27.The substantive .The category of case in comparison with the modern one.

Like all other PIE languages PG were highly inflected. PG inherited its system of inflection from PIE. But reduced the number of cases from 8-5: Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Instrumental, Accusative. The N case indicated the subject of the sentence. The G indicated possession. The D indicated the indirect object of the sentence. The A ind. the direct object of the sentence. The I indicates the agency whereby smth was done.

PG Also had two extra cases Vocative and Locative. The presents of which could have been observed by the presents of preposition at. In the OE the most widely used 4 case inflexions: um (Dat.pl.), a (Gen.pl.), es (Gen.sing.), as (Nom.‚ Acc. pl.)

The modern one have two cases (some nouns denoting living beings and some nouns denoting lifeless things), an noninflected form called the common case and an inflected form called the genitive case. The genitive is formed by adding -'s (singular) and only '( the apostrophe) to plural forms ending in-s . As to its use the genitive case falls under : the dependent genitive and the absolute genitive.

28. The substantive. The category of number in comparison with the modern one.

Substantives in PIE were divided into three numbers: singular, plural and dual. There were different endings depending on whether the noun was in singular (e. g. “hryng”, one ring) or plural (“hryngas”, many rings). There also was specific dual number – an inflected form expressing two, indicating that there were two of a thing (we two, you two, they two). In modern English there are only two numbers: singular (song, girl) and plural (songs, girls).

29. The substantive. The category of gender in comparison with the modern one.

All Germanic nouns had grammatical gender: every noun had to be masculine, feminine or neuter. This grammatical gender had no necessary connection with sex or animacy. The words “he”, “she” and “it” had to be used in accordance with grammatical gender, not in accordance with sex or animacy. Thus, OE wif (wife) was neuter and wifman (woman) was of masculine gender. Masculine and neuter words generally shared their endings. Feminine words had their own subset of endings.

In modern English the category of gender is doubtful, because it is hardly ever expressed by means of grammatical forms. There is only a suffix –ess, which expresses feminine gender in some peculiar occasions: actor – actress, waiter – waitress.

30. The adj. In og languages and in MnE

In PIE the adjective inflections had been essentially the same as the noun inflections, because originally there was no distinction between the noun and the adjective (for example, красно-солнышко). But in many daughter-languages they became distinguished from them. This happened in PG which developed two distinct sets of inflections for the adjectives, called the strong and the weak declensions. Every adjective was declined both according to the strong and the weak declension. Weak declension forms were used when the adjective was preceded by a demonstrative pronoun or the definite article. They were associated with the meaning of definiteness (OE se goda mann – ME this good person). Strong declension forms were used in all other contexts. They were associated with the meaning of indefiniteness (OE god mann – ME a good person). Adjectives in PG had the following categories: number (singular and plural), gender (masculine, feminine and neuter) and case (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative and instrumental).

OG adjectives had the superlative and comparative degrees of comparison. Degrees of comparison were formed by means of suffixes added to the Positive form. Comparative degree was formed by means of suffixes –iz, -oz (in Gothic), -ra, -ir, -or (in other languages due to rhotacism): hauhs – hauhiza, soft – softra, hoh – hohiro. Superlative degree was formed by means of suffixes –ist, -ost, -est: hauhs – hauhista, soft – softost, hohiro – hohisto. In modern English there are comparative and superlative degrees of comparison, too. They are formed by means of suffixes –er (comparative degree) and –est (superlative degree) or by means of words more (comparative degree) and most (superlative degree): long – longer, the longest; big – bigger, the biggest; beautiful – more beautiful, the most beautiful.