Zobrazení zdroje stránky 8. Old English Morphology

'''1.Define OE nouns and verbs in terms of grammatical categories they expressed.'''

'''OE NOUNS'''

– '''gender '''→ masculine, neuter, feminine

– '''number '''→ singular, dual, plural

– '''case '''→ nominative (S), accusative (Od), genitive (possession), dative (Oi), instrumental (instrument)

– '''2 categories of declension''' → '''strong '''(it declines for case, gender and number), a/o/u stem X '''weak '''(less variation between gender and cases)

'''OE VERBS'''

– '''person '''→ 1st, 2nd, 3rd

– '''number '''→ singular, plural

– '''tense '''→ present, preterite

– '''mood '''→ indicative, subjunctive (unreality, supposition, volition), imperative

(aspective meaning expressed by past or present participle, but no category of aspect)

'''strong inflection''' = change of tense is indicated by '''vowel change''' (ablaut), 7 classes

'''weak inflection''' = change of tense is indicated by the '''addition of an ending''', weak 1 (short X long), weak 2

'''preterite present verbs''' = originally strong verbs, they combine features of S and W verbs. '''The past tense acquired present tense meaning''', afterwards a new preterite form (WEAK) was created. The preterite-present verbs developed into PDE modals. 

'''2. Explain the principal difference in the functioning of sound change and analogy.'''

– both analogy and sound change create new forms in a language

– but sound change is often regular but it often creates irregular patterns, whereas analogy is irregular and causes regularity (e.g. regular sound change umlaut brother → brethren X irregular analogical change using the non-alternating singular/plural pattern in such nouns as sister → sisters: brother → brothers)

Examples from PG → OE

'''Sound change''': PG *beró > GT baíra, EOE 1. sg. beru > LOE bere

'''Analogy''': PG. 3. pl. weak vbs.*–ánthi>OE 3. (later 1.&2.) pl. –að (např. berað) → all plural indicative forms end with að

'''3. Explain the following concepts: class/stem; thematic/athematic; strong/weak; strong/weak adjectives; strong/weak verbs; syncretism; allomorphy; levelling of endings; grammatical gender; dual; preterite present verb.'''

‐ '''class/stem''': '''the stem''' consists of what was in proto-germanic '''root and theme''' (e.g. stainaz → stain = ''root'', a = ''theme'', z = ''ending'', the root is therefore “staina”). Etymology: PGM “stainaz” → OE “stan”. The classes of nouns are classified accordingly to what was the theme, therefore the OE word “stan” belongs into the group of “a-stem nouns” because in the Proto-germanic there was a-theme. 

OE verbs conjugate by a stem modification (strong verbs) and inflectional suffixes (weak verbs).

Strong verbs are divided into '''7 classes '''by how the ablaut operates (''the vowel in the stem changes'').

Weak verbs → ''the stem remains the same'', conjugation formed by endings. Classification: 1st class - short X long (by the stem-vowel), 2nd class with “ian” (instead of “an”) '''thematic/athematic'''

'''thematic formation''' = the proto-germanic word consists of root + theme + ending, the ending is attached to the theme (e.g. stain + a + z)

'''athematic formation''' = there is no theme so the ending is attached directly to the root (e.g. fot+iz)

'''strong/weak adjectives'''

'''strong adj.''' = there are more endings and there is no need for the adjective to co-occur with a determiner as the ending itself is able to express all grammatical categories on its own

'''weak adj.''' = there are just few distinct endings but there is a grammatical need of the adjective to cooccur with a determiner (e.g. demonstrative/possessive pronoun) '''strong/weak verbs'''

'''strong verbs''' = based on vowel change – ablaut (OE singan, sang, sungon,... PDE sing sang sung, Czech beru, sbírat, bral)

'''weak verbs''' = based on the addition of the agglutinating dental/alveolar suffix

'''syncretism '''– the fusion of two or more originally different inflectional forms (=merging of endings), e.g. case system replaced by a system based on WO and formal words. allomorphy – alternation of two or more forms in a morphological or lexical unit. (*allomorph = different phonological variation of a morpheme, e.g. variation between plural /s/ /z/ /iz/)

'''levelling of endings''' – generalization of inflections, this is done by sound change and analogy

'''grammatical gender''' – category of OE nouns – masculine, feminine, neuter. Often the grammatical gender doesn't correspond with the natural gender (se wīfman (“woman”) – masculine gender). This clash is one of the reasons why the grammatical gender was lost (other reasons: phonetic, morphological)

'''dual '''– category of number marking nouns, adjectives, pronouns (not verbs), meaning “two”

'''preterite-present verb''' – originally strong verbs, they combine features of S and W verbs. The past tense acquired present tense meaning, afterwards a new preterite form (WEAK) was created. The preterite-present verbs developed into PDE modals. (OE durran “to dare” (but PDE must!)