The Substantive

The OE substantive (noun) had 2 grammatical categories, the category of number and the category of case. Besides, nouns distinguished 3 genders: masculine, feminine and neuter which accounted for the division of nouns into morphological classes. The category of number consisted of two members, singular and plural. There were four cases: Nominative, Genitive, Dative and Accusative which performed different functions. Nominative was the case of the active agent, genitive – the case of nouns and pronouns used attributively with other nouns, Dative was the chief case used with prepositions, and Accusative indicated a relationship to a verb.

The most remarkable feature of OE nouns was their system of declension (up to 25 types). All in all there were only ten distinct endings and a few relevant root vowel interchanges used in noun paradigms.

In OE there were 4 types of substantive stems:

1) vocalic stems(a-, o-, i-, u—stems ) which represented strong

declension

2) n-stems which belonged to the weak declension

3) s- and –r stems

4) root-stems

The reduction of declension which began in OE continued in the ME period more intensively and affected the morphological system of the noun though not equally in different dialects. Most quickly it developed in the Northern dialect, followed by the Midland dialect, while in Southern dialects this process developed at a much lower rate. The effects of the reduction were as follows: the difference of grammatical gender was lost in Northern and Midland dialects, though gender distinctions remained to a certain extent in force in Southern dialects.

The distinction of strong and weak declension was also lost, only 2 endings proved stable – es of the genitive singular masculine and neuter a-stems, and the ending –as of the Nom., and Acc. Plural masculine a-stems. The Gen. plural also took the ending –es and it spread to all substantives.

Only a few substantives which had mutation in the Nom and Acc. plural: men, fēt, gēs, and a few which had an unchanged form in the Nom. and Acc. plural, such as shēp, dēr, were not affected by the reduction.

While in OE the category of number is interwoven with the category of case, in MdE the expression of number is separated from that of case.

The process of eliminating survival plural forms went on in the 15^th and 16^th centuries. In some nouns the alteration of the voiceless and voiced fricative was eliminated, but in some was preserved: death- deaths, but wife – wives; with a few words two variants are possible: scarf-scarfs/scarves, etc.

A few substantives preserved their plural forms due to the weak declension or mutation: ox-oxen, child- children, brother-brothers/ brethren. Another type of plural was preserved in such words as sheep, trout, fish, etc.

The two-case system was preserved in MdE. The sphere of the Genitive Case was restricted to nouns denoting living beings and also some time notions: year, month, week, day. With words denoting inanimate objects or abstract ideas the Genitive was normally replaced by the phrase of plus substantive. In the Genitive singular the apostrophe was first used in 1680 and meant to denote the omission of the letter – e. In the Genitive plural it was used about 1780 already as a conventional sign.