Реферат: The history of Old English and its development

The history of Old English andits development.

In 409 AD the lastRoman legion left British shores, and in fifty years the Islands became avictim of invaders. Germanic tribes from Southern Scandinavia and NorthernGermany, pushed from their densely populated homelands, looked for a new landto settle. At that time the British Isles were inhabited by the Celts andremaining Roman colonists, who failed to organize any resistance againstGermanic intruders, and so had to let them settle here. This is how the OldEnglish language was born.

Celtic tribescrossed the Channel and starting to settle in Britain already in the 7thcentury BC. The very word «Britain» seems to be the name given by thepre-Celtic inhabitants of the island, accepted by first Indo-Europeans. TheCelts quickly spread over the island, and only in the north still existednon-Indo-European peoples which are sometimes called «Picts» (thename given by Romans). Picts lived in Scotland and on Shetland Islands andrepresented the most ancient population of the Isles, the origin of which isunknown. Picts do not seem to leave any features of their language toIndo-European population of Britain — the famous Irish and Welsh initialmutations of consonants can be the only sign of the substratum left by unknownnations of Britain. At the time the Celts reached Britain they spoke the commonlanguage, close to Gaulish in France. But later, when Celtic tribes occupiedIreland, Northern England, Wales, their tongues were divided according totribal divisions. These languages will later become Welsh, Irish Gaelic,Cornish, but from that time no signs remained, because the Celts did not inventwriting yet. Not much is left from Celtic languages in English. Though manyplace names and names for rivers are surely Celtic (like Usk — from Celtic*usce «water», or Avon — from *awin «river»), themorphology and phonetics are untouched by the Celtic influence. Some linguistsstate that the word down comes from Celtic *dún «down»; otherexamples of Celtic influence in place names are tne following:

cothair (a fortress) — Carnarvon
uisge (water) — Exe, Usk, Esk
dun, dum (a hill) — Dumbarton, Dumfries, Dunedin
llan (church) — Llandaff, Llandovery, Llandudno
coil (forest) — Kilbrook, Killiemore
kil (church) — Kilbride, Kilmacolm
ceann (cape) — Kebadre, Kingussie
inis (island) — Innisfail
inver (mountain) — Inverness, Inverurie
bail (house) — Ballantrae, Ballyshannon,
and, certainly, the word whiskey which means the same as Irish uisge«water». But this borrowing took place much later.

In the 1st centuryAD first Roman colonists begin to penetrate in Britain; Roman legions builtroads, camps, founded towns and castles. But still they did not manage toassimilate the Celts, maybe because they lived apart from each other and didnot mix. Tens of Latin words in Britain together with many towns, places andhills named by Romans make up the Roman heritage in the Old English. Suchcities as Dorchester, Winchester, Lancaster, words like camp, castra, manyterms of the Christian religion and several words denoting armaments wereborrowed at that time by Britons, and automatically were transferred into theOld English, or Anglo-Saxon language already when there was no Romans in thecountry.

In 449 thelegendary leaders of two Germanic tribes, Hengist and Horsa, achieved Britishshores on their ships. The Anglo-Saxon conquest, however, lasted for severalcenturies, and all this period Celtic aborigines moved farther and farther tothe west of the island until they manage to fortify in mountainous Wales, inCorwall, and preserved their kingdoms in Scotland. Germanic tribes killedCeltic population, destroyed Celtic and former Roman towns and roads. In the5th century such cities as Durovern in Kent, Virocon, Trimontii, Camulodunum,were abandoned by the population.

Angles settledaround the present-day Noridge, and in Northern England; Saxons, the mostnumerous of the tribes, occupied all Central England, the south of the islandand settled in London (Londinii at that time). Jutes and Frises, who probablycame to Britain a bit later, settled on the island of White and in what is nowKent — the word Kent derives from the name of the Celtic tribe Cantii. Soon allthese tribes founded their separate kingdoms, which was united after centuriesof struggle only in 878 by Alfred, king of Wessex. Before that each of thetribes spoke its language, they were similar to each other but had differenceswhich later became the dialectal peculiarities of Old English.

Now a little bitabout the foreign influence in Old English. From the 6th century Christianitystart activities in Britain, the Bible is translated into Old English, andquite a lot of terms are borrowed from Latin at that time: many bishops,missionaries and Pope's officials come from Rome. The next group of foreignloanwords were taken from Scandinavian dialects, after the Vikings occupiedmuch of the country in the 9th — 11th centuries. Scandinavian languages wereclose relatives with Old English, so the mutual influence was strong enough todevelop also the Old English morphology, strengthening its analytic processes.Many words in the language were either changed to sound more Scandinavian, orborrowed.

The Old Englishlanguage, which has quite a lot of literature monuments, came to the end afterthe Norman conquest in 1066. The new period was called Middle English.

The Old English Substantive.

The substantive inIndo-European has always three main categories which change its forms: thenumber, the case, the gender. It ias known that the general trend of theIndo-European family is to decrease the number of numbers, cases and gendersfrom the Proto-Indo-European stage to modern languages. Some groups are moreconservative and therefore keep many forms, preserving archaic language traits;some are more progressive and lose forms or transform them very quickly. TheOld English language, as well as practically all Germanic tongues, is notconservative at all: it generated quite a lot of analytic forms instead ofolder inflections, and lost many other of them.

Of eightProto-Indo-European cases, Old English keeps just four which were inheritedfrom the Common Germanic language. In fact, several of original Indo-Europeannoun cases were weak enough to be lost practically in all branches of thefamily, coinciding with other, stronger cases. The ablative case often wasassimilated by the genitive (in Greek, Slavic, Baltic, and Germanic), locativeusually merged with dative (Italic, Celtic, Greek), and so did the instrumentalcase. That is how four cases appeared in Germanic and later in Old English — nominative, genitive, accusative and dative. These four were the most ancientand therefore stable in the system of the Indo-European morphology.

The problem of theOld English instrumental case is rather strange — this case arises quite all ofa sudden among Germanic tongues and in some forms is used quite regularly (likein demonstrative pronouns). In Gothic the traces of instrumental and locativethough can be found, but are considered as not more than relics. But the OldEnglish must have «recalled» this archaic instrumental, whichexisted, however, not for too long and disappeared already in the 10th century,even before the Norman conquest and transformation of the English language intoits Middle stage.

As forother cases, here is a little pattern of their usage in the Old English syntax.

1. Genitive — expresses thepossessive menaing: whose? of what?

Also after the expression meaning full of,free of, worthy of, guilty of, etc.

2. Dative — expresses the object towards whichthe action is directed.

After the after the verbs like «say tosmb», «send smb», «give to smb»; «known tosmb», «necessary for smth / smb», «close to smb»,«peculiar for smth».

Also in the expressions like from theenemy, against the wind, on the shore.

3. Accusative — expresses the objectimmediately affected by the action (what?), the direct object.

Three genders werestrong enough, and only northern dialects could sometimes lose their distinction.But in fact the lose of genders in Middle English happened due to the drop ofthe case inflections, when words could no longer be distinguished by itsendings. As for the numbers, the Old English noun completely lost the dual,which was preserved only in personal pronouns (see later).

All Old Englishnouns were divided into strong and weak ones, the same as verbs in Germanic.While the first had a branched declension, special endings for differentnumbers and cases, the weak declension was represented by nouns which werealready starting to lose their declension system. The majority of noun stems inOld English should be referred to the strong type. Here are the tables for eachstems with some comments — the best way of explaining the grammar.

a-stems
                  Singular
Nom. stán(stone) scip (ship) bán (bone) reced (house) níeten (ox)
Gen. stánes          scipes      bánes          recedes          níetenes
Dat.  stáne           scipe        báne           recede            níetene
Acc. stán             scip          bán             reced              níeten
                 Plural
Nom. stánas        scipu        bán             reced               níetenu
Gen.   stána          scipa        bána           receda            níetena
Dat.    stánum       scipum     bánum         recedum          níetenum
Acc.   stánas        scipu        bán             reced              níetenu

This type of stems derivedfrom masculine and neuter noun o-stems in Proto-Indo-European.First when I started studying Old English I was irritated all the time becauseI couldn't get why normal Indo-European o-stems are called a-stemsin all books on Old English. I found it a silly and unforgivable mistake untilI understood that in Germanic the Indo-European short o became a,and therefore the stem marker was also changed the same way. So the first wordhere, stán, is masculine, the rest are neuter. The onlydifference in declension is the plural nominative-accusative, where neuterwords lost their endings or have -u, while masculine preserved -as.

A little peculiarity ofthose words who have the sound [æ] in the stem and say farewell to it inthe plural:
         Masculine                        Neuter
    Sing.             Pl.            Sing.              Pl.
N dæg(day) dagas    fæt (vessel) fatu
G dæges      daga      fætes           fata
D dæge        dagum   fæte           fatum
A dæg           dagas    fæt             fatu

Examples of a-stems: earm(an arm), eorl, helm (a helmet), hring(a ring), múþ (a mouth); neuter ones — dor(a gate), hof (a courtyard), geoc (a yoke), word,déor (an animal), bearn (a child), géar(a year).

ja-stems
                        Singular
              Masculine                            Neuter
N hrycg (back)   here (army) ende (end) cynn (kind) ríce (realm)
G hrycges          heriges       endes         cynnes        ríces
D hrycge            herige         ende          cynne          ríce
A hrycg             here           ende          cynn           ríce
                        Plural
N hrycgeas       herigeas      endas        cynn           ríciu
G hrycgea         herigea       enda          cynna          rícea
D hrycgium       herigum      endum       cynnum       rícium
A hrycgeas       herigeas      endas        cynn           ríciu

Again the descendant of Indo-European jo-stemtype, known only in masculine and neuter. In fact it is a subbranch of o-stems,complicated by the i before the ending: like Latin lupusand filius. Examples of this type: masculine — wecg(a wedge), bócere (a scholar), fiscere (afisher); neuter — net, bed, wíte (a punishment).

wa-stems
              Singular                               Plural
      Masc.       Neut.                   Masc.         Neut.
N bearu (wood) bealu (evil)  bearwas      bealu (-o)
G bearwes          bealwes     bearwa        bealwa
D bearwe           bealwe       bearwum     bealwum
A bearu (-o)        bealu(-o)    bearwas      bealu (-o)

Just to mention. This isone more peculiarity of good old a-stems with the touch of win declension. Interesting that the majority of this kind of stems makeabstract nouns. Examples: masculine — snáw (snow), þéaw(a custom); neuter — searu (armour), tréow(a tree), cnéw (a knee)

ó-stems
                        Sg.
N swaþu (trace) fór (journey) tigol (brick)
G swaþe           fóre              tigole
D swaþe           fóre              tigole
A swaþe           fóre              tigole
                       Pl.
N swaþa          fóra              tigola
G swaþa          fóra              tigola
D swaþum       fórum            tigolum
A swaþa          fóra              tigola

Another major group of Old English nouns consists onlyof feminine nouns. Funny but in Indo-European they are called a-stems.But Germanic turned vowels sometimes upside down, and this long abecame long o. However, practically no word of this type ends in-o, which was lost or transformed. The special variants of ó-stemsare jo- and wo-stems which have practically thesame declension but with the corresponding sounds between the root and theending.

Examples of ó-stems:caru (care), sceamu (shame), onswaru(worry), lufu (love), lár (an instruction), sorg(sorrow), þrág (a season), ides (awoman).
Examples of jó-stems: sibb (peace), ecg(a blade), secg (a sword), hild (a fight), æx(an axe).
Examples of wó-stems: beadu (a battle),nearu (need), læs (a beam).

i-stems
       Masc.                         Neut.
                   Sg.
N sige (victory) hyll (hill) sife (sieve)
G siges             hylles     sifes
D sige              hylle       sife
A sige              hyll         sife
                   Pl.
N sigeas          hyllas      sifu
G sigea           hylla        sifa
D sigum          hyllum     sifum
A sigeas         hyllas       sifu

The tribesand nations were usually of this very type, and were used always in plural: Engle(the Angles), Seaxe (the Saxons), Mierce (theMercians), Norþymbre (the Northumbrians), Dene(the Danish)

N Dene
G Dena (Miercna, Seaxna)
D Denum
A Dene

               Fem.
       Sg.            Pl.
N hyd (hide)   hýde, hýda
G hýde          hýda
D hýde          hýdum
A hýd            hýde, hýda

This kindof stems included all three genders and derived from the same type ofIndo-European stems, frequent also in other branches and languages of thefamily.

Examples: masculine — mere(a sea), mete (food), dæl (a part), giest(a guest), drync (a drink); neuter — spere (aspear); feminine — cwén (a woman), wiht (athing).

    u-stems
         Masc.                      Fem.
                       Sg.
N sunu (son)feld (field) duru (door) hand (hand)
G suna        felda         dura           handa
D suna        felda         dura           handa
A sunu        feld           duru           hand
                       Pl.
N suna        felda         dura           handa
G suna        felda         dura           handa
D sunum     feldum      durum         handum
A suna        felda         dura           handa

They can be either masculineor feminine. Here it is seen clearly how Old English lost its final -sin endings: Gothic had sunus and handus, while OldEnglish has already sunu and hand respectively.Interesting that dropping final consonants is also a general trend of almostall Indo-European languages. Ancient tongues still keep them everywhere — Greek, Latin, Gothic, Old Prussian, Sanskrit, Old Irish; but later, no matterwhere a language is situated and what processes it undergoes, final consonants(namely -s, -t, often -m, -n) disappear, remainingnowadays only in the two Baltic languages and in New Greek.

Examples: masculine — wudu (wood), medu (honey), weald(forest), sumor (a summer); fem. — nosu (a nose), flór(a floor).

The other type of nounsaccording to their declension was the group of Weak nouns, derived from n-nounsis Common Germanic. Their declension is simple and stable, having specialendings:

     Masc.           Fem.                 Neut.
                   Sg.
N nama (name) cwene (woman) éage (eye)
G naman          cwenan              éagan
D naman          cwenan              éagan
A naman          cwenan              éage
                   Pl.
N naman         cwenan              éagan
G namena       cwenena            éagena
D namum        cwenum             éagum
A naman         cwenan              éagan

Examples: masc. — guma(a man), wita (a wizard), steorra (a star),móna (the Moon), déma (a judge); fem. — eorþe(Earth), heorte (a heart), sunne (Sun);neut. — éare (an ear).

And now the last one which is interesting due to itsspecial Germanic structure. I am speaking about the root-stems which accordingto Germanic laws of Ablaut, change the root vowel during the declension. InModern English such words still exist, and we all know them: goose — geese,tooth — teeth, foot — feet, mouse — mice etc. At school they were anightmare for me, now they are an Old English grammar. Besides, in Old Englishtime they were far more numerous in the language.

          Masc.                                          Fem.
                         Sg.
N mann      fót (foot) tóþ(tooth) | hnutu (nut) bóc (book) gós(goose) mús (mouse) burg (burg)
G mannes   fótes      tóþes          |hnute         bóce           góse            múse           burge
D menn     fét          téþ            | hnyte         béc             gés              mýs             byrig
A mann     fót         tóþ            | hnutu         bók             gós              mús             burg
                         Pl.
N menn     fét         téþ             | hnyte         béc            gés              mýs             byrig
G manna   fóta       tóþa           | hnuta          bóca           gósa           músa            burga
D mannum fótum    tóþum          |hnutum      bócum         gósum         músum          burgum
A menn     fét         téþ             | hnyte         béc            gés              mýs              byrig

Thegeneral rule is the so-called i-mutation, which changes the vowel. Theconversion table looks as follows and never fails — it is universally rightboth for verbs and nouns. The table of i-mutation changes remains above.

Examples: fem. — wífman (a woman), ác(an oak), gát (a goat), bróc(breeches), wlóh (seam), dung (a dungeon), furh(a furrow), sulh (a plough), grut (gruel), lús(a louse), þrul (a basket), éa(water), niht (a night), mæ'gþ (agirl), scrúd (clothes).

There are stillsome other types of declension, but not too important fro understanding thegeneral image. For example, r-stems denoted the family relatives(dohtor 'a daughter', módor 'a mother' andseveral others), es-stems usually meant children and cubs (cild'a child', cealf 'a calf'). The most intriguing question thatarises from the picture of the Old English declension is «How to definewhich words is which kind of stems?». I am sure you are always thinking ofthis question, the same as I thought myself when first studying Old English.The answer is «I don't know»; because of the loss of many endings allgenders, all stems and therefore all nouns mixed in the language, and one hasjust to learn how to decline this or that word. This mixture was the decisivestep of the following transfer of English to the analytic language — whenendings are not used, people forget genders and cases. In any solid dictionaryyou will be given a noun with its gender and kind of stem. But in general, thedeclension is similar for all stems. One of the most stable differences ofmasculine and feminine is the -es (masc.) or -e ingenitive singular of the Strong declension.

Now I am giving another table, the generaldeclension system of Old English nouns. Here '-' means a zero ending.

Strong declension (a, ja, wa,

у, jу, wу, i -stems).

Masculine

Neutral

Feminine

Singular

Plural

Singular

Plural

Singular

Plural

Nominative

-as

-u (-)

-a

Genitive

-es

-a

-es

-a

-e

-a

Dative

-e

-um

-e

-um

-e

-um

Accustive

-as

-u (-)

-e

-a

Weak declension

u

-stems

Singular

Plural

Singular

Plural

Nominative

-

-an

-

-a

Genitive

-an

-ena

-a

Dative

-an

-um

-a

-um

Accustive

-an

-

-a

TheOld English Adjective.

In all historicalIndo-European languages adjectives possess practically the same morphologicalfeatures as the nouns, the the sequence of these two parts of speech is anordinary thing in Indo-European. However, the Nostratic theory (the one whichunites Altaic, Uralic, Semitic, Dravidian and Indo-European language familiesinto one Nostratic super-family, once speaking a common Proto-Nostraticlanguage) represented by Illych-Svitych and many other famous linguists, statesthat adjectives in this Proto-Nostratic tongue were morphologically closer tothe verbs than to the nouns.

This theory isquite interesting, because even in Proto-Indo-European, a language which wasspoken much later than Proto-Nostratic, there are some proofs of the formerpredicative function of the adjectives. In other families of the super-familythis function is even more clear. InAltaic languages, and also in Korean and Japanese, which are originally Altaic,the adjective plays the part of the predicate, and in Korean, for example, themajority of adjectives are predicative. It means that though they always denotethe quality of the noun, they act the same way as verbs which denote action.Adjective «red» is actually translated from Japanese as «to bered», and the sentence Bara-wa utsukusii will mean «the roseis beautiful», while bara is «a rose», -wa is thenominative marker, and utsukusii is «to be beautiful». So noverb here, and the adjective is a predicate. This structure is typical for manyAltaic languages, and probably was normal for Proto-Nostratic as well.

TheProto-Indo-European language gives us some stems which are hard to denotewhether they used to mean an adjective or a verb. Some later branches reflectsuch stems as verbs, but other made them adjectives. So it was theProto-Indo-European epoch where adjectives as the part of speech began totransform from a verbal one to a nominal one. And all Indo-European branchesalready show the close similarity of the structure of adjectives and nouns inthe language. So does the Old English language, where adjective is one of thenominal parts of speech.

As well as the noun, theadjective can be declined in case, gender and number. Moreover, theinstrumental case which was discussed before was preserved in adjectives muchstronger than in nouns. Adjectives must follow sequence with nouns which theydefine — thet is why the same adjective can be masculine, neuter and feminineand therefore be declined in two different types: one for masculine and neuter,the other for feminine nouns. The declension is more or less simple, it looksmuch like the nominal system of declension, though there are several importantdifferences. Interesting to know that one-syllable adjectives(«monosyllabic») have different declension than two-syllable ones(«disyllabic»). See for yourselves:

StrongDeclension
a, ó-stems
     Monosyllabic
                  Sg.
        Masc.    Neut.         Fem.
N blæc (black) blæc        blacu
G blaces         blaces      blæcre
D blacum       blacum      blæcre
A blæcne       blæc         blace
I blace          blace         —
                  Pl.
N blace        blacu         blaca
G blacra       blacra        blacra
D blacum     blacum      blacum
A blace        blacu         blaca

Here«I» means that very instrumental case, answering the question (bywhat? with whom? with the help of what?).

Disyllabic
        Masc.    Neut.               Fem.
                  Sg.
N éadig (happy)éadig        éadigu
G éadiges          éadiges     éadigre
D éadigum         éadigum   éadigre
A éadigne          éadig        éadige
I  éadige            éadige
                  Pl.
N éadige           éadigu      éadiga
G éadigra          éadigra     éadigra
D éadigum         éadigum   éadigum
A éadige           éadigu       éadigu

So not many newendings: for accusative singular we have -ne, and for genitiveplural -ra, which cannot be met in the declension of nouns. Thedifference between monosyllabic and disyllabic is the accusative pluralfeminine ending -a / -u. That's all.

ja,jó-stems(swéte — sweet)
                Sg.                                               Pl.
      Masc.     Neut.       Fem.      Masc.    Neut.         Fem.
N swéte      swéte      swétu    swéte     swétu     swéta
G swétes     swétes    swétre   swétra    swétra    swétra
D swétum     swétum  swétre   swétum   swétum swétum
A swétne     swéte     swéte    swéte     swétu     swéta
I    swéte      swéte        —

wa,wó-stems
               Sg.
       Masc.        Neut.             Fem.
N nearu (narrow)nearu           nearu
G nearwes          nearwes       nearore
D nearwum         nearwum      nearore
A nearone           nearu           nearwe
I nearwe             nearwe
               Pl.
N nearwe          nearu            nearwa
G nearora          nearora        nearora
D nearwum        nearwum     nearwum
A nearwe           nearu           nearwa

Actually, some canjust omit all those examples — the adjectival declension is the same as a wholefor all stems, as concerns the strong type. In general, the endings look thefollowing way, with very few varieties (note that "-" means the nullending):

As for weakadjectives, they also exist in the language. The thing is that one need notlearn by heart which adjective is which type — strong or weak, as you should dowith the nouns. If you have a weak noun as a subject, its attributive adjectivewill be weak as well. So — a strong adjective for a strong noun, a weakadjective for a weak noun, the rule is as simple as that.

Thus if you say «a blacktree» that will be blæc tréow (strong), and«a black eye» will sound blace éage. Here is theweak declension example (blaca — black):

        Sg.                                           Pl.
     Masc.      Neut.        Fem.
N blaca       blace        blace         blacan
G blacan      blacan      blacan       blæcra
D blacan      blacan      blacan       blacum
A blacan      blace        blacan       blacan

Weak declension has a single plural for allgenders, which is pleasant for those who don't want to remeber too many forms.In general, the weak declension is much easier.

The last thing to be said about the adjectivesis the degrees of comparison. Again, the traditional Indo-European structure ispreserved here: three degrees (absolutive, comparative, superlative) — thoughsome languages also had the so-called «equalitative» grade; thespecial suffices for forming comparatives and absolutives; suppletive stems forseveral certain adjectives.

The suffices we are used to see in ModernEnglish, those -er and -est in weak, weaker, theweakest, are the direct descendants of the Old English ones. At that timethey sounded as -ra and -est. See the examples:

earm(poor) — earmra — earmost
blæc (black) — blæcra — blacost

Manyadjectives changed the root vowel — another example of the Germanic ablaut:

eald(old) — ieldra — ieldest
strong — strengra — strengest
long — lengra — lengest
geong (young) — gingra — gingest

The most widespread and widely used adjectivesalways had their degrees formed from another stem, which is called«suppletive» in linguistics. Many of them are still seen in today'sEnglish:

gód(good) — betera — betst (or sélra — sélest)
yfel (bad) — wiersa — wierest
micel (much) — mára — máést
lýtel (little) — læ'ssa — læ'st
fear (far) — fierra — fierrest, fyrrest
néah (near) — néarra — níehst,nýhst
æ'r (early) — æ'rra — æ'rest
fore (before) — furþra — fyrest (first)

Now you see what the word «first»means — just the superlative degree from the adjective «before,forward». The same is with níehst from néah(near) which is now «next».

Old English affixation for adjectives:

1. -ede(group «adjective stem + substantive stem») — micelhéafdede(large-headed)
2. -ihte (from substantives with mutation) — þirnihte(thorny)
3. -ig (from substantives with mutation) — hálig(holy), mistig (misty)
4. -en, -in (with mutation) — gylden(golden), wyllen (wóllen)
5. -isc (nationality) — Englisc, Welisc, mennisc(human)
6. -sum (from stems of verbs, adjectives, substantives) — sibbsum(peaceful), híersum (obedient)
7. -feald (from stems of numerals, adjectives) — þríefeald(threefold)
8. -full (from abstract substantive stems) — sorgfull(sorrowful)
9. -léás (from verbal and nominal stems) — slæpléás(sleepless)
10. -líc (from substantive and adjective stems) — eorþlíc(earthly)
11. -weard (from adjective, substantive, adverb stems) — inneweard(internal), hámweard (homeward)

The Old EnglishPronoun.

Pronouns were the only partof speech in Old English which preserved the dual number in declension, butonly this makes them more archaic than the rest parts of speech. Most ofpronouns are declined in numnber, case and gender, in plural the majority haveonly one form for all genders.

We will touch each group ofOld English pronouns and comment on them.

1.Personalpronouns
<img src="/cache/referats/16740/image004.jpg" v:shapes="_x0000_i1026">

Through the last 1500 years mínbecame mine, gé turned into you (ye asa colloquial variant). But changes are still significant: the 2nd personsingular pronouns disappeared from the language, remaining only in poeticspeech and in some dialects in the north of England. This is really a strangefeature — I can hardly recall any other Indo-European language which lacks thespecial pronoun for the 2nd person singular (French tu, German du,Russian ty etc.). The polite form replaced the colloquial one,maybe due to the English traditional «ladies and gentlemen» customs.Another extreme exists in Irish Gaelic, which has no polite form of personal pronoun,and you turn to your close friend the same way as you spoke with a primeminister — the familiar word, translated into French as tu. Itcan sound normal for English, but really funny for Slavic, Baltic, Germanpeople who make a thorough distinction between speaking to a friend and to astranger

2.Demonstrative pronouns ('I' means the instrumental case)

3. Interrogative pronouns

N hwá      hwæt
G hwæs    hwæs
D hwæ'm hwæ'm
A hwone   hwæt
I   -           hwý,hwí

These pronouns, which actually mean themasculine and the neuter varieties of the same pronoun, derive fromProto-Indo-European *kwis, with *kw becoming hwin Germanic languages. In Gothic the combination hw wasconsidered as one sound which is another proof that the Indo-European thelabiovelar sound kw was a single sound with some specificarticulation.

Later Germanic languages changed the sound in adifferent way: in Norwegian it remained as hv, in German turnedinto w (as in wer 'who', was 'what'),in English finally changed into wh pronounced in most cases [w],but somewhere also like [h] or [hw].

Interestingthat the instrumental of the word hwæt, once being apronoun form, later became the word why in English. So 'why?' isoriginally an instrumental case of the interrogative pronoun.

Other interrogative pronouns, or adverbs, asthey are sometimes called, include the following, all beginning with hw:

hwilc'which?' — is declined as thestrong adjective (see adjectivesabove)
hwonne 'when?' — this and following are not declined, naturally
hwæ'r 'where?'
hwider 'whither?'
hwonan 'whence?'

4. Other kinds of pronouns

They include definite,indefinite, negative and relative, all typical for Indo-European languages. Allof them still exist in Modern English, and all of them are given here:

a) definite
gehwá (every) — declined the same way as hwá
gehwilc (each),
ægþer (either),
æ'lc (each),
swilc (such) — all declined like strong adjectives
sé ylca (the same) — declined like a weak adjective

b) indefinite
sum (some),
æ'nig (any) — both behave the same way as strongadjectives

c) negative
nán, næ'nig (no, none) — declined like strongadjectives

d) relative
þe (which, that)
séþe (which, that) — they are not declined

InProto-Indo-European and in many ancient Indo-European languages there was aspecial kind of declension calleed pronominal, using only by pronouns andopposed to the one used by nouns, adjectives and numerals. Old English lost it,and its pronouns use all the same endings as the nouns and adjectives. Maybethe only inflection which remembers the Proto-language times, is the neuternominative -t in hwæt and þæt,the ancient ending for inanimate (inactive) nouns and pronouns.

TheOld English Numeral.

It is obvious thatall Indo-European languages have the general trend of transformation

from thesynthetic (or inflectional) stage to the analytic one. At least for the latest1,000 years this trend could be observed in all branches of the family. Thelevel of this analitization process in each single language can be estimated byseveral features, their presence or absence in the language. One of them is forsure the declension of the numerals. In Proto-Indo-European all numerals, bothcardinal and ordinal, were declined, as they derived on a very ancient stagefrom nouns or adjectives, originally being a declined part of speech. There arestill language groups within the family with decline their numerals: amongthem, Slavic and Baltic are the most typical

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