Weak Declension

The weak paradigm is more simplified and has less variation between the genders and cases.

	Masculine	Neuter	Feminine
Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Nominative	-a	-an	-e	-an	-e	-an
Genitive	-an	-ena, -a	-an	-ena, -a	-an	-ena, -a
Dative	-an	-um	-an	-um	-an	-um
Accusative	-an	-an	-e	-an	-an	-an

Example declension of nama 'name', ēage 'eye', and tunge 'tongue'
	Masculine	Neuter	Feminine
Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Nominative	nama	naman	ēage	ēagan	tunge	tungan
Genitive	naman	namena, -a	ēagan	ēagena, -a	tungan	tungena, -a
Dative	naman	namum	ēagan	ēagum	tungan	tungum
Accusative	naman	naman	ēage	ēagan	tungan	tungan

There was also a group of root-stem nouns that was not numerous but comprised the words used in everyday life, that’s why it was very conservative – a group of exceptions with mutated root vowel preserved the majority of nouns belonging to this class. It comprised such nouns as man, goose, calf, child and others. Though the flexion coincided the root vowel changed, that’s why in plural in present-day English we have exceptions in forming plural forms.

The form of declined word completely depended on a vocalic stem-forming suffix.. –a- stems may be either masculine or neuter, the difference between the two genders may be seen only in the nominative. If there was a mutated vowel in the stem, this sound might be preserved only in the singular. There are some peculiarities of declension of the nouns that had originally –j- or –w- in the stem (-ja –stem and wa-stem) they may preserve this sound in declension, but otherwise the differences are minor. Nouns belonging to ō-stems are all feminine. In the form of the nominative case monosyllabic nouns with a short root vowel of this class have ending –u; if there are 2 and more syllables or the root vowel is long there is no ending at all. In this group of nouns the suffix ō may also be accompanied by additional I or w that is jō or wō. i-stem the nouns might belong to all the three genders. Nouns belonging to –u-stems may be of masculine or feminine gender.

Weak declension This class of nouns consists of a rather numerous group of nouns originally having – n-stems. They may be of all three genders. But actually no difference in declension of nouns of different genders can be found.). Less numerous and less significant for the development of the present-day nominal system are nouns of –s-stem. They had had this suffix in older times, in OE due to rhotacism they changed it into occasional appearance of –r- sound in indirect cases. They are all neuter. In OE was a separate group of –nd-stems. They are all masculine and their declension combines the peculiarities of the declension of –a-stem and to some extent –r-stem as they all denote persons.

Middle English. The category of gender was lost; and the loss was total. The category of number was preserved. In OE the plural endings originally were: -as, 0, -u, -a, -e,, -an. Due to the reduction of the unstressed vowels all these came to –es, -0, -e or -0, -en. So finally we have –es, -en. –es was added to form of plural form of numerous borrowings. Several nouns retain their OE plural with the mutated vowel (man-menn, foot-feet etc.) – these were more frequently used than those that changed their ending to –es. The number of cases was reduced from OE 4 to 2, the nominative and the genitive. The very nature of the genitive case is almost unchanged, it has the same functions as that of the OE noun, and practically all nouns can be used in this form.

Middle English retains only two distinct noun-ending patterns from the more complex system of inflection in Old English. The early Modern English words engel (angel) and name (name) demonstrate the two patterns:

	strong	weak
	singular	plural	singular	plural
nom/acc	engel	engles	name	namen
gen	engles*	engle(ne)**	name	namen
dat	engle	engle(s)	name	namen

NE: The noun paradigm looks very much the same as we have it today. Having lost the category of gender and much of its case forms it has the genitive case as opposed to nominative; the number of nouns taking it is reduced mainly to those denoting living beings. In fact we may call it possessive. At the same time the unification of plural endings takes place, and former relics of –en disappear, giving way to –es. So the general rule of formation of the plural of the noun is enriched by archaic forms (geese, feet) – we call them grammatical archaisms. Some words borrowed from Latin and used mainly in scientific texts retain their Latin plurals (datum-data). Of-phrase replaces the former genitive case.

Verb (5^th lecture)

OE: Some people say that Old English was much like modern German, not more. This question is really interesting. In fact she is right, there is much more in common between Old English and German, than between Modern English and German. That happens because different languages have different speed of development. English through history was very progressive and active - the whole revolution happened with it in the 15th and the 16th centuries, not only taking into consideration the Great Vowel Shift, but also the major grammar changes. The result was the Modern, or New, English, which has practically no declension, lost genders, shortened words and forms, simplified the syntax. Modern English makes a distinction between regular and irregular verbs. This distinction goes back to the Old English system of strong and weak verbs: the ones which used the ancient Germanic type of conjugation (the Ablaut), and the ones which just added endings to their past and participle forms. Strong verbs make the clear majority. According to the traditional division, which is taken form Gothic and is accepted by modern linguistics, all strong verbs are distinguished between seven classes, each having its peculiarities in conjugation and in the stem structure.

The system of the verbs was less developed than it is now, it had fewer forms, and its categories were somewhat different from the similar categories in present-day English. All the paradigmatic forms of the verb were synthetic. There were also lexical structures with non-finite forms of the verb rendering some grammatical meaning. The non-finite forms of the verb in OE were the infinitive and two Participles. They had no categories of the finite verb but shared many features with the nominal parts of speech. The infinitive had the suffix –an/ian. It had the grammatical category of case: the nominative and dative, the latter form was made by the suffix –enne/anne: wrītan – to wrītenne. The infinitive in this form was associated with the preposition tō. Participle I is formed by means of the suffix –ende added to the stem of the infinitive: wrītan – wrītende (to write – writing). It was active in meaning and expressed the action simultaneous with the tense of the finite verb. Like all nominal parts of speech, it had the categories of number, gender and case and was declined like a strong adjective.

Participle II expressed actions and states resulting from past action and was passive in meaning. Depending on the class of the verb it was formed by vowel interchange and the suffix –en (strong verbs) or the dental suffix –d/t (weak verbs). Participle II was commonly marked by the prefix Ʒe-, though may be found without it. Wrītan – written, Ʒewriten. Categories: Number is not specifically verbal category. The choice of singular or plural form depends on the number of the noun/pronoun subject of the sentence. The category of person is represented by all the three persons, though this opposition is neutralized in many positions. Present tense singular has all forms, in plural it is not shown. Past tense singular had only one form for the 1 and 3 person, and in the Imperative and Subjunctive mood it was absent. The category of mood was represented by the opposition of 3 moods – Indicative (represents action as a real fact), Subjunctive (expresses condition, desire, supposition), Imperative (expresses order, or request to a second person).

The category of tense was represented by opposition past – non-past (preterit-non-preterit). The current form for the non-preterit. The majority of OE verbs fell into 2 great divisions: weak (derived their past tense stem and that of Participle II by adding dental suffix – d and –t, normally they didn’t change their rot vowels) and strong (formed their stems means of vowel gradation and by adding certain suffixes); in some verbs gradation was accompanied by changes of consonants. There were 4 basic forms of strong verbs: I – the stem with this vowel are used in the infinitive, the present tense indicative and subjunctive, the imperative mood and participle I; II – in the past tense singular, the 1^st and the 3d person; III – past tense plural< 2d person singular and past Subjunctive; IV – in the form of the Participle II).

Strong verbs. There were about three hundred strong verbs in OE. They are derived into 7 classes.

Regular strong verbs were all conjugated roughly the same, with the main differences being in the stem vowel. Thus stelan 'to steal' represents the strong verb conjugation paradigm.

Conjugation	Pronoun	'steal'
Infinitives	stelan
tō stelanne
Present Indicative
ic	stele
þū	stilst
hē/hit/hēo	stilð
wē/gē/hīe	stelaþ
Past Indicative	ic	stæl
þū	stæle
hē/hit/hēo	stæl
wē/gē/hīe	stælon
Present Subjunctive	ic/þū/hē/hit/hēo	stele
wē/gē/hīe	stelen
Past Subjunctive	ic/þū/hē/hit/hēo	stǣle
wē/gē/hīe	stǣlen
Imperative	Singular	stel
Plural	stelaþ
Present Participle	stelende
Past Participle	stolen

Of course it’s the easiest example. Cause you can find out that the word changed a lot, its root vowels and so on. But this example can show you the main idea of changes in OE strong verb.

Weak verbs. Weak verbs are formed by adding alveolar (t or d) endings to the stem for the past and past-participle tenses. Some examples are love, loved or look, looked.

Originally, the weak ending was used to form the preterite of informal, noun-derived verbs such as often emerge in conversation and which have no established system of stem-change. By nature, these verbs were almost always transitive, and even today, most weak verbs are transitive verbs formed in the same way. However, as English came into contact with non-Germanic languages, it invariably borrowed useful verbs which lacked established stem-change patterns. Rather than invent and standardize new classes or learn foreign conjugations, English speakers simply applied the weak ending to the foreign bases.

The linguistic trends of borrowing foreign verbs and verbalizing nouns have greatly increased the number of weak verbs over the last 1,200 years. Some verbs that were originally strong (for example help, holp, holpen) have become weak by analogy; most foreign verbs are adopted as weak verbs; and when verbs are made from nouns (for example "to scroll" or "to water") the resulting verb is weak. Additionally, conjugation of weak verbs is easier to teach, since there are fewer classes of variation. In combination, these factors have drastically increased the number of weak verbs, so that in modern English weak verbs are the most numerous and productive form (although occasionally a weak verb may turn into a strong verb through the process of analogy, such as sneak (originally only a noun), where snuck is an analogical formation rather than a survival from Old English).

There are three major classes of weak verbs in Old English. The first class displays i-mutation in the root, and the second class none. There is also a third class explained below.

Class-one verbs with short roots exhibit gemination of the final stem consonant in certain forms. With verbs in <r> this appears as <ri> or <rg>, where <i> and <g> are pronounced [j]. Geminated <f> appears as <bb>, and that of <g> appears as <cg>. Class one verbs may receive anepenthetic vowel before endings beginning in a consonant.

Where class-one verbs have gemination, class-two verbs have <i> or <ig>, which is a separate syllable pronounced [i]. All class-two verbs have an epenthetic vowel, which appears as <a> or <o>.

In the following table, three verbs are conjugated. Swebban 'to put to sleep' is a class one verb exhibiting gemination and an epenthetic vowel. Hǣlan 'to heal' is a class-one verb exhibiting neither gemination nor an epenthetic vowel. Sīðian 'to journey' is a class-two verb.

Conjugation	Pronoun	'put to sleep'	'heal'	'journey'
Infinitives	swebban	hǣlan	sīðian
tō swebbanne	tō hǣlanne	tō sīðianne
Present Indicative
ic	swebbe	hǣle	sīðie
þū	swefest	hǣlst	sīðast
hē/hit/hēo	swefeþ	hǣlþ	sīðað
wē/gē/hīe	swebbaþ	hǣlaþ	sīðiað
Past Indicative	ic	swefede	hǣlde	sīðode
þū	swefedest	hǣldest	sīðodest
hē/hit/hēo	swefede	hǣle	sīðode
wē/gē/hīe	swefedon	hǣlon	sīðodon
Present Subjunctive	ic/þū/hē/hit/hēo	swebbe	hǣle	sīðie
wē/gē/hīe	swebben	hǣlen	sīðien
Past Subjunctive	ic/þū/hē/hit/hēo	swefede	hǣlde	sīðode
wē/gē/hīe	swefeden	hǣlden	sīðoden
Imperative	Singular	swefe	hǣl	sīða
Plural	swebbaþ	hǣlaþ	sīðiað
Present Participle	swefende	hǣlende	sīðiende
Past Participle	swefed	hǣled	sīðod

During the Old English period the third class was significantly reduced; only four verbs belonged to this group: habban 'have', libban 'live', secgan 'say', and hycgan 'think'. Each of these verbs is distinctly irregular, though they share some commonalities.

Conjugation	Pronoun	'have'	'live'	'say'	'think'
Infinitive	habban	libban, lifgan	secgan	hycgan
Present Indicative
ic	hæbbe	libbe, lifge	secge	hycge
þū	hæfst, hafast	lifast, leofast	segst, sagast	hygst, hogast
hē/hit/hēo	hæfð, hafað	lifað, leofað	segð, sagað	hyg(e)d, hogað
wē/gē/hīe	habbaþ	libbað	secgaþ	hycgað
Past Indicative	(all persons)	hæfde	lifde, leofode	sægde	hog(o)de, hygde
Present Subjunctive	(all persons)	hæbbe	libbe, lifge	secge	hycge
Past Subjunctive	(all persons)	hæfde	lifde, leofode	sægde	hog(o)de, hygde
Imperative	Singular	hafa	leofa	sæge, saga	hyge, hoga
Plural	habbaþ	libbaþ, lifgaþ	secgaþ	hycgaþ
Present Participle	hæbbende	libbende, lifgende	secgende	hycgende
Past Participle	gehæfd	gelifd	gesægd	gehogod

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