Many Endings vs. Few Words of Old and Modern English
Comparing the many endings and few words of Old and Modern English, we see that the main change between the two stages is that of a language with free word order and many endings but no ‘small’ words such as the or to becoming a language with strict word order, few endings and many ‘small’ words. This change, involving the grammaticalization of prepositions to replace case endings, is formulated in (11):
Like Modern English, Old English third person pronouns show masculine, feminine, and neuter gender. Unlike Modern English, Old English also marks grammatical gender on demonstratives, adjectives, and nouns. The grammatical gender of the noun determines the gender of the demonstrative and the adjective. Thus, the masculine forms of the demonstrative and adjective are used before masculine nouns such as cyning ‘king’; the feminine forms are used before feminine nouns such as lufu ‘love’; and the neuter forms are used before neuter nouns such as godspel ‘gospel’. The grammatical gender need not correspond to the natural gender of a noun: wif ‘woman’ and cild ‘child’ are neuter
Reflexive pronouns, such as myself and himself, do not occur in Old English
Instead, the regular pronoun is used
In Old English, demonstratives are often used where Modern English uses relatives, as in
(20). Relative pronouns connect one sentence to another. In (20), þone is an accusative
‘that’; in Modern English it would be that or who(m):
(20)
Nouns have endings for number, case, and gender
The strong and weak endings are also referred to as indefinite and definite in some Old English grammars
The ending of the adjective is very intricate in Old English. As in other Germanic languages, such as German, Dutch, and Swedish, its form depends on whether a demonstrative
is
Like Modern English, Old English third person pronouns show masculine, feminine, and neuter gender. Unlike Modern English, Old English also marks grammatical gender on demonstratives, adjectives, and nouns. The grammatical gender of the noun determines the gender of the demonstrative and the adjective. Thus, the masculine forms of the demonstrative and adjective are used before masculine nouns such as cyning ‘king’; the feminine forms are used before feminine nouns such as lufu ‘love’; and the neuter forms are used before neuter nouns such as godspel ‘gospel’. The grammatical gender need not correspond to the natural gender of a noun: wif ‘woman’ and cild ‘child’ are neuter
Reflexive pronouns, such as myself and himself, do not occur in Old English
Instead, the regular pronoun is used
In Old English, demonstratives are often used where Modern English uses relatives, as in
(20). Relative pronouns connect one sentence to another. In (20), þone is an accusative
‘that’; in Modern English it would be that or who(m):
(20)
Nouns have endings for number, case, and gender
The strong and weak endings are also referred to as indefinite and definite in some Old English grammars
The ending of the adjective is very intricate in Old English. As in other Germanic languages, such as German, Dutch, and Swedish, its form depends on whether a demonstrative
is