8. Oe pronouns (grammatical categories)

The peculiarities of the system of OE pronouns:

• No possessive pronouns. Gen of personal pronouns was used instead.

• Some demonstrative pronouns in the course of time have weakened their lexical meaning in the function of the definite article.

• Some groups of pronouns preserved the instrumental case.

Classes: personal, demonstrative, interrogative and indefinite.

Grammatical categories: three persons (1, 2, 3); three numbers in the 1st and the 2nd persons (sg, dual, pl); two numbers in the third person, and three genders only in the third person.

9. General characteristics of the oe verb

• The non-finite forms are closer to the nouns and adjectives than to the verb itself especially at the morphological level.

• Only synthetic forms.

• Agreed with the subject in number and person.

Categories: number (sg, pl), person (1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd), tense (present, past), mood (indicative, imperative, superlative).

Subjunctive Mood conveyed a very general meaning of unreality or supposition. In conditional sentences it had volitional, conjectural and hypothetical functions. Present Tense indicated both present and future actions. The prefix “3e-” expressed the category of aspect (verbs with the prefix have a perspective meaning, while the same verbs without this prefix indicated a non-completed action). Other means of expressing aspective meanings: verb phrases made up of the verbs: haban, beon, weorthan. Voice is not fully developed in OE. The category of passive voice already in OE acquires some means of expression with the help of the verbs: beon and weorthan.

There were four divisions of verbs, majority of verbs fell into two of them: strong and weak. Also there were preterite-present and anomalous verbs. In OE there are 2 non-finite forms of the verb: the infinitive and the participle.

10. Oe strong verbs

The strong verbs are called so because they have the power to change their forms without the help of any tense-forming suffixes (stem + inflection). There were about 300 strong verbs. They were native Old English verbs, which were descended from Proto-Germanic language. Most of them had parallels in other Germanic languages.

Strong verbs are commonly divided into 7 classes: classes from 1 to 6 formed their past tense by means of vowel gradation. Class 7 included verbs that built their past form by means of reduplication (repetition of the root vowel). Each strong verb has 4 principal forms: the infinitive (-an), past singular (-), past plural (-on), participle II (-en).

1. i-class;

2. u-class (‘u’ in the past pl and ‘o’ in PII, a diphthong in the infinitive and past sg).

3. 2 consonants after the root vowel in past sg.

4. ae: in past pl.

5. ae: in past pl; the stem of the verb ends in a noise consonant.

6. special type of ablaut: a, o, o:, a: (quantitative ablaut).

7. reduplication (the repetition of initial syllable).

11. Oe weak verbs

The weak build their past forms with the help of the dental suffix (-d/-t).

There are three principal forms: the infinitive, the past tense, participle II.

There are three classes of weak verbs in OE.

Weak verbs are very productive in OE. They constitute 3 quarters of all verbs. All the new verbs that appeared build their past according to the weak congregation.

Class	Infinitive	Past	Participle II
I regular	hieran	hierde	hiered
I irregular	thyncan	thuhte	thuht
II	macian	macode	macod
III (only 4 verbs)	habban	haefde	haefd