Middle and New English noun: morphological classification, grammatical categories.

The OE noun had the gr. cat. of Number and Case. The Southern dialects simplified and rearranged the noun declensions on the basis of stem and gender distinctions. In Early ME they employed only four markers - -es, -en, -e, and the root-vowel interchange – plus the bare stem ( the zero- inflection) - but distinguished several paradigms. Masc and Neuter nouns had two declensions, weak and strong, with certain differences between the genders. Masc nouns took the ending -es in the Nom., Acc pl, while Neuter nouns had variant forms:

e.g. Masc fishes –Neut land/lande/landes

Most Fem nouns belonged to the weak declensions and were declined like weak Masc and Neuter nouns. The root-stem declention had mutated vowels in some forms and that vowel interchange was becoming a marker of number rather than case.

In the Midlands and Northern dialects the system of declension was much simplier. There was only one major type of declension and a few traces of other types. The majority of nouns took the endings of Oemasc a-stems: -(e)s in the gen sg, -(e)s in the pl irrespective of case.

Most nouns distinguished two forms: the basic form with the zero ending and the form in –(e)s .

The OE Gender disappeared together with other distinctive features of the noun declensions

The gr category of Case was preserved but underwent profound changes in Early ME. The number of cases in the noun paradigm was reduced from four to two in Late ME. In the 14^th century the ending –es of the Gen sg had become almost universal. In the pl the Gen case had no special marker- it was not distinguished from the common case. Several nouns with a weak plural form in –en or a vowel interchange (oxen, men) added the marker of the Gen case to these forms.

Number is the most stable of all the nominal categories. The number preserved the formal distinction of two numbers. –es was the prevalent marker of nouns in the plural.

Construction With its simplified case-ending system, Middle English is much closer to modern English than its pre-Conquest equivalent.

Nouns Despite losing the slightly more complex system of inflectional endings, Middle English retains two separate noun-ending patterns from Old English. Compare, for example, the early Modern English words "engel" (angel) and "nome" (name):

First and second pronouns survive largely unchanged, with only minor spelling variations. In the third person, the masculine accusative singular became 'him'. The feminine form was replaced by a form of the demonstrative that developed into 'she', but unsteadily—'ho' remains in some areas for a long time. The lack of a strong standard written form between the eleventh and the fifteenth century makes these changes hard to map.

Simplification of noun morphology affected the grammatical categories of the noun in different ways and to a varying degree.

The grammatical category of Case was preserved but underwent profound changes.

2) after a voiceless consonant, e.g. ME bookes [΄bo:kəs] > [bu:ks] > [buks], NE books;

3) after sibilants and affricates [s, z, ∫, t∫, dз] ME dishes [΄di∫əs] > [΄di∫iz], NE dishes.

The ME pl ending –en, used as a variant marker with some nouns lost its former productivity, so that in Standard Mod E it is found only in oxen, brethren, and children. The small group of ME nouns with homonymous forms of number has been further reduced to three exceptions in Mod E: deer, sheep, and swine. The group of former root-stems has survived also only as exceptions: man, tooth and the like.