Theme 8. The Old English Morphology

 

Of eight Proto-Indo-European cases, Old English noun kept just four: Nominative, Genitive, Dative, and Accusative cases. All Old English nouns were divided as to being either strong or weak. While the first category had a branched declension (склонение), special endings for different numbers and cases, the weak declension was represented by nouns which had already begun to lose their declensional system. Examine an example of declension of a strong noun:

Singular Plural

Nom. stán (stone) Nom. stánas
Gen. stánes Gen. stána

Dat. stáne Dat. stánum

Acc. stán Acc. stánas

 

Such a weak nouns as nama (name) is more simple and stable in declension:

Sg. Pl.
N nama (name) N naman
G naman G namena
D naman D namum
A naman A naman

 

There was another group of nouns that according to Germanic laws of ablaut changed the root vowel during declension. In Modern English such words still exist: goose - geese, tooth - teeth, foot - feet, mouse - mice etc. In Old English time they were far more numerous in the language.

 

The general rule is the so-called i -mutation, which changes the vowel.

 

Nouns were declined due to their stem (a-stem, ja-stem, wa-stem, i-stem, etc.), the stem was defined not on the basis of Old English, but historically. For example, stán has an a-stem, but the words scip (ship) and múþ (a mouth) has the same stem, because scip got developed from P.Gmc. skip a n, while múþ – from P.Gmc. munth a z. The Old English ende (end) belongs to ja-stem developed from P.Gmc. and ja.

 

As well as the noun, the Old English adjective can be declined in case, gender and number. Moreover, the instrumental case was preserved. Adjectives must follow sequence with nouns which they define - that is why the same adjective can be masculine, neuter and feminine. The declension is more or less simple; it looks much like the nominal system of declension. As for weak adjectives, they also exist in the language. The thing is that one need not learn by heart which adjective is which type - strong or weak, as you should do with the nouns. If you have a weak noun as a subject, its attributive adjective will be weak as well. So - a strong adjective for a strong noun, a weak adjective for a weak noun. Thus if you say "a black tree" that will be blæc tréow (strong), and "a black eye" will sound blace éage.

The last thing to be said about the adjectives is the degrees of comparison. Again, the traditional Indo-European structure is preserved here: three degrees (absolute, comparative, superlative) formed with the help of suffixes -ra and -est: earm (poor) - earmra – earmost, blæc (black) - blæcra – blacost.

Many adjectives changed the root vowel - another example of the Germanic ablaut:

eald (old) - ieldra - ieldest
strong - strengra - strengest
long - lengra - lengest
geong (young) - gingra - gingest

The most widespread and widely used adjectives always had their degrees formed from a different stem. Many of them are still seen in today's English:

gód (good) - betera - betst (or sélra - sélest)
yfel (bad) - wiersa - wierest
micel (much) - mára - máést
lýtel (little) - læ'ssa - læ'st
fear (far) - fierra - fierrest, fyrrest
néah (near) - néarra - níehst, nýhst
fore (before) - furþra - fyrest (first)

 

Old English Verbs are divided into two groups – strong and weak ones. All strong verbs are distinguished between seven classes, each having its peculiarities in conjugation and in the stem structure.

Class	I	II	IIIa	IIIb	IIIc	IV	V	VI	VII
Infinitive	í	éo	i	eo	e	e	e	a	different
Past singular	á	éa	a	ea	ea	æ	æ	ó	é, eo,éo
Past plural	i	u	u	u	u	æ'	æ'	ó	é, eo, éo
Participle II	i	o	u	o	o	o	e	a	a, á, ea

See the examples:

I wrítan (to write), wrát, writon, writen
II béodan (to offer), béad, budon, boden
III a) i + a nasal cons.: drincan (to drink), dranc, druncon, druncen
b) r, h + a cons.: steorfan (to die), stearf, sturfon, storfen

c) l + a cons.: helpan (to help), healp, hulpon, holpen
IV stelan (to steal), stæ'l, stæ'lon, stolen
V tredan (to tread), træ'd, træ'don, treden
VI faran (to go), fór, fóron, faren
VII hátan (to call), hét, héton, háten
feallan (to fall), feoll, feollon, feallen
cnéawan (to know), cnéow, cnéowon, cnáwen

Weak verbs in Old English (today's English regular verbs) were conjugated in a simpler way than the strong ones, and did not use the ablaut interchanges of the vowel stems. They did have the three forms - the infinitive, the past tense, the participle II.

Past - de Past Participle - ed déman (to judge), démde,

démed

Past - te Past Participle - ed cépan (to keep), cépte, cépt /

céped (When the suffix is

preceded by a voiceless

consonant)

 

Past - de,te Past Participle – d, t tellan (to tell), tealde,

teald bringan (to bring),

bróhte, bróht (Irregular)

Old English verbs had three moods - indicative, subjunctive, and imperative. Syntactically, the language had only two main tenses - the Present and the Past. No progressive (or Continuous) tenses were used; they were invented only in the Early Middle English period. Such complex tenses as modern Future in the Past, Future Perfect Continuous did not exist either. However, some analytic construction were in use, and first of all the perfect constructions. The example Hie geweorc geworhten hæfdon - ' they have build a fortress' shows the exact Perfect tense, but at that time it was not the tense really, just a participle construction showing that the action has been done. Seldom you can also find such past constructions, which later became the Past Perfect Tense.

 

Old English Adverbs can be either primary (original adverbs) or they can derive from adjectives. In fact, adverbs appeared in the language rather late, and early Proto-Indo-Europeans did not use them, but later some auxiliary nouns and pronouns losing their declension started to play the role of adverbial modifiers. That's how primary adverbs emerged:

þa (then)
þonne (then)
þǽr (there)
nú (now)
hér (here)

 

hider (hither)
sóna (soon)
oft (often)
eft (again)
swá (so)

 

Secondary adverbs originated from the instrumental singular of the neuter adjectives of strong declension. They all add the suffix -e: wide (widely), déope (deeply), fæste (fast), hearde (hard). Another major subgroup of them used the suffixes -líc, -líce from more complex adjectives: bealdlíce (boldly), freondlíce (in a friendly way).

 

The Old English language preserves the system of declension only for three numerals: án (1), twá (2), þríe (3) in case and gender. Mainly according to Old English texts ordinal numerals were used with the demonstrative pronoun þá (that) before them. This is where the definite article in 'the first', 'the third' comes from. To say "the 22nd", for example, you should combine the following: either twá and twenigoþa (two and twentieth), or óþer éac twentigum (second with twenty). So the order is different from Modern English, but instead closer to Modern German where "the 22nd" sounds like zwei und zwanzig (two and twenty).

 

New Old English words were created in four main ways:

A. Determinative compounding: Common to all Germanic languages, this kind of compounding forms new words by bringing together two normally independent nouns: e.g., earhring (earring); bocstaef (book-staff, i.e., letter); or an adjective and a noun, e.g., middangeard (middle yard, i.e., earth); federhoma (feather coat, i.e., plumage); banlocan (bone locker, i.e., body). Many of these words make up unique poetic vocabulary of OE literature, especially in metaphorical constructions known as kennings: e.g., hronrad (whale road, or sea).

B. Repetitive compounding: bringing together words that are very nearly identical, or that complement and reinforce each other for specific effect. Thus, holtwudu (wood-wood, forest); gangelwaefre (going about one, swift moving one, in OE reserved as the word for “spider”; flutterby which was transposed in Modern English into butterfly).

C. Noun-adjective formations: graesgrene (grass green); lofgeorn (praise eager); goldhroden (gold adorned). In Modern English, this form of compounding is revived in such phrases as king-emperor or fighter-bomber.

D. Prefix formations: like in other Germanic languages it is the most common way of creating new words. OE had many prefixes that derived from prepositions and that altered the meaning of words in special ways. The word blōd (blood) became blōdig (bloody), and blind became blindlīce (blindly).

 

Word Order. Words in an Old English sentence appeared in a different order from those in Modern English. In Modern English the girl helped the boy, and the boy helped the girl have different meanings which are communicated by the word order. In Old English these meanings were communicated by the endings of each word, which changed according to the job it did in the sentence. Thus Old English word order was relatively free.

 

SELF-ASSESSMENT TEST

Module 3

1. Old English period covers

a) 450-1066AD b) 405 - 1475 AD c) 7^th –2^nd BC

d) 210 – 1474 AD

 

2. Arrange the dwellers of the British Isles due to the sequence of historical periods they lived in:

a) Roman colonists 1) 7^st - 5^th BC

b) the Germanic tribes 2) before the 7^th BC

c) the Picts 3) 1^st BC

d) the Celts 4) 449 AD

e) the Vikings 5) 1066 AD

f) the Norman conquest 6) 6^th AD

g) Roman Christians 7) 8^th AD

3. The informal confederation of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms from the 5^th to the 9^th century was called:

a) Heptagon b) Heptarchy c) Heptateuch

4. This confederation comprised (Tick those which made it up):

a) Northumbria b) Cumbria c) Mercia d) East Anglia

e) Kent f) West Wales g) Essex h) Sussex i) Wessex j) Ireland

5. Arrange the words into appropriate column due to their origin:

Indo-European	Celtic	Germanic	Latin	Scandinavian

a) down b) Tuesday c) mother d) wine e) egg f) earth g) whiskey h) eye i) skin j) take k) Birmingham l) moon m) street n) neck o) do

 

6. Arrange the words into appropriate column due to the period of their appearance in Old English:

Borrowing from Latin
the 1^st layer of loanwords (from the 1^st AD)	the 2^nd layer of loanwords (from the 6^th AD)

a) Winchester b) pear c) master d) post

e) devil f) angel g) castle h) bishop

i) kitchen

7. Which of these are the Old English dialects:

a) Kentish b) South Saxon c) West Saxon d) East Saxon e) Mercian f) Northumbrian

 

8. Which of the letters did not belong to the Old English alphabet?

a) æ b) q c) z d) g e) j f) v

9. Among the diphthongs of Old English the original ones are:

a) ēā b) ēō c) ea d) iu e) ai

 

10. Name the mutation the early OE vowels underwent during their development. Choose the names from the pool below:

a) cæster → ceaster (city)f) lárian → læ:ran (teach)
b) fullian → fyllan (fill)g) saru → searu) (device)

c) scacan → sceacan (shake) h) herte → heorte (heart)

d) ærm → earm (arm)i) mūs →mỹs (mouth)

e) jâr → gēar (year)j) swestar → sweostor (sister)

k) slahan → slēan) (strike)

 

1.i-mutation; 2. palatalization; 3. back (velar) mutation; 4. breaking; 5. contraction of vowels due to a dropped h

11. Establish the rules of reading OE consonants by matching the lines in columns:

I)a) 3 is pronounced as Eng. [g] 1) preceding or following

any front vowel (e, i, y)

b) 3 is pronounced as Ukr. [γ] 2)before back vowels - a, o, u

c) 3 is pronounced as Engl. [j] 3) after (between) back

vowels or after r, l

d) 3 is pronounced as Engl. [d3] 4) in combination cg (c3)

 

I I) a) c is pronounced as [t⌡] 1) before original back vowel

b) c is pronounced as [⌡] 2)in combination s c: scēap

(sheep), fisc (fisc)

c) c is pronounced as [k] 3) between or before front

vowels a, æ, e and y

 

12. Establish the rules of reading OE consonant [h] by matching the lines in the columns:

a) h is pronounced as Eng. [h] 1) afterfront vowels a, æ, e and y

b) h is pronounced as Rus. [х] 2)initially

c) h is pronounced as Engl. [х’] 3)after back vowels - a, o, u

13. Which of the words below present the examples of geminates:

a) sticca b) Zān c) oððer d) offrian

14. Match the words with the consonants mutation they illustrate:

a) Gt broþar → Grm Bruder 1) doubling of consonants

b) OHGerm gans → OE gōs 2) metathesis

c) Gt raisjan→ OE ræ:ran 3) hardening

d) P.Gmcsatjanan → O.E. settan 4) loss of nasal

e) OE rinnan – OE irnan5)rhotacism

15. Strong verbs are the verbs that

a) form the past and participle by adding a dental suffix

b) form the past and participle through changing root vowel

c) their the past and participle forms coincide with the infinitive

16. Weak verbs made up the past forms

a) by adding -te

b) by adding -de

c) by adding - te, -de

d) through changing the root vowel

 

17. Tick the features of the OE noun:

a) three genders

b) eight cases

c) various stem-type declension

d) singular and plural

 

18.Tick the features of the OE adjective:

a) the genders depending on ones of the noun it modifies

b) five cases

c) independent strong or weak forms of declension

d) suffixes –er, -est in the comparative and superlative

e) ablaut in the root in some degrees of comparison

19. Old English pronouns have

a) dual number b) eight cases c) the 2^nd person singular d) no gender

20. Tick the features inherent in the Old English numerals:

a) ordinal n. use the suffix -ta or -þa

b)ordinal n. use the suffix -te or -þe

c) 21 are pronounced - án and twentig

d) 21 are pronounced - twentig and án

21. Old English word formation types are:

a) determinative compounding

b) qualitative compounding

c) repetitive compounding

d) noun-adjective formation

e) adjective -noun formation

f) prefix and suffix formation

22. “Kenning” is the term meaning:

a) the unique official vocabulary of OE documents, especially referring to royal family

b) the borrowed vocabulary of OE literature taken from the Vikings

c) the unique poetic vocabulary of OE literature, especially in metaphorical constructions

23. Which of these features are inherent in the Old English syntax?

a) free word order

b) direct word order

c) only one negative word within the sentence

d) several negative words within the sentence

e) synthetic word order

 

 

MODULE 4

Middle English

Objectives:

1) to know the historical events that influenced changes of the language;

2) to know what languages were spoken on the territory of the British Isles within the period; to know some of their peculiarities;

3) to describe the major differences between Old English and Middle English;

4) to know the main phonetic, grammatical, syntactic and lexical peculiarities of development of the language within the Middle English period;

5) to develop understanding the rules of reading Middle English texts.