12.Old English Consonant Changes

Palatalization ( Velar umlaut)

front vowel + velar consonants + front vowel in this construction velar consonants become palatal consonant and transform into sibilant or affricates

k –k’-ts cinn- chin

g-g’- dз birce-birch

х-х’- ecз-edge

Ɣ-j-brudcз-bridge

In another case the palatalization was impossible

back vowel+ velar cons + back vowel – velar cons was preserved

can= can

macian= make

13.

Word - Building in Old English

1. Word – adding word + word = new word

• noun+noun ear +hring=earing

• verb+noun bec + hus = bakery house

• adjective+ noun eald+ feder= old father

2. Derivation word + prefics+ suffix+postfix+ infixs

• noun prefix (ed) + wit = edwit ed/id ponad duche

• noun suffixes nes/ nys/nis foolish+ ness

• inneflexion ( - ablaut/ - umlaut)

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Function of affixation :

• relative – to create new forms of a word / word changing function/ potfix with realitive function = flexion (endings).

• derivative - to create new words/ word building function/ postfix with derivative function = suffix.

World - building is divided in:

• word adding

• derivation:

• prefix

• infix

• suffix

• conversion

14. Old English Morphology System

• It was completely synthetic – in building grammatical forms.

• Grammatical ending (inflexiens) = the principal form building meaning .

• Sound interchanges in the roof – was often combined with other means

• Grammatical prefixes - combines with verbs only

• Syppletive formative – very restrincted ( mostly adjectives)

Parts of speech & their grammatical categories

Nominal created the biggest group:

the Noun the Adjective the Pronoun the Numeral

the Verb the Adverb the Preposition the Conjunction the Interjection

Grammatical categories:

Nominal	Verbal
Number Case Gender Degrees of comparison Definiteness / Inn	Tense Mood Number Person

Categorical forms

(morphological class division )

Noun	Verb
Declensions	Conjunction

Noun in OE

Grammatical morphological categories

Number:

• singular

• plurual

Case:

• Nominative

• Genitive

• Dattive

• Accusative

Gender:

• Mass

• Fem

• Neut

Remarkable feature

• elaborate system of declension which was a sort of morphological classification

Stem suffixes

Vocalic stems	Consonant stems
o-a ( mass /neutrum) a-o (femin) i ( all genders) u (M/F)	N( all genders) Roof stems ( M/F) Minor stems r / s/ nd ( all genders)

A – stem

M

• Genitive case singular ending was es – possessive case (NE)

• Nominative plural form ending was as – plural form ending s

N

Plural form ending as, but it is despaired – sing = plur (sheep – sheep/ deer- deer/ trout- trout)

n- stem – an – en – ( child – children/ ox- oxen)

root stems – no stem building suffix o(long) – e(long) ( food- feet)

s- stem – west Germanic rhotacism s- z – r cild –cildru

Pronoun in Old English

They were very primitive . Three numbers:

• singular

• dual

• plural

They had no gender distinctions for the third person plural.

There were many suppletive forms

Personal pronouns:

• three persons, ( 1,2 person)

• three numbers (-‘-)

• two numbers (3 person0

Pronouns of the 1-2 person have a lot of suppletive forms. They began to lose some of their case distinctions ( Ac-Dat). Genative case divided into two groups (Objective/ Attributive). Oblinque casde ( Adjective – self – reflexive pronoun groop of suppletive form)

Demonstrative pronouns

prototype of NE ( that) – 3 genders in the singular/ 1 form in plural

the prototype of NE ( this)

were declined like adjectives according 5 case system

Adjective in OE is very difficult & develop

(Number/Gender/Case)

Noun feature ( 3 genders/ 2 numbers/) Case gender Noun = Adjective.

Adjective divide into weak ( nouns n-stem) & strong ( a-stem, o-stem) forms

The choice of declension

• the syntactical function of Adjective

• the degree of comparison

• the presence of noun determ ( strong – used predicatively, use attributably without any determines & weak forms – adjective were preceded by a demonstrative pronoun or the genitive case of a personal pronoun)

In OE strong ( eall – all/ oper –other) & weak (superitive/ comparative degrees/ ordinal numerals/ same ( ilca)

Degrees of comparison for adjectives:

• positive

• comparative

• superlative

using different suffixes. For comparative – ra/ for superlative – est/ ost. Suppletive forms ( god-betera- beste)

Adverbs

In OE Adverbs were represented with the very small group of words/ There were two types:

• Primary

• secondary ( derived from some other part of speech)

Substative or Adjective + e – Adverb

Degrees of comparison Adjective + o + r

Degrees of superlative Adjective + o + syffix –ly

Noun – Adjective – Adverb

freond + lic – Freondlic – friondlice & lice – ly

craft –craftlic – craftlicly

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