26. The origin of plural endings in Modern English nouns.

Most changes occurred to the Noun in ME.

Number: The quantity of the Number endings was reduced as far as the declensions disappeared. The markers of the Plural became more uniform (-s, -en, root-sound interchange). The preference of the consonantal endings can be explained by the fact that the vowels were more apt to change and reduction then the consonants that in general proved to be more stable.

In late ME the ending -es was the prevalent marker of nouns in the pl. In Early NE it extended to more nouns – to the new words of the growing E. vocabulary and to many words, which built their plural in different way in ME or employed –es as one of the variant endings.

The ME pl. ending –en used as a variant marker with some nouns lost its former productivity, so that in standard Mod E it is found only in oxen, brethren, and children.

The small group of ME nouns with homonymous forms of number (ME deer, hors, thing0 has been further reduced to 3 ‘exceptions’ in Mod E: deer, sheep, swine.

It follows that the majority of E nouns have preserved and even reinforced the formal distinction on Number in the Comm. Case. Meanwhile they have practically lost 3 distinctions in the Gen. case, for Gen. has a distinct form in the pl only with nouns whose pl ending is not –es.

Despite the regular neutralization of number distinctions in the Gen. case we can say that differentiation of Number in nouns has become more explicit and more precise. The functional load and the frequency of occurrence of the Comm. Case are certainly much higher than those of the Gen.; therefore the regular formal distinction of Number in the Comm. Case is more important than its neutralization in the Gen. case.

27.28. Types of syntactic relations in oe.

The syntactic structure of OE was determined by two major conditions: the nature of OE morphology and the relations between the spoken and the written forms of the language.

Types: agreement; government; joining.

1. agreement mainly used in attribute groups to denote the relation between an adj/pron and the substantive: eg: sæ‾re bēc (that book) (Dat).

2. Government – substantive pron. stands in a certain case (Acc, Dat, Gen) depends on the head word: Eg: andsnare onfōn (receive answer): -subst. Acc – transitive verb. Eg: nēosian hūses (approach the houses).

3. Joining – an adj referring to a verb/adj is connected with it without any formal means.

ME:

1. agreement – was reduced < reduced morphological system. Only agreement in number survived for strong declension adj and pron. Eg: fresshe floures (fresh flowers).

2. government has no essential changes in ME;

3. joining was widened by the reduction of agreement.

NE:

1. agreement goes on decreasing. Only THIS and THAT still agree in number with their head word.

2. government – only personal pron, interrogative. and relative pron which are governed.

3. joining – old wrinkles – the adj connected with the head word by joining.

of time (þone winter – той зимой).

Negation in the history of English.

In OE the common word for negation was ne (IE origin). It was simply placed before a word that was to be negated:

e.g. OE Ne can ic (“I don’t know”, or literally “Not know I”).

As a result of this position before a word the particle ne often fused with:

• a verb (e.g. OE nis ← ne is; næs ← ne wæs; næfde ← ne hæfde (had), etc);

• a numeral (e.g. OE nān ← ne an (none));

• a pronoun (e.g. OE nic ← ne ic (not me));

• an adverb (e.g. OE nēfre ← ne āfre (never)).

Multiple negation was perfectly normal:

e.g. OE Nis nān wisdom ne nān rēad naht onean God. – “There is no knowledge concerning God.”

Often the particle ne was strengthened by the particle naht.

In ME particle ne fell out of use and was replaced completely by the particle naht that later developed into not, stood manly after a verb (V + not) and negated it:

e.g. I fell to earth I knew not where.

In NE, during the Normalisation Period, no-double-negation rule appeared that prohibited more than one negative word in a sentence.

Word order in the history of English.

In OE the word order was free as far as there were a lot of inflections that showed the relations between the words in a sentence.

Most common word-order patterns were:

1. S + P + O (in non-dependent clauses);

2. S + O + P (when the Object was a pronoun, e.g. OE Ic þe secζe – literally “to you say”);

(in dependent clauses, e.g. OE þis wæs ζefohten siþþan hē of Ēāst Enþlum cōm – literally “This battle was held when he from eastern England came” – such word order was called “frame” – after a connective went the Subject, it was followed by all the other parts of the sentence and the last place was occupied by the Predicate which thus created a frame together with the Subject);

3. P + S + O (in questions, e.g. OE Hwat sceal ic sinζan – “What shall I sing?”);

(in sentences starting with adverbial modifier, e.g. OE Nū synt ζeþrēāde þeζnas mīne – literally “Now were threatened my servants”). In ME and NE, due to the loss of the Cases and, as a result, loss of the inflections the distinction between the Subject and the Object of a sentence was lost. Thus the word order became fixed and direct (S + P + O – The Subject almost always took the first place and was followed by the Object).

Such word order led to the appearance of the formal Subject (formal it, there, e.g. It was winter; There is a book.) that took the place of the Subject if a sentence did not have one and thus preserved the direct word order.

Inversion was used only in questions and for emphasis.