| 1.1 | The noun | |
1.3 | 'This' (ðes, ðéos, ðis) |
| 1.2 | 'The' (se, séo, þæt) | 1.4 | The subject |
1.1 Nouns are words denoting things, for example concrete items such as 'table','lamp', or abstract ideas such as 'beauty', 'hardness', 'nationality'. They fall into three classes or genders, called masculine (m), feminine (f) and neuter (n). We still retain a memory of this three-way system in our words 'he' (m), 'she' (f) and 'it' (n). Of course, we generally use 'it' for anything other than a human being, but still conventionally refer to ships as 'she', and household pets as 'he' or 'she'. In OE, any masculine noun can be replaced by the masculine pronoun hé, and likewise feminines by héo and neuters by hit. Nouns are more or less evenly distributed among the three genders.
Mann (a man) and stán (a stone) are both masculine and are used with the word se (the). Se mann can mean both 'the man' and 'that man', since there was no separate word for 'that'.
Talu (a tale) is feminine; its word for 'the' or 'that' is séo.
Land (a land) is neuter; it takes ðæt to mean 'the / that land'.
Even today we can often use 'the' and 'that' interchangeably, as in "Do you know the/that boy who delivers the newspapers?" or "How much is the/that doggy in the window?".
The letters þ and ð are used pretty well interchangeably in Old English so that ðæt can also be spelt þæt. Anglo-Saxon scribes were apparently content to spell the same word in the same sentence with different characters! Throughout this course I have varied the letters so that you will become familiar with the idea.
A noun used with 'the', 'that' or 'this' is said to be definite. This will have some effect on the words used with it, as we shall see later on (section 12.1).
Mann actually means 'adult human being, person' without reference to sex; the sex words were wer for a male and wíf for a female.
| mann | (a man) | |
menn | (men) |
| stán | (a stone) | stánas | (stones) | |
| talu | (a tale) | tala | (tales) | |
| land | (a land) | land | (lands) |
Se, séo and ðæt are all singular forms (like he, she and it) to which there corresponds one plural form for all genders, ðá :
| singular | |
plural | |
| se stán | (m) | ðá stánas | |
| se mann | (m) | ðá menn | |
| séo talu | (f) | ðá tala | |
| ðæt land | (n) | ðá land |
Question: If land has the same spelling in the singular and the plural, how can anyone tell which it is? Fortunately, there are ways other than looking for þæt or þá, as we shall see below (l.4).
There is no word corresponding to the modern 'a, an' so that stán is both 'stone' and 'a stone'.
Apart from a few oddities like mann and some others, the masculines mostly add -as in the plural.
While many neuters (like land) add no ending in the plural, some (like scip, a ship) add -u (i.e. scipu); rules for determining which pattern a noun belongs to will be given later (section 9.4).
Practice 1.2: give the correct word for 'the' for the following nouns, then check your answers by moving the mouse pointer over each word. Bear in mind that for one word there is more than one correct answer!
Continue with this until you are confident with these words.
| ðes mann | this man | |
ðás menn | these men |
| ðéos talu | this tale | |
ðás tala | these tales |
| ðis land | this land | |
ðás land | these lands |
You can see that the NE words 'this' and 'that' are from the OE neuters ðis and ðæt.
Practice 1.3. give the correct words for 'the' and 'this' for the following, then check your answers. Again, beware of one particular example!
The subject dictates the ending of the verb, just as in NE we say "the man hesitates" (with -s inflexional ending) and "the men hesitate" (with no inflexional ending on the verb). OE has a fuller set of endings but the principle is the same; in this way, it is possible to tell by the verb the singular from plural uses of words like land, as in land is... "a land is..." versus land sind... "lands are...". However, this only works when words like land are the subject of their sentences (see further in the Exercises section)
The grammatical name for the set of endings showing the subject is the nominative case.
The nominative case and singular number are important to the student because dictionaries almost always use these forms for their alphabetical listings of head words. It follows that if you want to know what stánas means, you have to recognise it as a plural and look up the singular stán.
| masculine | |
feminine | |
neuter | |||
| mann (menn) |
a man | talu (tala) |
a tale | land (land) |
a land | ||
| cyning (cyningas) |
a king | brýd (brýda) |
a bride | scip (scipu) |
a ship | ||
| móna | (a) moon | sunne | (a) sun | hors (hors) |
a horse | ||
| stán (stánas) |
(a) stone | niht (nihta) |
a night | tungol (tunglu) |
a star | ||
| sing. | |
pl. | ||
| is | is | sind | are | |
| rídeð | rides, is riding | rídað | ride, are riding | |
| wadeð | walks, is walking | wadað | walk, are walking | |
| cymþ | comes, is coming | cumaþ | come, are coming | |
| scínð | shines, is shining | scínað | shine, are shining | |
| sweorceþ | darkens, is darkening | sweorcað | darken, are darkening | |
| ábídeþ | awaits, is awaiting | ábídaþ | await, are awaiting | |
| hæfð | has | habbaþ | have | |
There are no separate progressive forms, so that for example cymþ can mean 'comes' or 'is coming' according to the context.
In some West Saxon texts, these and other verbs have dropped the the -e- of the ending. This causes unpronounceable sequences of sounds which are simplified - the vowels also change according to definite sequences which will be dealt with later (7.5). For now, you should just be aware of the following correspondences:
| rídeð becomes rítt | |
wadeð becomes watt |
| bíteð becomes bítt | befæsteþ becomes befæst | |
| sweorceð becomes swiercð | ábídeð becomes ábítt | |
| cumeð becomes cymþ | scíneð becomes scínð |
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