deer (OE dēor — dēor) b) some nouns of the n-stem declension preserving their plural form: ox — oxen (OE oxa — oxan) c) the original s-stem declension word: child — children (Old English cild — cildru) 4. 1. New English Noun

Irregular noun forms d) remnants of the original root-stem declension: foot — feet (OE fōt — fēt) tooth — teeth (OE tōð — tēð) e) "foreign plurals" — words borrowed in Early New English from Latin: datum — data, automaton — automata, axis — axes, etc. but: molecula—moleculae and moleculas, formula —formulae and formulas, antenna—antennae and antennas 4. 2. New English Noun

Case » Nominative and Genitive (Possessive)” the boy's book a women's magazine a two miles' walk 4. 3. New English Noun

Declension 5. 1. Old English Adjective

Degrees of comparison a) by means of suffixation: heard — heardra — heardost (hard) b) by means of vowel gradation plus suffixation: eald — ieldra — ieldest (old) c) by means of suppletive forms ʒod — bettra — betst (good) 5. 2. Old English Adjective

» Only two grammatical phenomena: declension and the category of number: Singular Plural Indefinite a yong squier yonge Definite the yonge sonne 6. Middle English Adjective

7. New English Adjective

Thank you for attention!

1. Enumerate the grammatical categories of OE nouns and adjectives and state the difference between them. 2. Explain the difference between the groupings of OE nouns into types of declension and the two declensions of OE adjectives. 3. Describe the grammatical elements of the words children's; leaves; men; brethren's; ships based on their changes through the history of the language. 4. Describe the changes in the number of cases of nouns and the forming of degrees of comparison of adjectives in Middle English and New English. Self-study: Simplification of the noun and adjective systems in Middle and Modern English Submission – till October 5