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The indefinite article appeared from the OE numeral ān (one) and had the meaning of “oneness” (it still indicates only nouns in Sg, i.e. nouns indicating one object or notion).
In OE ān had 5-case paradigm that was lost in ME and only one form was left – oon/one. Later it was employed in the building of the indefinite article a/an.
Personal Pronouns
See Lecture 14 for the categories of the personal pronouns.
Personal Pronouns possessed (and still do) a very vivid Indo-European feature – suppletivity (i.e. they build their forms with the help of different roots (see also Lecture 4)).
Personal pronouns in OE changed in Gender, Number, Case, Person:
Pers. | Case | Number | ||
Singular | Plural | Dual | ||
1st | Nom | ic | wē | wit |
Gen | min | ūre | uncer | |
Dat | mē | ūs | unc | |
Acc | mec/mē | ūsic | uncit | |
2nd | Nom | þu* | ζē* | ζit |
Gen | þin | ēower | incer | |
Dat | þe | ēow* | inc | |
Acc | þec/þe | ēowic | incit |
Pers. | Case | Gender, Number | |||
M, Sg | F, Sg | N, Sg | Plural | ||
3rd | Nom | hē* | hēo/hīo* | hit* | hēo/hīe* |
Gen | his | hire | his | hira | |
Dat | him | hire | him | him | |
Acc | hine | hīe | hit | hēo/hīe |
Later the following changes happened to the personal pronouns (some of them are marked with * in the table above so that one can trace the connection easily):
Gender
Genderisstill preserved(he, she, it) in ModE but is often denied by scholars because it is expressed lexically and practically has nothing to do with grammar.
2. Cases:
· In ME the Genitive Case turned into a new class of pronouns – Possessive Pronouns (e.g. ModE I (pers.) – mine (possess.); you – yours, he – his, she – her, etc.);
· The Dative and the Accusative Cases fell together and formed the Objective Case. Thus in ME there were only two cases left in the personal pronouns – Nominative and Objective (e.g. ModE I (Nom) – me (Obj); he – him, she – her, etc.).
Number
Dual formsdisappeared in ME. In NE the category of Number disappeared in the 2nd person of the personal pronouns (see the explanation below).
4. 3rd person
As far as in the Early ME many forms in the 3rd person coincided phonetically and often caused confusion and difficulties in communication, the following changes occurred:
Pers. | Gender | OE | Early ME | Late ME | Comments |
3rd | M, Sg | hē à | he à | he | preserved original form |
F, Sg | hēo/hīo à | he à | she | As far as it coincided with M, Sg and Plural forms, a new word was found – derived from the demonstrative pronoun sēo (F, Sg, Nom) – to distinguish the forms. | |
N, Sg | hit à | hit à | it | preserved original form, lost initial [h] | |
Plural | hēo/hīe à | he/hi à | they | As far as it coincided with M, Sg and F, Sg forms, a new word was found – a Scandinavian borrowing – to distinguish the forms. |
5. 2nd person
Pers. | Number | OE | ME | Comments | NE |
2nd | Sg | þu à | thou à | Fell out of use due to the French etiquette (it forbade impolite “thou” form, so it was replaced with the polite “ēow” form). | ēow (Pl, Dat)(you) |
Pl | ζē à | ye à | Coincided phonetically with wē à was dropped |
Thus in NE the category of Number disappeared in the 2nd person of the personal pronouns.
Дата публикования: 2014-11-03; Прочитано: 576 | Нарушение авторского права страницы | Мы поможем в написании вашей работы!