14. Old english noun system

The categories of noun:

1. Number (gram category) – Singular (Sg) and Plural (Pl).

2. Gender – Masculine (M), Feminine (F), Neuter (N).

3. Case (gram category) – Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative.

Nominative – the case of the active agent, case of the subject mainly used with verbs denoting activity; could also indicate the subject characterised by a certain quality or state; as a predicative; as the case of address)

Genitive – the case of nouns and pronouns serving as attributives to other nouns; Subjective (meaning of origin) and Objective (partitive meaning) Gen.

Dative – the chief case used with prepositions, used as indirect personal object; instrument (indirect/prepositional object).

Accusative – indicated a relationship to a verb. As a direct object it denoted the recipient of an action, the result of it or other meanings. To indicate time & distance (adverbial meanings). (direct/prepositionless object)

The main peculiarities of OE cases:

1. Nom and Acc were coinside;

2. Dat pl ended in ‘-um’;

3. Gen pl always had ‘-a’.

System of Declensions

In OE there were 25 declensions of nouns. All nouns were grouped into declensions according to:

• stem-suffix (from IE) in OE this suffix is difficult to observe – fused with a root & the inflection;

• Gender.

We will mention only the most numerous declensions/stems here:

Strong Vocalic Stems		Weak Consonantal Stems
Stem-suffix	Gender	Stem-suffix	Gender
a-stem	M, N	n-stem	M, N, F
o-stem	F	r, s, nd-stems	M, N, F
i-stem	M, N, F	root-stem	M, F
u-stem	M, F

Though the stem-suffixes merged with the root, declensions were still existent in OE and were based on the former IE stem-suffixes:

a-stem – the most numerous declension (M, N):

Case	Masculine		Neuter
	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Nom, Acc	fisc	fiscas	dēor	dēor!
Gen	fisces	fisca	dēores	dēora
Dat	fisce	fiscum	dēore	dēorum

Traces of a-stem in Modern English:

• -es (M, Sg, Gen)  ‘s (student’s book) – Possessive Case;

• -as (M, Pl, Nom)  -(e)s (watches, books) – plural ending for the majority of nouns;

• - (N, Pl, Nom)  zero ending (deer, sheep) – homogeneous Sg and Pl.

n-stem (M, N, F) reflexes the IE style: EG: имя – имена, время – времена, племя, стремя, etc.:

Case	Masculine
	Singular	Plural
Nom	nama	naman
Gen	naman	namena
Dat	naman	namum
Acc	naman	naman

Traces of n-stem in Modern English:

• -an (M, Pl, Nom)  -en (oxen, children, brethren) – irregular plural ending.

root-stem – never had stem-suffix, words consisted of just a root (M, F) (caused by i-umlaut):

Case	Masculine
	Singular	Plural
Nom, Acc	fōt	fēt
Gen	fotes	fōta
Dat	fēt	fōtum

Traces of n-stem in Modern English:

• root-sound interchange (M, Pl, Nom)  root-sound interchange (men, geese, mice) – irregular Plural.