Old English Morphology.

HISTORIA DE LA LENGUA INGLESA
Unit 3. Old English Morphology

Introduction
Old English is a highly inflective language. It means that it is more or less the same
way as Latin, Greek or even German. Depending on the function, we are going to have
inflections.
It is inflected because we are going to distinguish case, gender and number.
 case: they are used to express a particular grammatical function. We

distinguish four cases: nominative, accusative, genitive and dative. Nominative
is used for the expression of the subject. Everything functioning as the subject
of the sentence, must go in the nominative case. The accusative is used for the
expression of the direct object. Genitive is a noun component used for the
expression of possession. Dative is used for the expression of all the other
complements like the indirect object, circumstantial complements and so on.
“The boy bought her flowers in the park.”
The boy would be the nominative. Her would be a dative (indirect object).
Flowers would be an accusative (direct object). In the park, would be a dative
(complement of place).
 gender: we distinguish the masculine, feminine and neuter gender. In Old

English, we have what we call grammatical gender. It means that nouns will be
masculine, feminine or neuter depending on grammar but not on sex. In
Spanish, we can find the same situation.
se mōna (m). It is masculine because it has the masculine determiner.

sēo cwen (f). It is masculine because it has the feminine determiner.
ƥæt cild (n). It is neuter because it has the neuter determiner.
In Old English, we have grammatical gender but today in English we have

neuter gender. Nouns are going to be masculine, feminine or neuter depending
on sex. So, there is a crucial difference when you compare Old English with
present day English.
In Old English, there are three demonstratives indicating the gender of the
noun. When time goes by, the French arrived in England and the language
started to change. For example: se mōna (the moon), sēo cwen (the queen),
ƥæt cild (the child). When there is only one determiner, it is impossible to
distinguish them. It is in that moment, when neuter gender appears.
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 number: we find the singular and the plural. In some situations, Old English
distinguishes the plural and the dual. The plural means you and me and all of us
together, whereas the dual means just you and me.
Old English Nouns

We have to distinguish two groups: weak nouns and strong nouns. Weak nouns are
those nouns having a plural, for example: ox – oxen, child – children. The share the
inflection –en. In present day English, we have basically the same, the only difference
is that strong nouns predominate. Weak nouns end in vowels and strong nouns end in
consonants. Weak nouns that end in –a are masculine and those that end in –e are
feminine and neuter nouns also end in – e.
- se nama (m.); sēo heorte (f.); ƥæt ēage (n.).
Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural

Nominative nama naman heorte heortan ēage ēagan
Accusative naman naman heortan heortan ēage ēagan
Genitive naman namena heortan heortena ēagan ēagena
Dative nmana namum heortan heortum ēagan ēagum
On the contrary, strong nouns end in consonants and the rest of vowels.
- se stān (m.); se cyning (m.); se hlāf (m).
Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural

Nominative stān stānas cyning cyningas hlāf hlāfas
Accusative stān stānas cyning cyningas half hlāfas
Genitive stānes stāna cyninges cyninga hlāfas hlāfa
Dative stāne stānum cyninge cyningum hlāfe hlāfum
Irregularities in strong nouns

Many masculine nouns are declined on this pattern, e.g. cyning. Many other masculine
nouns are declined in almost the same way but with minor modifications. Dæg has the
same inflexions as stān, but in the plural, the part of the word to which inflexions are
added (the stem) appears thus: dagas, dagas, daga, dagum. Sometimes, in disyllabic
words, the unstressed vowel of the second syllable is lost when the word is inflected
(syncopation), e.g. engel (angel) becomes
engles, engle, etc. We omit the vowel in the 1. Dæg, la vocal frontal se convierte
middle because it is in an open syllable. en vocal posterior por influencia
de la vocal que viene después.
In the word mearth, the declination of this 2. Cuando el nombre tiene tres
noun would be something like this: silabas intentan abreviarlas, por lo
que la sílaba de en medio
Mearh, mearh, meares, meare normalmente la omiten.
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mearas, mearas, meara, mearum.
Strong neuter nouns

We are going to distinguish two paradigms: ƥæt scip and ƥæt land. They both finish
with a consonant, so both are strong nouns. Apart from being strong, they are neuter
nouns because they take ƥæt. The difference is going to be phonological. There is one
phonological difference: they both are monosyllabic nouns. ƥæt scip is followed by
two consonant and ƥæt land is followed by one consonant.
Singular Plural
Nominative scip scipu
Accusative scip scipu
Genitive scipes scipa
Dative scipe scipum
We use this inflection because we are dealing with a noun that is monosyllabic and
has one consonant after the vowel.
Whereas in ƥæt land, it has two consonants after the vowel, so Old English does not
need plural in –u. It is also applied to long vowels.
Singular Plural
Nominative land land
Accusative land land
Genitive landes landa
Dative lande landum
Strong feminine nouns

- sēo giefu (f.)  short vowel, inflected; sēo lār (f.), long vowoel, not-inflected.
Singular Plural Singular Plural

Nominative giefu giefa/giefe lār lāra/lāre
Accusative giefe giefra/giefe lāre lāra/lāre
Genitive giefe giefa/giefena lār lāra/lārena
Dative giefe giefum lāre lārum
Here we find two different nouns. Both of them are strong. Giefu is strong because it
ends in a vowel –u. They are different because phonology is responsible of everything.
In the case or lār, the vowel is long and there is no need of inflection. However, in the
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case of giefu, the vowel is short and for that reason we need the vowel in final
position.
Irregular declension
There are four main irregularities:
i. The –a plural declension. It includes masculines, for example sunu (son), wudu
(wood), and the femenines duru (door), nosu (nose) and hond (hand). They
have an –u in their singular form. They are inflected according to all the other
nouns with the exception that they are endingless in the nominative and the
accusative case.
Nominative sunu suna

Accusative sunu suna
Genitive suna suna
Dative suna sunum
ii. The uninflected plurals. This group comprises what we call family names. They
are irregular because they are inflected in a completely different way if we
compare them with the general paradigms. The dative singular ends in –er.
Nominative dothor dothor

Accusative dothor dothor
Genitive dothor dothra
Dative dother dohtrum
Nominative modor modor

Accusative modor modor
Genitive modor modar
Dative moder modrum
iii. Mutation plurals. This group comprises all those nouns having a different
vowel in the singular and the plural. For example, mann in opposition to men in
Old English. Also, gos in opposition to ges, fot in opposition to fet, boc in
opposition to bec. The group of mutation plurals includes all those nouns
changing the stem vowel when you compare the singular with the plural.
These nouns still exist in present day English: man, men, woman, women,
mouse, mice, tooth, teeth…
Nominative fot fet

Accusative fot fet
Genitive fotes fota
Dative fet fotum
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We have the irregularity in the dative singular and the nominative and
accusative plural. There is a vowel change, so the stem vowel mutates from the
singular to the plural. It changes because of phonology. This is what we call I-
mutation. It is a phonological change that took place in the Germanic period
and it also affected all the Germanic languages. In
German, we have the same phenomenon in the
word apfel äpfel.
There was a time when all the Germanic

languages were together, and this change took place before they split. It is a
phonological change that consists on the movement of a back vowel to a front
vowel when the vowel –i is in the following syllable.
The back vowels wanted to be closer to the front vowels. When the vowel –u
begins to move, it moves until it becomes a –y. Vowels moved across the line.
When the vowel –o begins to move, it becomes also a –y. The same happened
to the vowel –a, that started to move until it became an –æ. These were so
separated that –æ moves until it becomes an –e.
We have for example the Germanic word fot. When people talked about their
feet, they said one fot and in the plural, they would say something like two
fotiß. After the application of I-mutation, vowel –o in the plural has an –i in the
following syllable. That vowel begins to move leftwards until there is a moment
in Old English when we say fot (sing.) and fetis (plu.). The inflection –is
disappeared so it became fet.
Fot - Fotiß Nominative fōt fēt

- Fetis Accusative fōt fēt
OE: Fōt - Fēt Genitive fōta fōta
Foot – Feet Dative fōt fōtum
We have also the Germanic word mus. The plural was musis. People in the
Germanic period would say something like one mus, two musis. From a
phonological view point, Old English looks for phonological harmony. By
harmony, we understand that two words that are too far away from each other
in two syllables are not harmonious. For that reason, the second syllable moves
until it becomes a –y. So, there is a moment when people begins to say mys in
the plural.
Mūs - Musis Nominative mūs mȳs

- Mysis Accusative mūs mȳs
OE: Mūs - Mȳs Genitive mūses mūsa
Mouse - mice Dative mȳs mūsum
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In the particular case of man, the process would be the same. The Germanic
people would say one man, two manis. The plural of man would be manis. The
singular does not have an –i in the following syllable, so it is not affected by I-
mutation, but in the plural, we have a back vowel followed by the vowel –i. So,
the movement begins to take place, vowel –i begins to move until it becomes
maenniß. The vowel –æ is so far away from –i that it becomes an –e. The
inflection –is disappears and we have men.
Man - Manis Nominative man men

- Mænis Accusative man men
Men Genitive manes mana
OE: Man - Men Dative men manum
iv. R-plurals. This group contains a group of plurals. We call them the r-plurals.
For example, cild and lamb. They include and additional consonant because
the language thought that another consonant was needed. These nouns are
neuter. The inflections are the same, so there is no problem at all. The
irregularity is in the –r. That noun includes an additional consonant. It is the
only noun with two inflections for the plural. When we say children in present
day English, it is the only noun today with two inflections for the plural. The
consonant –r, coming from Old English and the –en characterising the weak
inflection.
Nominative cild cildru Nominative lamb lambru

Accusative cild cildru Accusative lamb lambru
Genitive cildes cildra Genitive lambes lambra
Dative cilde cildrum Dative lambe lambrum
Old English adjectives

As we said before, Old English is an inflected language. Nouns, adjectives and
pronouns are going to be inflected according to three features:
 Declension: we distinguish between strong and weak declensions. They are

going to be weak or strong depending on their syntactic context. We have to
look at the word before an adjective in order to have the clue. An adjective will
be weak in the following syntactic contexts:
1. When it is preceded by a demonstrative (se, sēo, ƥæt (the); ƥēs,

ƥēos, ƥīs (these)). For example: se wisa cyning. Cyning is strong,
nominative, masculine and singular. Wisa is preceded by a
determiner, so by that reason it is going to be weak. Apart from
being weak, there is full agreement between the words around, so
for that reason it is nominative, masculine and singular. We can also
change the gender, for example: sēo wise cwēn. The important word
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of this noun phrase is cwēn. It is a strong noun, nominative, feminine

and singular. Wise is preceded by a demonstrative, so it will be a
weak adjective, nominative, feminine and singular.
2. When it is preceded by a possessive adjective. For example, mīn

leofe cwēn. Cwēn is a strong noun, nominative, feminine and
singular. There is a possessive adjective in front of leofe, so for that
reason leofe will be weak and they both will be nominative, feminine
and singular. It is weak because it is preceded by the possessive
adjective mīn.
3. When it is found in a vocative expression. For example, Leofe

cwēn!. Leofe is a weak adjective, vocative, feminine and singular.
When it is not preceded by a demonstrative, vocative expression or a possessive

adjective, the adjective will be strong.
 Case: nominative, accusative, genitive and dative.

 Gender: masculine and feminine.
 Number: singular or plural.
There is full agreement between the noun and the adjective. Case, gender and
number depend on the noun.
Paradigms
There are two major adjectival paradigms: strong and weak. Determining what
paradigm we use depends on the relationship between the adjective and other
words. We are going to see two model adjectives: gōd/gōda
Weak paradigm
 Gōda (GOOD)
Masculine Feminine Neuter Plural (all

singular singular singular genders)
Nominative gōda gōde gōde gōdan
Accusative gōdan gōdan gōde gōdan
Genitive gōdan gōdan gōdan Gōdra/
gōdena
Dative gōdan gōdan gōdan gōdum
Many of the endings of the strong and weak adjectives are identical with those of
the strong and weak nouns, however, a few (e.g. –um) do indicate different
functions from those which might be expected in noun paradigms.
Strong paradigm
 Gōd (GOOD)
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Masculine Feminine Neuter singular

singular singular
Nominative gōd gōd gōd
Accusative gōdne gōde gōd
Genitive gōdes gōdre gōdes
Dative gōdum gōdre gōdum
Masculine plural Feminine plural Neuter plural

Nominative gōde gōde gōd
Accusative gōde gōde gōd
Genitive gōdra gōdra gōdra
Dative gōdum gōdum gōdum
Most adjectives behave like gōd. The main group of exceptions consist of adjectives
such as cwic (ALIVE), which differ from gōd in the strong nominative singular and
plural:
If the adjective is long, it will follow the paradigm of gōd. If the adjective is short, it will
follow the paradigm of cwic.
Masculine singular Feminine singular Neuter singular

Nominative cwic cwicu cwic
Accusative cwice cwice cwic
Genitive cwice cwicre cwices
Dative cwicre cwicre cwicum
Masculine plural Feminine plural Neuter plural

Nominative cwice cwice/a cwicu
Accusative cwice cwice/a cwicu
Genitive cwicra cwicra cwicra
Dative cwicum cwicra cwicum
Comparison of adjectives
There are three degrees of comparison: equality, superiority and absolute

superlative.
 Equality: we usually have the construction swā… swā. This is the way in which
the Anglo-Saxons formed the comparison of equality. It developed until it
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became as. For example: se cyning is swā cwic swā sēo cwen (the king is faster
than the queen). In this example, we have the comparison of equality swā…
swā and the adjective in the middle. All adjectives in the comparative degree,
are going to be weak.
 Superiority: nowadays, we keep on using the inflection –er, for example: this is
bigger. In Old English, we are going to use the inflection –ra. For example: se
cyning is cwickra than sēo cwen. We have the adjective cwick together with the
suffix that we use in order to form the comparison of superiority. Old English is
a very inflected language. Every single word class is inflected. For that reason,
cwick is inflected as well. Cwickra is going to be inflected in the weak
declension.
Se cyning is cwickra than seo cwen. Cyning is masculine and singular.
Singular Plural
Nominative cwic + ra + a cwic + ra + an
Accusative cwic + ra + an cwic + ra + an
Genitive cwic + ra + an cwic + ra + a
Dative cwic + ra + an cwic + ra + um
We have the adjective cwic, the suffix of superiority –ra and the inflection –a
telling us that it is weak, nominative and singular. We omit the first vowel (cwic
+ ra + a) because the most important is the second one that tells us the case,
number and gender.
Seo cwen is cwicra ƥan se cyning. Cwen is feminine and singular.
Singular Plural
Nominative cwic + ra + e cwic + ra + an
Accusative cwic + ra + an cwic + ra + an
Genitive cwic + ra + an cwic + ra + a
Dative cwic + ra + an cwic + ra + um
 Superlative: we have four suffixes that are going to be used in order to express
the absolute superlative in Old English: –ast, –est, –ost, –ust. For example, if we
want to say “The king is the quickest in the palace” it would be something like
Se cynining is ƥe cwicest. The four suffixes coexisted at that time and no matter
the one that we use, the four of them were used for the same purpose.
Probably, the vowel was a schwa. It was so difficult for them to represent it.
The sentence Se cynining is ƥe cwicest is not correct because the inflection
misses. So, we need some kind of inflection that tells to us that it is a
nominative, singular and masculine: cwicesta. Remember that all adjectives in
all comparative degrees are going to have the weak declension. For example,
sēo cwen is sēo cwiceste. Cwen is feminine.
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Irregular comparatives
We are going to establish two different groups:
 Change the stem-vowel: There are just five adjectives belonging to this group.
We have eald, ieldra, ieldest (OLD); geong, gingra, gingest (YOUNG); lang,
lengra, lenges (LONG) ; strang, strengra, strengest (STRONG) ; heah, hierra,
hiest (HARD). They change the stem vowel. The stem vowel is the first syllable
vowel. When we compare the positive degree with the superlative form we can
see that the stem vowel changes.
We have to pay attention to strang, strengra, strengest. When we say strang,

the vowel is on our right, and when we say strengra, the vowel is on the left.
There is a movement from left to right in the trapeze of the back and front
vowels. The reason of it is phonological. It happens because of i-mutation. It is
a phonological change that consists of the movement of a back vowel
becoming a front vowel on condition that –i is in the following syllable. It is a
kind of attraction. Strang, in the Germanic period, they would say something
like strang + ri because i-mutation requires an –i in the following syllable. It
became straengri. The vowel kept moving until it became strengri. For that
reason, we have strang in the positive degree in opposition to strengra in the
comparative degree. After a lot of years, these adjectives have lost this
characteristic and now we say: stronger, older, longer, younger and harder.
 Change the whole stem. It contains five adjectives: gōd, betera/betra, betra,
betest/best ; yfel, wiersa, wurst ; micel, māra, mǣst ; lytel, lǣssa, lǣst. The
stem is completely different. They are so irregular because they were irregular
in Germanic. So, we have two groups: i-mutation is responsible for the first
group of irregular adjectives, and traditions is responsible for these adjectives
in the second group. They are irregular nowadays too because of frequency.
They are very used today. The more they appear, the less they are likely to
change.
Personal Pronoun-paradigms
We are going to distinguish person, case and number in personal pronouns.
Nowadays, this is the only word class that remains inflected.
First person
Singular Plural Dual

Nominative ic wē wit
Accusative mē/mēc ūs/ūsic unc/uncit
Genitive mīn ūre uncer
Dative mē ūs unc
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In some books, there is a distinction in the accusative because there are two forms:
mē/mēc, ūs/ūsic. Ūs/ūsic are the typical forms that we find in early Old English and
mē/mēc are the typical forms used in the late Old English.
There are two forms because of diachronic reasons. Until the 9th century, the ones
used were mēc, ūsic and uncit, but from the 9th century until the 11th century, they
used mē, ūs and unc. This was a syncretism; this means a morphological reduction or
simplification of the case system from four forms to three.
Second person
The same could be said about the second person.
Singular Plural Dual

Nominative ϸū gē git
Accusative ϸē/ϸēc ēow/ēowic inc/incit
Genitive ϸin eower incer
Dative ϸē ēow inc
At the beginning, there were four forms. There is a syncretic change, from ϸēc, ēowic
and incit until the 9th century, to ϸē, ēow and inc from the 9th century until the 11th.
Historically, “you” comes from the plural form, so it is a respectful way of referring to a
person. In some Shakespearean works, we can see how “thou” (coming from ϸū) that
is directed to lower classes, whereas “you” (coming from ēow, acc. plural) is used with
upper classes. This form eventually displaces the original second person singular form.
Third person
Masculine Feminine Neuter Plural

Nom. hē hēo hit hīe
Acc. hine hīe hit hīe
Gen. his hiere his hiera
Dat. him hiere him him
Changes: he he hit he/hi
Present he she it they (Vikings)
In Old English, we have one personal pronoun for the singular, hē. For the feminine we
have hēo, in the neuter we have hit and in the plural, we have hīe. Time goes by and
the language changes.
When the French arrived in England, all diphthongs begin to disappear. In the singular
we have hē for the masculine and the feminine. There was a problem in the language
and they looked for a solution. The feminine was confusing and the English language
rejected the feminine hē. English invented a new pronoun, she for the feminine
singular.
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Nobody knows where does it come from. There are linguists that say that it comes
from the determiner sēo or the personal pronoun hēo. They say that there is a process
of palatalization of the consonant and the vowel. These are just hypothesis.
Furthermore, they eliminated the initial consonant in the neuter, so we have it.
We have another problem in the plural. The English language rejected he/hi. The
language moved to the north of England where Norse was spoken and “they” was
borrowed into English. It comes from the Vikings.
Possessive adjectives
As its name says, a possessive adjective is an adjective. It needs a noun in order to be

used, for example, my house. My is a possessive adjective because it goes together
with the head of the phrase. Pronouns function as nouns. They can appear in
isolation, for example, the house is mine.
1st per. sing 2nd per. sing 3rd per. sing

Nominative ic ϸū hē
Accusative mē ϸē hine
Genitive mīn ϸin his
Dative mē ϸē him
They took the genitive to express possession. The genitive form was mīn, so the
phrase “my house” would be something like “mīn hus”. In “mīn hus”, mīn is an
adjective. Possessive adjectives need to be inflected following the strong declension of
adjectives.
In order to create the possessive adjectives, all we have to do is take the Genitive form
of the pronouns and conjugate them with the strong declension of adjectives. There is
one exception, however, and it is that the 3rd person adjective is not conjugated, just
the 1st and 2nd person singular and plural.
In the phrase “mīn cwēn” (my queen), the noun cwēn is feminine. As we have said
before, the pronouns have to be conjugated with the strong declension of adjectives.
So, it would be something like “mine cwēn”.
Examples:
The phrase “my city is big” would be something like “mīn tun is micel”. The word tun is
a strong noun, nominative, masculine, singular. The word mīn is a strong adjective,
nominative, masculine singular.
The phrase “you saw my house” would be something like “hē seah mīn hus”. The word
hus is a strong noun, accusative, masculine, singular. The word mīn is a strong
adjective, accusative, masculine, singular.
The phrase “he goes to my house” would be something like “he fareth to minum huse”.
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The word huse is a strong noun, dative, masculine, singular. The word minum is a
strong adjective, dative, masculine, singular.
Determiners
Determiners include the articles (definite and indefinite) and demonstratives.
Demonstrative determiners
[the, that, those]
Masculine Feminine sing. Neuter sing. All genders.

sing.
Nominative se sēo ƥæt ƥā
Accusative ƥone ƥā ƥæt ƥā
Genitive ƥæs ƥære ƥæs ƥāra
Dative ƥām, ƥǣm ƥære ƥām, ƥǣm ƥām, ƥǣm
[this, these]
Masculine sing. Feminine sing. Neuter All genders

sing.
Nominative ƥes ƥēos ƥis ƥās
Accusative ƥisne ƥās ƥis ƥās
Genitive ƥisses ƥisse ƥisses ƥissa
Dative ƥissum ƥisse ƥissum ƥissum
Old English Verbs
Verbs are morphologically inflected. They are going to be conjugated in terms of:
 Voice: all verbs are going to be conjugated in the active voice. The passive is
periphrastic. For example: bēon + past participle.
 Tense: Old English only distinguishes two tenses:
o Present: for something taking place now
o Past: for something that took place in the past
When they wanted to express the future, they used the present tense with an
adverb.
 Person: we find three persons: first, second and third.
 Number: we find two numbers: singular and plural.
When we look at the conjugation of all verbs in Old English we are going to distinguish
these four variables.
Types of verbs
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We are going to distinguish four different types of verbs:
 Weak verbs: they form the past with a dental suffix: –d, –ed. For example:
sendan – sendede; lufian – lufode.
 Strong verbs: they change the stem vowel in the past. For example: rīdan – rād.
 Preterite-present verbs: it is a very small group comprising modal verbs.
 Anomalous verbs: for verbs that are irregular.
It resembles the picture that we have in present day English.
Weak verbs
A weak verb is that kind of verb forming the past tenses with a dental suffix. A dental
suffix is exactly the same that we have in present day English: talked. Weak verbs are
going to be classified into three classes:
i. Class one: It comprises all those weak verbs whose infinitive finishes
with –an or with –rian. For example: đeman (to deem). The infinitive
has –an in final position, that is why this verb belongs to weak verbs
class one. The same happens with sendan (to send). The infinitive
finishes with –an, so for that reason it also belongs to this class. We
have also andswarian (to answer). It has –rian in final position, so it
belongs to weak verbs class one too. We distinguish two groups:
 Those containing a long stem vowel (đēman)

 Those containing short stem vowel (sendan)
Finite forms
Long stem vowel
We take the infinitive. The inflectional vowel is usually omitted in the
second and third person singular because sometimes it is not needed.
ƥ (–th) is the typical suffix coming from Germanic that has developed
into –s. The –s inflection is found in Northumbrian. When we compare,
the inflection used in the north of England and the inflection used in the
south, –s is easier to pronounce than –th (ƥ).
Pres. Indicat. Past. Indicat. Pres. Subj. Past. Subj.

đēm-e đēm-de đēm-e đēm-de
đēm-(e)st đēm-dest đēm-e đēm-de
đēm-(e)ƥ đēm-de đēm-e đēm-de
đēm-aƥ đēm-don đēm-en đēm-den
14
Non-finite forms
We have two infinitives:
 Non-inflected infinitive: it is the ordinary infinitive that we have

in present day English. For example, to deem. This is an infinitive
expressing purpose, objectives, aims.
 Inflected infinitive: it is when we add the inflection to the root
(to đēm-enne).
Short stem vowel

The inflections are the same than in the present tense. The only
difference is the dental suffix in the past. There is an additional vowel.
There is an irregularity in the third person singular in the past. For
example: sendede. It is frequent to have the omission of this inflectional
vowel in the third person singular. When the verb is weak, belongs to
class one and belongs to the past, that vowel is only omitted in the third
person singular: sendede > sendde. The two consonants are in contact
and they assimilate until the become sentte.
Finite forms
Prest. Ind. Past. Ind. Pres. Subj. Past. Subj.

send-e send-ede send-e send-ede
send-est send-edest send-e send-ede
send-eƥ send-ede send-e send-ede
send-aƥ send-edon send-en send-eden
ii. Class two: It comprises all the weak verbs having the inflection –ian in
their infinitive. For example: lufian (to love). It finishes with –ian. It is a
weak verb belonging to class two. The same happens with the verb
locian (to look).
In words like lufian and lōcian, the vowel –i is the vowel that we have in
the infinitive and that we also find in the conjugation. In the past tense,
the vowel that we have in the infinitive becomes an –o.
Past. Ind. Past. Ind.

(class one) (class two)
sendede locode
sendedest locodest
sendede locode
15
sendedon locodon
sendedon locodon
sendedon locodon
The inflections are the same, however the only difference is found in
the inflectional vowel. When the verb is a class one, the inflectional
vowel is –e, whereas if the verb is a class two, the vowel is –o.
Finite forms
Pres. Ind. Past. Ind. Pres. Subj. Past. Subj.

lōc-ie lōc-ode lōc-ie lōc-ode
lōc-ast lōc-odest lōc-ie lōc-ode
lōc-aƥ lōc-ode lōc-ie lōc-ode
lōc-iaƥ lōc-odon lōc-ien lōc-oden
Non-finite forms
Non-inflected infinitive  lōc ian
Inflected infinitive  lōcienne
Present participle  lociende
Past participle  ge-lōc-od
iii. Irregular weak verbs. It is a small group of verbs which show two
particular features:
 The have a dental suffix in the past
 They also show the change of the stem vowel
There is a list of 11 verbs:
 bringan  brohte
 bycgan  bohte
 dwellan  dwealde
 læccan  laehte
 secan  sohte
 tæccan  tæhte
 tellan  tolde
 ƥencan  ƥohte
 ƥyncan  ƥuhte
 wyrcan  worhte
Some of these verbs are still in present day English.
16
The reason explaining this irregularity is phonological. There is an

important phonological change: i-mutation. For example, sell – sold. It is
a phonological change that took place in the Germanic period. It is the
change of a back vowel becoming a front vowel when the vowel /i/ is in
the following syllable.
According to i-mutation, the vowels –u: becomes an –y:, –o: becomes –
e: and –a: becomes –æ. This process explains why we still say for
example sell – sold; tell – told in present day English.
Tell – told  i-mutation took place in the infinitive (tell). We assume
that the movement from an –o: to an –e:. In the infinitive, a Germanic
person would say something like: tollian – tolde. Both have the same
vowel –o. They were not irregular in Germanic. In the infinite, we have
a back vowel and an –i in the following syllable, so that is why i-
mutation takes place. After the application of i-mutation, the vowel
begins to change. For that reason, people began to say tellian – tolde. In
Old English, we have tellan – tolde, and in present day English we have
tell – told.
Another example could be the present day English verb seek – sought.
We all assume that the infinitive is the mutated form. In the infinitive, in
Old English they would say something like sokian – sohte. The vowel
begins to change until it begins to be sekian – sohte. The past tense is
not affected by any change. In present day English, we lose the clue of
that vowel, and we begin to have secan – sohte. For that reason, we
have seek – sought. The –t at the end tells us that it was originally a
weak verb. Today, it belongs to the group of irregular verbs.
 Swim – swan – swum  strong verb.

 Send – sent  weak verb, class one. The final consonant changes and there is an assimilation:
sentt – sent.
 Tell – told – told  weak verb, irregular. We have the dental suffix but the vowel changes.
(inf.) tellan – tolde (past.)  different root for the present and for the
past. In case we want to conjugate the verb in the present tense, we
omit the inflection and we take the root: tell  tell-e, tell-est, tell-eƥ,
tell-aƥ, tell-aƥ, tell-aƥ. In the past, we also take the root: told, and we
add the corresponding inflections in Old English: told-e, told-est, told-e,
told-on, told-on, told-on.
(inf.) bringan – brohte (past.)  in the infinitive, we take the root and
we omit the inflection (–an): bring  bring-e, bring-est, bring-eƥ, bring-
aƥ, bring-aƥ. In the past, we take the root: broht. Then we add the
endings of the past indicative: broht  broht-e, broht-est, broht-e,
broht-on, broh-ton, broh-ton.
17
iv. Class three: irregular weak verbs: Contains four verbs that are so
irregular that they cannot belong to class one or class two.
 habban  to have
 secg(e)an  to say
 libban  to live
 bycgean  to think
 Exercise:
These are weak verbs belonging to class one with a short vowel:
 Bledan: past tense  bledede. In the 3rd person singular, the vowel –e
disappears. So, we have bledde. There is a process of consonantal assimilation
and the result will be blede.
 Fedan: past tense  fedede. In the 3rd person singular, the vowel is omitted.
So, we have fedde. The result is fede.
 Feran: past tense  ferede. In the 3rd person singular, the vowel is omitted. So,
we have ferde. Depending on the consonant cluster there is going to be
assimilation or not.
 Mettan: past tense  mettede. In the 3rd person singular, the vowel is omitted.
So, we have mettde. We have three dental consonants. The result is mette.
 Settan: past tense  settede. In the 3rd person singular, the vowel is omitted.
So, we have settde. We have three dental consonants. It is difficult to
pronounce, so they undertake a process of assimilation until we have sette.
Worksheet 6.
 Sende: infinitive: sendan. Weak verb, class one. Short vowel. Past  sendede >
sendde > sente/sende. 3rd person singular.
 Fulluht  accusative. direct object.
 Ūs  per. pron. dative. plural.
Old English Strong Verbs

A strong verb is that kind of verb that changes the stem vowel in the past tenses. For
example, we can see it when we say take, took, taken. This is something that we can
find in German, Norwegian and also in present day English. For example: write, wrote,
written. Write is the stem that we use to conjugate the present. Wrote is the stem that
we are going to use to conjugate the past tenses. And written is used for the past
participle. In present day English, we need three roots, one for the present, one for
the past and another for the participle. There is a small difference when we compare
18
present day English with Old English. In Old English, we are going to use four different
stems. In the case of the verb riddan (ride), we have four different stems: ridan
(infinitive), rad, ridon, riden. These are the four stems that we are going to have in Old
English in order to conjugate that particular verb. This is what we call apophony.
Apophony is the vowel alteration that we have in the strong verb. Why do we have
four different stems in Old English?
We have one stem that we call the infinitive (ridan), and it is going to be used in order
to conjugate all the present tenses, so the infinitive ridan in Old English is for the
present indicative, subjunctive and also for the present participle.The second one is
what we called the preterit 1. It is the form that we are going to use in order to
conjugate the first and the third person singular in the past indicative. The third stem is
the preterit 2 and it is used to conjugate all the other past tenses. It is used in the
second person singular past indicative, the plural in the past and also used in the past
subjunctive. So, as we can see, the past tense is divided into two different stems:
preterit 1 and preterit 2. Finally, we have the past participle in order to conjugate the
past participle in English.
Finite forms
Pres. Ind. Pres. Subj. Past. Ind. Past. Subj.

rīd-e rīd-e rād rid-e
rīd-(e)st > rītst rīd-e rid-e rid-e
rīd-(e)ƥ > rītt rīd-e rād rid-e
rīd-aƥ rīd-en rid-on rid-en
Non-finite forms
Non-inflected infinitive  rīdan
Inflected infinitive  rīd-enne
Present participle  rīd-ende
Past participle  ge-rid-en
Example: wrītan, wrāt, wrīton, written  vowel change. strong verb.
Finite form
Pres. Ind. Pres. Subj. Past. Ind. Past. Subj.

wrīt-e wrīt-e wrāt writ-e
wrīt-est wrīt-e writ-e writ-e
wrīt-eƥ wrīt-e wrāt writ-e
wrīt-aƥ wrīt-en writ-on writ-en
19

Non-finite form
Non-inflected infinitive  wrītan
Inflected infinitive  wrīt-enne
Present participle  rīd-ende
Past participle  ge-writ-en
Irregularities
We are going to find two general irregularities or exceptions:
1. Omission of the inflectional vowel: it always takes place in the second and the
third person singular in the present tense. For example: riddan  2nd and 3rd
per. sing.  rid-(e)st > ritst, rid-(e)ƥ > ritt. We are going to omit the vowel –e.
When the vowel is omitted, we usually have consonants coming into contact
(ridst, ridƥ). These consonants may be easily pronounced or not. Sometimes
there is a phonological problem because these two consonants are difficult to
pronounce. When we have a phonological problem, the language develops in
order to find a solution. So, we have a process of assimilation, and they become
ritst; ritt.
After the omission of vowels, we decide if the consonants are easy to

pronounce or not according to the table. If they do not appear in the table, it
means that the consonants are easy to pronounce.
Tables of assimilations
2nd person singular

dst tst rædst > rætst
ƥst sst cwiƥst > cwist
ngst ncst brings > brincst
gst hst stigts > stihst
3rd person singular

tƥ/dƥ tt brindƥ > bintt
sƥ st ciesƥ > ciest
gƥ hƥ liegƥ > liehƥ
20
2. I-mutation in the 2nd and 3rd person singular present tenses. As we know, I-
mutation appears with the movement of a back vowel to a front vowel on
condition that the vowel –i is in the following syllable. For example:
Present indicative (faran ‘to go’)

far-e
færst
færƥ
fara-aƥ
fara-aƥ
fara-aƥ
Example: fare, farest (farst), fareƥ (farƥ), faraƥ, faraƥ, faraƥ.
According to i-mutation, the conjugation that we have is fare, færst, færƥ,

faraƥ, faraƥ, faraƥ. I-mutation took place before Old English. As we can see, we
do not have any syllable with an –i. So, why does I-mutation take place? In
Germanic, people would say something like this:
*farist
*fariθ
This is the phonological context where I-mutation takes place. The vowel –a
moved until it became –æ and after the movement, the vowel –i disappeared,
so we have farθ.
As we have seen, the verb wrītan is conjugated in the present tense in this way:
Pres. Ind.
wrīt-e
wrīt-est
wrīt-eƥ
wrīt-aƥ
wrīt-aƥ
wrīt-aƥ
According to the first irregularity, the stem vowel will be omitted and we will
have writ-est > writst, writ-eƥ > writƥ. The consonants of the verb writst [ts] is
not found in the table, so we assume that it was easy for them to pronounce.
But, writƥ, [tƥ] is found in the table, so it is difficult to pronounce, so it
becomes writt. According to the second irregularity, we do not have i-mutation
because we already have a front vowel in the stem vowel.
21

Old English Morphology.

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Old English Morphology.

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HISTORIA DE LA LENGUA INGLESA

Unit 3. Old English Morphology

 case: they are used to express a particular grammatical function. We

 gender: we distinguish the masculine, feminine and neuter gender. In Old

se mōna (m). It is masculine because it has the masculine determiner.

In Old English, we have grammatical gender but today in English we have

Old English Nouns

Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural

Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural

Irregularities in strong nouns

mearas, mearas, meara, mearum.

Strong neuter nouns

Strong feminine nouns

Singular Plural Singular Plural

Nominative sunu suna

Nominative dothor dothor

Nominative modor modor

Nominative fot fet

There was a time when all the Germanic

Fot - Fotiß Nominative fōt fēt

Mūs - Musis Nominative mūs mȳs

Man - Manis Nominative man men

Nominative cild cildru Nominative lamb lambru

Old English adjectives

 Declension: we distinguish between strong and weak declensions. They are

1. When it is preceded by a demonstrative (se, sēo, ƥæt (the); ƥēs,

of this noun phrase is cwēn. It is a strong noun, nominative, feminine

2. When it is preceded by a possessive adjective. For example, mīn

3. When it is found in a vocative expression. For example, Leofe

When it is not preceded by a demonstrative, vocative expression or a possessive

 Case: nominative, accusative, genitive and dative.

Masculine Feminine Neuter Plural (all

Masculine Feminine Neuter singular

Masculine plural Feminine plural Neuter plural

Masculine singular Feminine singular Neuter singular

Masculine plural Feminine plural Neuter plural

There are three degrees of comparison: equality, superiority and absolute

Se cyning is cwickra than seo cwen. Cyning is masculine and singular.

Seo cwen is cwicra ƥan se cyning. Cwen is feminine and singular.

We are going to establish two different groups:

We have to pay attention to strang, strengra, strengest. When we say strang,

Singular Plural Dual

Singular Plural Dual

Masculine Feminine Neuter Plural

As its name says, a possessive adjective is an adjective. It needs a noun in order to be

1st per. sing 2nd per. sing 3rd per. sing

[the, that, those]

Masculine Feminine sing. Neuter sing. All genders.

Masculine sing. Feminine sing. Neuter All genders

Old English Verbs

We are going to distinguish four different types of verbs:

 Those containing a long stem vowel (đēman)

Pres. Indicat. Past. Indicat. Pres. Subj. Past. Subj.

 Non-inflected infinitive: it is the ordinary infinitive that we have

Short stem vowel

Prest. Ind. Past. Ind. Pres. Subj. Past. Subj.

Past. Ind. Past. Ind.

Pres. Ind. Past. Ind. Pres. Subj. Past. Subj.

The reason explaining this irregularity is phonological. There is an

 Swim – swan – swum  strong verb.

Old English Strong Verbs

Pres. Ind. Pres. Subj. Past. Ind. Past. Subj.

Example: wrītan, wrāt, wrīton, written  vowel change. strong verb.