The oe Noun and it’s further development

The OE Noun had two grammatical or morphological categories: number and case. Nouns distinguished three genders.

The category of number consisted of two members, singular and plural. They were well distinguished formally in all declensions, there being very few homonymous forms.

The OE system of declensions was based on a number of distinctions: the stem-suffix, the gender of nouns, the phonetic structure of the word, phonetic changes in the final syllables. The morphological classification of OE nouns rested upon the most ancient (IE) grouping of nouns according to the stem – suffixes. The stem suffixes could consist of vowels (vocalic stems), of consonants (consonantal stems), of sound sequences.

The me Noun.

The 11th – 12th c were characterized by a strong tendency towards simplification of a system of declension. It started in the Northern dialects. There were two cases in Late ME: the Common and Genetive cases. In Late ME gender disappeared. The ME Common case had a very general meaning that was specified by the context, prepositions, the word order and he meaning of the predicate.

As in other OG languages, most adjectives in OE could be declined in two ways: according to the weak and strong declension. The difference between the strong and weak types of declension of adjectives was not only formal but also semantic. Unlike a noun an adjective did not belong to a certain type of declension.

Most OE adjectives distinguished between three degrees of comparison: positive, comparative and superlative.

The development of the adjective in me (decay of grammatical categories and declensions).

The decay of grammatical categories of the adj proceeded in the following order. The first category to disappear was Gender, which ceased to be distinguished by the adj in the 11th c.

The number of cases was reduced: the Instr. Case had fused with the Dat. By the end of OE; distinction of other cases in Early ME was unsteady.

In the 14th c. the difference between the strong and weak form is sometimes shown in the sg with the help of ending –e.

In the 14th c. pl forms were sometimes contrasted to the sg forms with the help of ending –e.

In the age of Chaucer the paradigm of the adj consisted of 4 forms distinguished by a single vocalic ending –e.

Certain distinctions between weak and strong forms, and also between pl and sg are found in the works of 14th . writers like Chaucer and Gower.

In ME the following changes happened:

In most cases inflections -er, -est were used to form the comparative and the superlative degrees;

Root-sound interchange fell into disuse (long – longer – longest), though in some cases it was preserved as an exception from the rule (e.g. old – elder – eldest; far – further – furthest);

Colloquial stratum of words. Slang. Jargonisms. Vulgarisms. Dialectal words.

Colloquial words, on the contrary, mark the message as informal, non-official, conversational. Apart from general colloquial words, widely used by all speakers of the language in their everyday communication (e.g. "dad", "kid", "crony", "fan", "to pop", "folks"), such special subgroups may be mentioned:

1. Slang forms the biggest one. Slang words, used by most speakers in very informal communication, are highly emotive and expressive and as such, lose their originality rather fast and are replaced by newer formations. The substandard status of slang words and phrases, through universal usage, can be raised to the standard colloquial: "heavies", "woolies" for "thick panties"; "booze" for "liquor"; "dough" for "money"; "how's tricks" for "how's life"; "beat it" for "go away" and many many more - are examples of such a transition.

2. Jargonisms stand close to slang, also being substandard, expressiveand emotive, but, unlike slang they are used by limited groups of people,united either professionally (in this case we deal with professionalJargonisms, or professionalisms), or socially (here we deal withjargonisms proper). In distinction from slang, Jargonisms of both typescover a narrow semantic field: in the first case it is that, connected withthe technical side of some profession. So, in oil industry, e.g., for theterminological "driller" (буровщик) there exist "borer", "digger","wrencher", "hogger", "brake weight"; for "pipeliner" (трубопроводчик)- "swabber", "bender", "cat"

Phonetic expressive means. Alliteration. Assonance. Onomatopoeia. Rhyme. Rhythm Alliteration and assonance

Alliteration is a phonetic stylistic device which aims at imparting a melodic effect to the utterance. The essence of this device lies in the repetition of similar sounds, in particular consonant sounds, in close succession, particularly at the beginning of successive words: " The possessive instinct never stands still. Alliteration has a long tradition in English poetry as Germanic and Anglo-Saxon poems were organized with its help. (Beowulf). Alliteration heightens the general aesthetic effect of the utterance when it has connection with sense. Now it’s used only as a subsidiary device. Its role is an expressive one – alliterated words indicate the most important concepts.