English Declension and Conjugation?*

[Anonimulo]

As compared to other Germanic languages, English only really conjugates the 3rd person singular differently from the rest, only in the present (with -s from original -th). The 2nd person singular used to take -st before it merged with the 2nd person plural. The plural forms were identical since Old English, but how did they enter our modern English identical to the 1st person singular? The ending used to be -e but dropped when schwas were lost, but what happened with the plurals? Were they originally -en and the -n dropped and then the -e? Because I thought the Old English present plurals ended in what would become -eth?

Also, are most of our verb forms inherited from Old English through sound change or was only one form inherited and the rest altered by analogy? Such as the lack of umlaut in thou and he forms.

Answers much appreciated!

*EDIT: Have noun questions now, too, hehe. >.> Thanks!

[linguoboy]

The plural forms were identical since Old English, but how did they enter our modern English identical to the 1st person singular? The ending used to be -e but dropped when schwas were lost, but what happened with the plurals? Were they originally -en and the -n dropped and then the -e? Because I thought the Old English present plurals ended in what would become -eth?

It was only the indicative present plurals which ended in /Vθ/; all the other plural forms had /Vn/. I'd always assumed the present tense indicative forms got leveled by analogy, either before or after the /n/ was lost.

[Herra Ratatoskr]

In Middle English there was a three-way split in the indicative plural. The Southern dialect kept Old English's -aþ ending more or less intact as -eþ. In the North, the ending was -es, probably from a þ -> s shift that explains the -es that appears in the 3rd Singular. Combined with the fact that Northern English never seemed to generalize the modified 2nd Singular ending -est instead of earlier -es, you get -es for every person/number in the north, except for first person singular. This is almost certainly behind the development of the Northern Subject Rule.

In the midlands, the -en plural from the past tense and subjunctive was leveled into the indicative. As final -n began to be dropped, the plural merged with the first person singular. From what I've seen, however, this was not complete even by Shakespeare's day, especially in West-Central England, where the plural form -en still existed in Elizabethan times.

As for analogy, we've undergone some significant leveling since Old English, primarily in the strong verbs. We've gone from a 4-vowel ablaut pattern (present, preterite "singular", preterite "plural", past participle) to a 3-vowel system (present, preterite, past participle). Hell, if you include the 2nd/3rd Singular umlaut found in some Strong verbs, you could even say we went from a 5-vowel system to a 3-vowel. You also might consider the erosion of the subjunctive and distinct imperative plural, and the merger of the gerund and present participle, to be further instances of leveling.

[Basilius]

Herra's account of the relevant matters is rather exhaustive.

The little bit that can be added seems to be that we have very little data on the OE dialect spoken in what became the London area (it is usually assumed that it was a variety of Mercian, but this isn't based on much positive evidence AFAIK), and the same is true of some adjacent areas that could influence the future dialect of the capital city and/or its suburbs (I mean Essex in particular; its OE dialect must have been somewhat deviant, as it seems).

However, this might be important for the timing of the changes in question and the dynamics of their geographical spread, but hardly affects their general logic.

[Anonimulo]

Hmm. That's what I figured.

But, just based on sound laws, is it safe to assume -en was the "standard" ending that past into our English that then eroded? Lemme hypothesize what "to drink" or "drinken" would look like:

I drinke
thou drink(e)st
he drink(e)th
we drinken
ye drinken
they drinken

The inflectional -n was dropped, leaving just the schwa like 1st Sg. Then the schwa was dropped. And the -th was de-lisped into -s. Then "you" overtook "ye" AND "thou" so that declension disappeared and voilà. That's just me and my sound laws.

(Also, I'm trying to go back in time and bring back English conjugation and kinda mirror other Germanic languages, but lemme leave that out for now.)

[Herra Ratatoskr]

If by "our" English, you mean the East Midlands dialect that developed into "standard" Modern English, then yes. Your conjugation table is pretty much right, but I would like to clarify that the th -> s shift in the third person singular wasn't a sound change, but a replacement of the "native" Midlands form with the Northern form, starting in the 15th century. By Shakespeare's day, the two were in competition, with -s already leading. One line from Merchant of Venice goes "It blesseth him that gives and him that takes" showing that at that point the endings were interchangeable. Often poets would use one form or the other depending on whether they needed an extra syllable. If you were going for a sort of "purified Midlands" conjugation, I'd suggest it go something like:

Code: Select all

     Present     Past
I    drink       drank
thou drink(e)st  drank(e)st
he   drink(e)th  drank

we   drink       drank
ye   drink       drank
they drink       drank

[Anonimulo]

Did the -st for thou forms just come to always be applied? Because I thought for a verb like "drink", Old English just added -e for thou regularly. So, with that being dropped later, it would be drank like the others?

[Yng]

Did the -st for thou forms just come to always be applied? Because I thought for a verb like "drink", Old English just added -e for thou regularly. So, with that being dropped later, it would be drank like the others?

Yes, it spread by analogy.

[Travis B.]

Did the -st for thou forms just come to always be applied? Because I thought for a verb like "drink", Old English just added -e for thou regularly. So, with that being dropped later, it would be drank like the others?

At what time depth are you speaking here? From what I am reading here, the present indicative 2sg. ending is -(V)s(t) overall except if no vowel is present and it comes after some consonants, where then just -t may be present. Also, for weak verbs and the verbs dōn, gān, and willan the same applies for the past indicative 2sg. ending (attached after any weak ending). The only verb 2sg. forms that seem to lack this are subjunctives, strong preterites, and obviously imperatives.

[Herra Ratatoskr]

Did the -st for thou forms just come to always be applied? Because I thought for a verb like "drink", Old English just added -e for thou regularly. So, with that being dropped later, it would be drank like the others?

Oops, I'd forgotten about the -e ending in the strong preterite. That was the ending was still in force in the midlands in the Middle English period, so if you don't want any analogical leveling, I'd have it be "drank" in the preterite. Although, if you want to have no leveling, you should keep the different stem vowels, so in the preterite drink would be "drank" in the 1/3 singular, and "drunk" in the 2 singular and 1-3 plural. So, the un-analogized conjugation of drink would be:

Code: Select all

     Present     Past
I    drink       drank
thou drink(e)st  drunk
he   drink(e)th  drank

we   drink       drunk
ye   drink       drunk
they drink       drunk

[Anonimulo]

OK, thanks for making it so clear, Herra!

But here's more Q's about English verbs. I was mostly concerned with modern English as far back as 500 years ago, but now the I'm looking through Old English again, I'm wondering.

I know -an is the infinitive marker, but I see -ian a lot and I don't see -ien in Middle English. Where did the -i- go? Did it cause umlaut or anything? Also, does that 5th umlaut occur a lot in English (or used to)? The 2nd and 3rd persons singular present indicative, I mean.

Also, I'd like to ask about declension too since I've mentioned and been concerned with the dropping of inflectional -n's and all final schwas. Weak nouns lost all declension after this event, no? And strong nouns only retained -s for the M/N nom. pl. and gen. sg. Is this how -s was analogized to be the plural and genitive for everything? And why would some -n forms still exist in the standard? Like children, oxen or brethren (even though the last two are on the way out)? Dialect mixture or something?

[Nannalu]

I drink_
You drink_
He/she/it drinks
We drink_
You drink_
They drink_

[spats]

I know -an is the infinitive marker, but I see -ian a lot and I don't see -ien in Middle English. Where did the -i- go? Did it cause umlaut or anything?

Might have just been leveled. If there was umlaut, you'd see it in the ME forms. OE > ME was fairly regular sound change, so you can interpolate.

Also, I'd like to ask about declension too since I've mentioned and been concerned with the dropping of inflectional -n's and all final schwas. Weak nouns lost all declension after this event, no? And strong nouns only retained -s for the M/N nom. pl. and gen. sg. Is this how -s was analogized to be the plural and genitive for everything? And why would some -n forms still exist in the standard? Like children, oxen or brethren (even though the last two are on the way out)? Dialect mixture or something?

I'm going to guess you're right about the generalization - I can't see any other way that could have happened.

The -en are likely just fossilized forms. They're quite common words, and therefore less likely to be leveled.

[Yng]

Also, I'd like to ask about declension too since I've mentioned and been concerned with the dropping of inflectional -n's and all final schwas. Weak nouns lost all declension after this event, no? And strong nouns only retained -s for the M/N nom. pl. and gen. sg. Is this how -s was analogized to be the plural and genitive for everything? And why would some -n forms still exist in the standard? Like children, oxen or brethren (even though the last two are on the way out)? Dialect mixture or something?

Lots of common nouns did not undergo the initial burst of analogy; forms with -n have become gradually fewer and fewer over the past 800 years or so (most of them were gone in the prestige dialect by Shakespeare's time), but some have stuck around.

[Herra Ratatoskr]

Mostly, the -ien verbs were leveled with the -en verbs. There are (or at least were) some dialects in the late 1800s that kept some verbs with infinitives that ended in -y, at least in some contexts. I'll try to find some documentation for this and give you the links. The umlauted stem forms were leveled pretty early on (though I've kept them around in West Saxon, cuz I think they're cool).

As for the nouns, the -s plural was most commonly extended in the north, to begin with. In the southern dialects, -en was actually extended for a while, but was replaced by -s from the north by about the 1500s. Had that not happened, we might have a pluralization system similar to West Frisian, which uses -en and -s for pluralization, depending on how the word ends.

I've actually got quite a few Old English, Middle English, and Early Modern English resources. If you have any specific topic requests, like particular dialects or features, I could try to send you some links.

[Herra Ratatoskr]

Ah, here we go. The -y form was found in the Dorset dialect. Here's the relevant passage I was thinking of (and you might find the whole book of interest, tbh)

[hwhatting]

Had that not happened, we might have a pluralization system similar to West Frisian, which uses -en and -s for pluralization, depending on how the word ends.

Interesting. The West Frisian plural system looks a lot like the Dutch system - no wonder, considering the heavy Dutch influence on West Frisian.

[Herra Ratatoskr]

I had a vague inkling that Dutch was similar, but I'm more familiar with Frisian, and like to pimp it when I can.

[Anonimulo]

The Dorset dialect is/was definitely cool. Some things are hard to grasp, though. For me, anyway.

But, here's another thing. So, since I said only nom. pl. -s and gen. sg. -s survived, they were leveled into today's -s and 's for everything; I was wondering about the weak declensions. Vowel reduction woulda left the endings -e, -en, -ene, and -em. With unstressed -m being turned to -n and 2nd unstressed schwa was dropped, only -e and -en would have been left. Then, when inflectional -n was deleted and final schwa soon after, all weak nouns woulda been bare-stemmed and indeclinable.

So, would that yield "name" as this form only? "My name is…" "I have a name!" "My name meaning is…" "How many name do you have??" The same for tongue and eye, my feminine and neuter examples. "Two eye." "My tongue taste buds."

In fact, without level and with regular sound changes, that woulda left only strong masculine and neuter nouns to be declinable, right? And neuter only in the gen. sg.

[Anonimulo]

Also, back to verbs, I was reading about strong verbs and for the Old English example the 3rd sg. ended in either -þ, -Vþ, or -t. But there didn't seem to be a reason for it.

[Herra Ratatoskr]

From my understanding, -eþ was found in all weak verbs, and strong verbs where the preceding syllable is "light" (no long vowels, diphthongs, or consonant cluster codas). Otherwise, the "e" of the ending is syncopated, and the ending becomes -þ (-est was also syncopated to -st under the same rules). There was much confusion later on, with analogy mixing the two forms up, to different extents in different dialects. In Anglian, the -eþ ending is favored more than in the Kentish or West Saxon dialects.

If the contracted form occurred on a stem that ended in d or t, the -þ ending would merge, creating t. So you would have "he binds" as "bint" instead of "bindeþ".

If you want a more in-depth coverage of this, look at Joseph Wright's Old English Grammar(it's public domain, so you can read it online) and go to page 240.

[Anonimulo]

OK, so. Here's another question. I don't know much about Scots, so does anyone know if it retained any archaic features that became obsolete or lost in English? Like in morphology as well as vocab.

[Anonimulo]

OH! Also. Chaucer's generation was basically last to use final schwas, right? I read that they were important in his language because they made morphological distinctions and such like adjectival agreement, etc. Does anyone know the specifics of this?

[Herra Ratatoskr]

My Scots knowledge is a bit lacking, but in general I don't think it kept many archaisms compared to English, at least grammatically. There is a (slightly) greater use of -n plurals (wikipedia lists ee/een : "eyes" and shae/shuin : "shoes"), as well as a few more irregular plurals. It also has a tendency to use the singular form with nouns of measure, which I want to say I've heard might be a continuation of the genitive plural ending -a, which would have reduced to nothing, rendering it identical to the singular. I have no citation for that, just a gut feeling that I've heard it somewhere. Take with copious quantaties of NaCl. Another thing found in some dialects is a distinction in pronunciation between the gerund ending -en (pronounced either /in/ or /In/) and present participle -en (pronounced /@n/). However, some dialects of English also have a distinction, with gerund being /IN/ and participle being /In/.

Phonologically, I can say that Scots generally keeps Old English long a as a, rather than rounding it to o (compare English "home" with Scots "hame"). Scots is also has /x/, which English lost.

For vocab, I know that there are some archaisms (like using "hairst", cognate with harvest, as a word for autumn, like German "Herbst"). You could look through Wiktionary's Scots section for old looking words. A minute looking at nouns and "byspel" jumped out, meaning "proverb, example", and cognate with German "Beispiel", meaning example.

[Herra Ratatoskr]

For your second question, they were still pronounced, some of the time (mostly, they were dropped before vowel sounds and "light" h, sort of like the n in an). The grammar points they marked were somewhat in flux. I'd think an analogy could be drawn between things like strong singular vs plural/weak adjective distinctions in Middle English and the use of "whom" vs "who" in Modern English, or the use of the subjunctive. They aren't quite dead, but they ain't healthy, they're often confused, and for them, the fat lady is warming up backstage.

If you're into the development of Middle English, Samuel Moore's Historical Outlines of English Phonology and Middle English Grammar is a pretty good introduction, despite being ~90 years old.

Another couple books worth skimming are:
The Language and Metre of Chaucer and
Observations on the Language of Chaucer's Troilus, especially along with
The Inflections and Syntax of the Morte D'Arthur of Sir Thomas Malory. The last book has frequent comparisons to Chaucer, so it's good for seeing how the language had changed between the late 1300s and mid-late 1400s. I found it fascinating, anglo-nerd that I am.