The Old English

Declensions of nouns

a-stems
Singular
M	Short-stemmed	Long-stemmed	ja-stems	wa-stems

	N	N	M	N
Nom. fisc Gen. fisces Dat. fisce Acc. fisc	scip scipes scipe scip	deor deores deore deor	ende endes ende ende	cneo(w) cneowes cneowe cneo(w)
Plural
Nom. fisces Gen. fiscal Dat. fiscum Acc. fiscas	scipu scipa scipum scipu	deor deora deorum deor	endas enda endum endas	cneo(w) cneowa cneowum cneo(w)
NE fish	NE scip	NE deer	NE end	NE knee

2. 
   OE pronouns fell roughly under the same main classes as modern pronouns : personal, demonstrative, interrogative and indefinite. As for other groups – relative, possessive and reflexive – they were as yet not filly developed and were not always distinctly separated from the four main classes.
   

OE pronouns had three persons, three numbers in the 1^st and 2^nd (two numbers-in the 3^rd) and three genders in the 3^rd p. the pronouns of the 1^st and 2^nd p. had suppletive forms. The pronouns of the 3^rd p., having originated from demonstrative pronouns, had many affinities with the latter.
It is important to note that the Gen. case of personal pronouns had tow main applications: like other oblique cases of noun-pronouns it could be an object, but far more frequently it was as an attribute or a noun determiner, like a possessive pronoun, e. g. sunu min, his freader=NE my son, his father.

Declension of personal pronouns

First person
Case	Singular	Dual		Plural
Nom.	ic	wit		we
Gen.	min	uncer		ure, user
Dat.	me	unc		us
Acc.	mec, me	uncit		usic, us
Second person
Nom.	pu	зit		зe
Gen.	pin	incer		eower
Dat.	pe	inc		eow
Acc.	pec, pe	incit, inc		eowic, eow
Third person
singular			plural
	M F	N		All genders
Nom.	he heo, hio	hit		hie, hi, hy, heo
Gen.	his hire, hiere	his		hira, heora, hiera, hyra
Dat.	him hire, hiere	him		him, heom
Acc.	hine hie, hi, hy	hit		hie, hi, hy, heo

The were two demonstrative pronouns in OE: the prototype of NE that, which distinguished three genders in the sg. and had one from for all the genders in the pl. and the prototype of this with the same subdivisions: pes Masc., peos Fem., pis Neut. And pas pl. They were declined like adjectives according to a five-case system: Nom., Gen., Dat., Acc., and Inst.

Declension of se, seo, pat

Case	Singular M N F	Plural All gendres
Nom. Gen. Dat. Acc. Instr.	se pat seo pas pas pare pam pam pare pone pat pa py, pon py, pon pare	pa para pam pa pam

3. 
   As stated before, the adjective in OE change for number, gender and case.
   

As in other OG languages, most adjectives in OE could be declined in two ways: according to the declensions, as well as their origin, were similar to those of the noun declensions. The strong and weak declensions arose due to the use of several stem-forming suffixes in PG.
Like adjectives in other languages, most OE adjectives distinguished between three degrees of comparison: positive, comparative and superlative. The regular means used to form the comparative and the superlative from the positive were the suffixes -ra and –est/ost. Sometimes suffixation was accompanied by an interchange of the root-vowel.
The root-vowel interchange in glad goes back to different sources. The variation [a~a] is a purely phonetic phenomenon.
The adjective god had suppletive forms. Suppletion was a very old way of building the degrees of comparison.

Means of form- building	Positive	Comparative	Superlative	NE
Suffixation	soft	softra	softost	soft
Suffixation plus vowel interchange	glad	gladra	gladost	glad
Suppletion	god lytel micel	bettra lassa mara	bet(e)st last mast	good little much

4. 
   The OE was characterised by many peculiar features. Though the verb had few grammatical categories, its paradigm had a very complicated structure: verbs fell into numerous morphological classes and employed a variety of form-building means. All the forms of the verb were synthetic, as analytical forms were only beginning to appear. The non-finite forms of the verb had little in common with the finite forms but shared many features with the nominal parts of speech.
   

The verb-predicate agreed with the subject of the sentence in two grammatical categories: number and person. Its specifically verbal categories were mood and tense. Finite forms regularly distinguished between two numbers: sg. and pl. the category of Person was made up of three forms: the 1^st, the 2^nd and 3^rd. the category of mood was constituted by the Indicative, Imperative and Subjunctive. The category of Tense in OE consisted of two categorial forms, Pres. and Past. The tenses were formally distinguished by all the verbs in the Ind. and Subj. Moods, there being practically no instances of neutralisation of the tense opposition.
In OE there were two non-finite forms of the verb: the Infinitive and Participle. The Infinitive had no verbal grammatical categories. Being a verbal noun by origin, it had a sort of reduced case-system: two forms which roughly corresponded to the Nom. and Dat. cases of nouns.
The Participle was a kind of verbal adjective which was characterised not only by nominal but also by certain verbal features.

Morphological classification of OE verbs

Strong	Weak	Minor groups
Seven classes with different gradation series	Three classes with different stem-suffixes	Preterite-presents Suppletive Anomalus

There were about three hundred strong verbs in OE. They were native words descendents from PG with parallels in other OG languages; many of them had a high frequency of occurrence and were basic items of the vocabulary widely used in wird derivation and word compounding.
Strong verbs in OE

Classes	Infinitive	Past singular	Past Plural	Participle II	NE
1	writan	wrat	writon	writen	write
2	ceosan	ceas	curon	coren	choose
3	findan feohtan	fand feaht	fundon fuhton	funden fohten	find fight
4	beran	bar	baron	boren	bear
5	sittan	sat	saton	seten	sit
6	scacan	scoc	scocon	scacen	shake
7	growan	Greow	greowon	growen	grow

The number of weak verbs in OE by far exceeded that of strong verbs. In fact, all the verbs, with the exception of the strong verbs and the minor groups were weak.
Weak verbs in OE

Classes	Infinitive	Past tense	Participle II	NE
I	styrian cepan	styrede cepte	styred ceped	stir keep
II	locian	locode	locod	look
III	libban habban	lifde hafde	lifd hafd	live have

Several minor groups of verbs can be referred neither to strong nor to weak verbs. The most important of these verbs the so-called preterite-presents or past-present verbs.
Preterite-presents

OE	NE
cunnan, can, cunne, cunnen	can
cude, cudest, cudon, cuden, cud	could
sceal(l), scealt, sculon, scule, sculen	shall
sceolde, sceolest, sceoldon, sceolden	should
magan, mag, magende	may
willan	will
mot	must
ag	owe, ought

Two verbs suppletive. OE gan whose Past tense was built from a different root:

gan – eode – ge-gan(NE go); and beon(NE be).
4. The syntactic structure of OE was determined by two major conditions: the nature of OE morphology and the relations between the spoken and the written forms of the languages. OE
was largely a synthetic language; it possessed a system of grammatical forms which could indicate the connection between words; consequently the functional load of syntactic ways of word connections was relatively small. It was primarily a spoken language, therefore the written forms of the language resembled oral speech – unless the texts were literal translations from Latin or poems with stereotyped constructions. Consequently, the syntax of the sentence was relatively simple; coordination of clauses prevailed over subordination; complicated syntactical constructions were rare.

Questions:

1. 
   Explain why OE can be called a synthetic or inflected language. What form-building means were used in OE?
   
2. 
   Speak on the differences between the categories of case, number and gender in nouns, pronouns and adjectives.
   
3. 
   Explain the difference between the grouping of nouns into declensions and the two declensions adjectives.
   
4. 
   Point out instances of variation in the noun paradigms. From which stems were the new variants adopted?
   
5. 
   Prove the suppletion is an ancient way of form-building that can be traced to PIE.
   
6. 
   Find instances of breaking in the principal forms of strong and weak verbs.
   
7. 
   Prove that the non-finite forms in OE had more nominal features than they have today.
   

Key words:

morphology-морфология, сўзларнинг состави ва ўзгариш формалари системаси, грамматиканинг сўз состави ва формаларини ўрганувчи бўлим;
assimilation-ассимилияция, талаффузда сўз тартибидаги икки товушнинг бирғбирига таъсири натижасида ўзаро мувиқлашуви, бирғбирига сингиб кетиши;
category-категория, предмет турларини ёки уларнинг умумий белгиларини билдирувчи тушунча;
strong verbs-кучли феъллар, ўзакдаги унлини ўзгартириш билан ясайдиган феъллар; weak verbs-кучсиз феъллар, ўтган замон ёки II сифатдош формаларинидентал суффикслар –d ёки –t ёрдамида ясайдиган феъллар.