System of Declensions

Prior to reading this point, see PG word-structure.

In OE there were 25 declensions of nouns. All nouns were grouped into declensions according to:

stem-suffix;

Gender. We will mention only the most numerous declensions/stems here:

Strong Vocalic Stems	Weak Consonantal Stems
Stem-suffix	Gender	Stem-suffix	Gender
a-stem	M, N	n-stem	M, N, F
o-stem	F	r, s, nd-stems	M, N, F
i-stem	M, N, F	root-stem	M, F
u-stem	M, F

Adjectives

Number – Singular (Sg) and Plural (Pl).

Gender – Masculine (M), Feminine (F), Neuter (N).

Case – Nominative (Nom), Genitive (Gen), Dative (Dat), Accusative (Acc) + Instrumental (Instr).

Instrumental Case was used to express instrumental meaning but only in the adjective while the noun stood in Dative Case:

by/with + Adjective (Instr) + Noun (Dat)

Degrees of Comparison – positive, comparative, superlative.

Determination (Definiteness/Indefiniteness) – today this category has to do with the Article but in OE there were no articles and definiteness/indefiniteness was expressed with the help of inflections of the Adjective, i.e. the inflections of the Adjective helped to determine whether a noun was definite or indefinite.

In OE there existed the weak and strong declensions of the Adjective.

Pronoun

Classification:

Personal (Noun-Pronouns (had some categories of the Noun and resembled the Noun in syntactic function)).

They had the following categories:

Person – 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd;

Number – Singular (Sg), Plural (Pl) + Dual (1^st, 2^nd pers. (we both, you both) when only two persons were meant);

Gender – Masculine (M), Feminine (F), Neuter (N) – only in 3^rd person!;

Case – Nominative (Nom), Genitive (Gen), Dative (Dat), Accusative (Acc).

Demonstrative (Adjective-Pronouns (had some categories of the Adjective and resembled the Adjective in syntactic function)).

They had the following categories:

Number – Singular (Sg) and Plural (Pl);

Gender – Masculine (M), Feminine (F), Neuter (N);

Case – Nominative (Nom), Genitive (Gen), Dative (Dat), Accusative (Acc) +

Instrumental (Instr).

Interrogative – unchangeable.

Indefinite – unchangeable.

Numeral

Classification:

Cardinal – ān (one), twēζen (two), þrēō (three) – had the categories of Gender and Case. All the other cardinal numerals were unchangeable.

Ordinal – were unchangeable.

Verbs

Classification:

Finite

They had the following categories:

Tense – Present and Past (NB no Future! – future actions were expressed by the Present Tense forms);

Mood – Indicative, Imperative, Superlative;

Person – 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd;

Number – Singular (Sg) and Plural (Pl);

Conjugation – strong and weak.

Non-finite:

Infinitive resembled the Noun and had the category of:

Case – Nominative (Nom) and Dative (Dat)

e.g. Nom beran (uninflected) – Dat to berenne (inflected, indicated direction or purpose);

Participles 1, 2 resembled the Verb, the Noun and the Adjective and had the following categories:

Tense – Present (Participle 1) and Past (Participle 2);

Number – Singular (Sg) and Plural (Pl);

Gender – Masculine (M), Feminine (F), Neuter (N);

Case – Nominative (Nom), Genitive (Gen), Dative (Dat), Accusative (Acc);

Voice – Active (Part. 1, 2) and Passive (Part 2).

Finite and Non-finite Verbs will be discussed more precisely in Lecture 18.

Preterite-Present Verbs

There were 12 of these verbs and most of them later turned into Modal Verbs. They will be discussed more precisely in Lecture 18.

Anomalous Verbs

They were irregular verbs that combined the features of the weak and strong verbs. There were 4 of them – willan (will), bēon (to be), ζān (to go), dōn (to do).

See also Table 12 on p. 216-218 in “История английского языка” by Т.А. Расторгуева.