Theoretical Grammar The subject-matter of theoretical grammar. Its relation to practical grammar

3. Old English grammatical system.
The Noun
Nouns in Old English had three grammatical categories: gender, number and case. Gender is actually not a grammatical category in a strict sense of the word, for every noun with all its forms belongs to only one gender; but case and number had a set of endings.There were two numbers – singular and plural, and four cases – Nominative, Genitive, Dative and Accusative.
Types of Stems
The nouns in Old English are commonly classified as belonging to strong and weak declension. Nouns of n-stem belong to weak declension, nouns of the other types of stems (a-stem, o-stem, i-stem, u-stem, root stem, -es-stem, r-stem) belong to strong declension. The names of the stem types mean that in pre-historic times there was a suffix between the root and the ending. This suffix could be –a-, -u- -o, etc. Types of stems are given their names according to these extinct suffixes.
The Adjective
The adjective in Old English had the following categories:

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  the number – singular and plural;
  
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  the case – Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative, partly Instrumental;
  
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  the gender – masculine, neuter, feminine (one and the same adjective could have all three genders: each gender had its own declension system in the singular and the plural);
  
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  the degrees of comparison – positive, comparative, superlative.
  

The Degrees of Comparison
The degrees of comparison – positive, comparative, superlative; their forms were made by adding suffixes –ra and –ost/-est; (earm – earmra –earmost /MnE poor) The adjectives 3od (good), yfel (bad), mycel (much), lytel (little) had supplelive forms of degrees of comparison. The adjectives had two types of declension – strong and weak. Adjectives used after a demonstrative or a personal pronoun, as well as after a noun in the Genitive case belonged to weak declension.
The Pronoun. Personal Pronouns
Old English personal pronouns had the following grammatical categories:

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