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The unification of the ways of building the plural forms of nouns in the history of English

The grammatical distinctions reflected in the Germanic noun are:
Number	Case	Gender

Ø the traditional names for the Germanic noun classes contain the word ‘stem’;

Ø in Germanic grammars nouns with vocalic themes are called ‘strong’;

Ø in Germanic grammars a small class of nouns with stems in –n– are called ‘weak’.

All the Old English nouns fell into nouns with:
Vowel-stems (a-, ō-, i-, u-)	Consonant-stems (n-)	minor noun declensions

***

Modern English plural endings	Old English origin
-S /-ES girls, tables, bridges, ….	-AS nouns of ‘strong’declension (vocalic stems), a-‘stem’,Masculine, marked the nom./acc. plural.
-EN oxen, children, brethren	–AN nouns of ‘weak’declension (consonantal stems), n-‘stem’,all three genders, marked the nom./acc. plural.
I-UMLAUT (MUTATION) of the root vowel feet, geese, men, women, teeth, mice, lice	minor noun declensions the nom/acc. plural of nouns of the root class
ZERO (unchanged /invariable forms) deer, swine, fish … (names of the animals used collectively)	ZERO plural nouns of ‘strong’declension (vocalic stems), a-‘stem’,Neuter, which has either a long root vowel, or two consonants at the end, marked the nom./acc. plural. many of these unchanged (invariable) forms pass into the common –ES plural type in Modern English.
-Æ / -A formulæ, curricula, phenomena ….	BORROWED WORDS from Latin or Greek, usually assumed the inflection of the native words.

Even the most far-reaching changes in the marking of syntactic relations and the collapse of the old grammatical gender system left English with the necessity of retaining at least ONE inflectional form to carry the function of number indication. In effect, the evolution of inflectional affixes signifying “plural” shows from the very beginning a strong trend in the direction of the establishment of a “one function : one form” relationship. Considerable progress in the reduction of earlier “multiformity” and the use of like forms for like functions has already been achieved by the Early Middle English period.

Recommended readings:

Ilyish B.A. History of the English Language. – L., 1973. – Р. 63-74, 174-178, 274-275.

Rastorguyeva T.A. A History of English. – M., 1983. – Р. 93-101, 222-229.

Lecture 4

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