2.1. The noun

The OE noun had the grammatical categories of gender, number and case, which were formally distinguished in an elaborate system of declensions. However, homonymous forms in the OE noun paradigms neutralised some of the grammatical oppositions; similar endings employed in different declensions disrupted the grouping of nouns into morphological classes.

The OE grammatical gender disappeared together with other distinctive features of the noun declensions. In the 11^th and 12^th c. the gender of nouns was deprived of its main formal support – the weakened and levelled endings of adjectives and adjective pronouns ceased to indicate gender. Semantically gender was associated with the differentiation of sex and therefore the formal grouping into genders was smoothly and naturally superceded by a semantic division into inanimate and animate nouns, with a further subdivision of the latter into males and females.

In Chaucer’s time gender is a lexical category, like in Mod E: nouns are referred to as “he” and “she” if they denote human beings.

Intensive simplification of the system of endings in different cases of nouns obliterated the distinction between the forms within the paradigms and the differences between the declensions. In the 11^th – 12^th c. reduction of unstressed endings became common, and in the 12^th- 13^th c. the former unstressed and reduced endings were often dropped, e.g.

OE þånne > þane > þan > than, then

butān > būta > bute > but

hlæfdie > laffdi > lady.

At the end of the 14^th c. dropping of the reduced unstressed endings, which was characteristic of all the dialects then, caused unification of cases:

1. the nominative case singular, ending in –a, -e, -u, and the nominative, genitive and accusative plural, ending in –a, acquired the common ending –e, which was lost later;

2. the nominative, genitive, accusative plural, ending in –an, -en, the dative, ending in –um, and the genitive, dative, accusative singular, ending in –an, were simplified into –en [ən] > -e [ə] > ;

3. the nominative, accusative plural, ending in –as, and the genitive singular, ending in –es, yielded the form –es, which was retained for a rather long time; later –es [əs] > -s ([iz] after –s, -x etc.).

The most numerous OE morphological classes of nouns were a-stems, ō-stems and n-stems. The vocalic stems tended to be declined in accordance with the a-stems paradigm, and the consonantal stems – with the n-stems paradigm. However, due to the dropping of unstressed endings these two types of declension lost their distinctions and merged into one type with the following paradigm:

Singular Plural

Nom. – Nom. –es

Gen. –(e)s Gen. –es

Acc. – Acc. –es

Dat. – Dat. –es

Thus, in ME the distinction between the OE strong and weak declension was lost. Only two numerous groups of nouns existed in ME, distinguished mainly by their plural forms: 1) the former a-declension which had absorved the lesser types, 2) the n-declension, which consisted of former feminine nouns (the weak declension). There were a few survivals of unchangeable neuters; the root-declension had lost some words, but it continued to exist. The noun had two cases – the common case and the possessive (the genitive). The weak declension had no case forms at all. This can be seen in the following scheme:

Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural

C. lof lofes care caren fot fet

G. lofes lofes care caren

Thus, the number of cases in the noun paradigm was reduced from four (distinguished in OE) to two in Late ME. At the beginning of changes only two endings proved stable: the ending –es of the genitive sg masc. and neut. a-stems, and the ending –as of the nominative and accusative plural masc. a-stems.The genitive plural also took the ending –es. In the course of the 12^th c. the ending –es spread to all the nouns, with very few exceptions. For instance,the noun nāme ‘name’ got the forms: Gen. sg. nāme s, Nom., Gen. and Acc. pl. nāmes; the noun tunge ‘tongue’ got the form tunges in the same cases. Only a few nouns, which had mutation in the Nom. and Acc. pl.: men, fēt, gēs and a few which had an unchanged form in the Nom. and Acc. pl., such as shēp, dēr, were not affected by this process.