Gramatyka Historyczna 10 Exam: 6 Luty 10:30

Old English Features

1. Inflectional/Synthetic (PL, Greek, Latin) rather than analytic LG; now - more like Chinese, less inflective, more isolating

   • Or semi-inflectional LG (acceding to some scholar)

     • Because less cases than in a ‘typical’ inflectional LG (e.g. Polish)

   • N, V, Adj, Det, Pron – were highly inflected -> WO not as rigid as in P-DE (much freeier WO)

2. Weak and Strong declensions of Nouns and Adjectives

3. Weak and strong conjugations of Verbs

4. Vocabulary of OE was basically Germanic; the vocabulary overwhelmingly Germanic in character approximately 85% of the vocabulary used in OE is no longer in use in Modern English; few borrowings from Latin French

5. No articles in OE

   • Indefinite article developed from one

   • Definite article developed from the demonstrative pronouns

Nouns

• Marked for:

  1. Number (singular/plural)

  2. Cases (nominative/accusative/genitive/dative)

     • Nominative –S

     • Accusative – Od

     • Genitive – possession

     • Dative - Oi

  3. Gender (masculine/feminine/neuter)

  4. Weak declension

     • N-stem = weak declension

       • Ox (oxa, oxan, oxan, oxan, oxan, oxena, oxum)

     • in weak declension demonstrative pronoun (distinct, heavily inflected) caused Nouns to be not as much inflected as in strong declension (makes less distinctive forms of N)

Adjectives

• Marked for:

  1. Strong (distinguishable) and weak declension (easily confused, defining element before it –demonstratives – highly inflected, never reappear)

If no demonstrative precedes the adjective in Germanic, the adjective gets a more distinctive (strong) ending to ‘make up’ for this lack’ if the adjective is preceded by a demonstrative, it gets a less varied (weak) ending.

1. Gender (masculine/feminine/neuter)

2. Number (singular/plural)

3. Cases 5! (nominative/accusative/genitive/dative/instrumental)

• Could be used in comparative and superlative constructions

  • (heardRA, heardROST)

  • More and most constructions were not common in OE

  • Suppletive forms were used in OE e.g. ivel -> wilsa -> wilst

Personal Pronouns

• Marked for:

1. Number (singular/plural/dual)

   1. Singular: ic ‘I’ Dual – wit ’we both’ Plural: we ‘we all’

   2. If dual number -> form of V plural (for the first and second person only me-two ; you-two)

   3. PL: słowo – sg, słowie – dual, słowa – pl; mądrej głowie dość dwie słowie; oczyma and oczami ; rękoma and rękami (many hands); stół and *stołymi (dual number was used with things typically dual and then the dual number persisted) ; dwieście (dwiesta in Silesian dialect), trzysta, czterysta

2. Gender (masculine/feminine/neuter) only in the third person singular

3. Cases (nominative/accusative/genitive/dative)

4. Person (1^st /2^nd/3^rd) //1^st – me / 2^nd – interlocutor / 3^rd – everyone else

   • Some of the forms survived with some phonologic changes e.g. Ic -> I

   • Second person development–change into one form for the singular and plural ‘you’

     • ME: yous form used sometimes / but one form mainly used (as today)

     • OE: separate forms for the singular and plural forms

       • Singular form disappeared

         • but sometimes used in some dialects: thou, thee, thy/thine

       • Replaced by the plural form which was used to show respect

         • PL: child -> parent situation: mamo, idźcie spać.

       • Plural form was used to refer to the king or persons higher in hierarchy

       • Singular form was used to refer to someone lower or in informal situations

       • ‘You’ more formal than polish ‘ty’

       • in short: sg – lower, informal X; pl – higher, respect stayed

Verbs

• Weak and strong verbs

  • Weak verbs (3 classes)

  • Strong verbs (7 classes, past tense forms, different vowels in the root morpheme, predictable):

    • OE: four forms (infinitive – past sg – past pl - past participle) as opposed to ME: three cases (infinitive – past – past participle)

      1. Infinitive (conjugation in the present tense)

      2. Past/Preterit (conjugation in the past tense) Singular – healp

      3. Past/Preterit (conjugation in the past tense) Plural - hulpon

      4. Past participle

    • Anomalous verbs (irregular):

      • be – was - been

• Marked for:

  1. Person (1^st /2^nd/3^rd)

  2. Number (singular/plural)

  3. Tense 2! (past/present) also infinitive

  4. Mood (Indicative/imperative/subjunctive)

  5. Infinitive

Syntax

• ME: we form questions by auxiliary verbs placed before the subject

  • In specific questions YES/NO and WH-QUESTIONS (‘WH-‘ interrogative pronouns) + auxiliary + S + V

  • OE: inversion of verb and subject no auxiliaries

  • Auxiliary verbs in question and negative statements (very rare in most of the LGs, an exceptional LG in this respect)