Declensions 1 98-348: Lecture 3
This class counts as a linguistics elective! • 3 units towards your major/minor
Some problems in Homework 1
Goals • Almost master declension! • Know the basic declension patterns of OI • Know back mutation • Identify the declension pattern of any noun by looking at its dictionary entry
What to expect in the future weeks • Week 4: Declensions 1 (inflections of nouns) • Week 5: Conjugations 1 (inflections of verbs) Usage of cases • Week 6: Declension of pronouns Conjunctions and sentence structure • We’ll be reading real OI texts on the way! • We’ll come back to Declensions 2 and Conjugations 2 later on
Handing out the declension cheatsheet
Categorizing declension patterns Sg Pl Sg Pl Nom r ar Nom ar Gen s a Gen ar a Dat i um Dat um Acc a Acc ar Sg Pl Sg Pl Nom r ir Nom i ar Gen s i Gen a a Dat i um Dat a um Acc i Acc a a
Categorizing declension patterns Sg Pl Nom r ar Gen s a Dat i um Sg Pl Acc a Nom r V r Gen s V Dat i um Sg Pl Acc V Nom r ir Gen s i V = a or i Dat i um Acc i
Strong vs. weak declensions • Traditional names for the two type of declensions • Strong nouns = nouns that follow a strong declension • There are also different declension patterns among strong nouns • There’s nothing strong or weak about the declensions, but • Strong nouns tend to have a wide variety of endings • Weak nouns end mostly in – a , – i or – u
OI nouns have (grammatical) gender • A mostly arbitrary three-way categorization of nouns • Traditionally called masculine , feminine and neuter • Examples of nouns and their gender: • maðr “man” masc. • kona “ woman ” fem. • konungr “ king ” masc. • dróttning “ queen ” fem. • pípnahljómr “the sound of pipes” masc. • tilstaða “condition; circumstances” fem. • barn “child” neu.
Inflection and gender • OI nouns do not inflect for gender! • A noun can have a singular and a plural form. • konungr vs. konungar • A noun can be in the nominative, or the accusative. • konungr vs. konung • A noun can’t have masculine, feminine and neuter gender. Every noun has either masculine, feminine or neuter gender. • konungr (masculine), no such thing as a feminine/neuter form of konungr
“Basic endings” on the cheatsheet • Strong masculine • Strong feminine • Strong neuter • Weak masculine • Weak feminine • Weak neuter • Let’s go through some examples!
Before we move on… • You are absolutely not required to memorize any of the endings or declension paradigms! • You just need to be able to do two things: • Given a noun and its dictionary entry, provide its full declension • Given a noun declined in a particular form and a dictionary, identify its stem and declension type
Strong masculine • Nom is acc plus an extra r ! hestr “horse” Sg Pl Nominative hest r hest ar • Nom/acc pl can be Genitive hest s hest a either ar / a or ir / i Dative hest i hest um • Gen sg is usually s , Accusative hest hest a sometimes ar staðr “place” Sg Pl Nominative stað r stað ir Genitive stað ar stað a • Why stöðum , not staðum ? Dative stað i st ö ð um Accusative stað stað i
Back mutation • An u in an ending causes an a in the final syllable in the stem to change to an ö . • bardagi “battle” → bardögum (dat pl) • vatn “lake” → vötn (dat pl) • Why? • Hint: a /ɑ/, u /u/, ö /ɒ/…
Weak masculine • Singular: i / a / a / a bardagi “battle” Sg Pl Nominative bardag i bardag ar • Plural looks the same with Genitive bardag a bardag a strong masc! Dative bardag a bard ö g um Accusative bardag a bardag a
Strong feminine • Nom = acc mön “mane” Sg Pl Nominative m ö n man ar • Nom/acc pl can be Genitive man ar man a either ar or ir Dative m ö n m ö n um • A lot of back mutation! Accusative m ö n man ar • Gen sg is always ar hlíð “place” Sg Pl Nominative hlíð hlíð ir Genitive hlíð ar hlíð a Dative hlíð hlíð um Accusative hlíð hlíð ir
Weak feminine • Singular: a / u / u / u saga “story” Sg Pl Nominative sag a s ö g ur • Nom/acc pl is ur Genitive s ö g u sag na • Gen pl is na Dative s ö g u s ö g um Accusative s ö g u s ö g ur
Strong neuter • Nom = acc vatn “lake” Sg Pl Nominative vatn v ö tn • Nom/acc sg = nothing, Genitive vatn s vatn a nom/acc pl = back mutation Dative vatn i v ö tn um • Gen sg is always s Accusative vatn v ö tn erindi “message” Sg Pl Nominative erindi erindi Genitive erindi s erind a Dative erindi erind um Accusative erindi erindi
Weak neuter • Singular: a / a / a / a auga “eye” Sg Pl Nominative aug a aug u • Nom/acc pl is u Genitive aug a aug na • Gen pl is na Dative aug a aug um Accusative aug a aug u
Where’s definiteness? • I lied • The definite article is like a noun and has its own declension … • You decline the noun and the article, then you suffix the article to the noun: • konungs (gen sg) + ins (gen sg) → konungsins
Congrats! • We learned the basic declension endings! • Now we just need to look at irregularities and exceptions… • Some of these exceptions will make more sense once we know about how OI developed from its ancestor called Proto-Germanic, where nouns followed much more regular declension patterns with fewer exceptions.
n , r , s , l + r • Try to decline hrafn “raven”! • Strong masculine
hrafn “raven” – where’s the r ? • When r immediately follows n , Sg Pl it assimilates to the n Nom hrafnr hrafn hrafnar Gen hrafns hrafna • * hrafnr > * hrafnn > hrafn Dat hrafni hröfnum (In this case there is also a Acc hrafn hrafna reduction from nn to n ) • This happens to stems ending in s , r , l and n • Why? a > b “a turned into b”
Practice! • Try declining: • Stem ending in n : sveinn “boy” • Stem ending in s : íss “ice” • Stem ending in l : jarl “poet; earl” • Stem ending in r : róðr “rowing, pulling” • Any problems, especially with róðr?
How did we know that the stem of róðr ends in r ? • konungr Stem is konung • róðr Stem is róðr • ??? • This is when you use the dictionary
The dictionary • Originally published in 1910 • Link on course website, please open it now
How do we re read a dictionary ry entry ry? konungr ( -s , -ar ), m. róðr (gen. róðrar ), m. king . rowing, pulling (hafa búnar árar til róðrar).
Back to practice • Try declining himinn “sky”! • Strong masculine
Vowel syncope • Unstressed syllables of disyllabic Sg Pl nouns lose their vowel when an Nom himinn himinar himnar ending which itself consists of a Gen himins himina himna syllable is added Dat himini himni himinum himnum Acc himin himina himna • I will illustrate on whiteboard • Examples in English?
Massachusetts town names • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AckzNzbF5E4
Practice! • Decline: • þistill “thistle” • hirðir “herdsman; shepherd” • ketill (dat and pl stem katil ) “kettle” • lykill (pl stem lukil ) “key”
Insertions of j and v • Try declining ríki “power; kingdom” and söngr “music; song”! • ríki is strong neuter • söngr is strong masculine
Insertions of j and v • Some nouns insert j before Sg Pl endings beginning with a or u Nom niðr nið jar Gen niðs nið ja • Some nouns insert v before Dat nið nið jum endings beginning with a or i Acc nið nið ja • Why not ji or vu? Sg Pl Nom söngr söng var Gen söngs söng va Dat söng vi söngum Acc söng söng va
Practice! • Decline: • j -insertion: ey (dat sg eyju ) “island” • v -insertion: ör (gen sg örvar ) “arrow”
We learned • Basic endings • Back mutation • barn (nom sg) → börnum (dat pl) • Assimilation of r to r / s / l / n • sveinn , íss , ketill , róðr , … • Vowel syncope • himinn , steinn , … • Insertion of j and v • ríki , söngr , …
The problem (good discussion on NION 3.1.6) Þá mælti Skrýmir til Þórs at hann vill leggjask niðr at sofa, 'en þér takið nestbaggann ok búið til náttverðar yðr.' What is this noun and what form is it in???
Your clues (assume you know this is a noun) • Þá mælti Skrýmir til Þórs at hann vill leggjask niðr at sofa, 'en þér takið nestbaggann ok búið til náttverðar yðr .’ For now, this just means a word or phrase • Looking at the surrounding words • til “to; towards” is a preposition that takes a genitive complement • Looking at the word itself • Try and figure out its stem, look it up • If a word is long enough, could it be a compound? • What could the ending – ar be?
Some general clues about endings • Dat pl is always um • Gen pl is almost always a , except for a few cases na • Gen sg is either s or ar • s is probably gen sg, except for assimilation sr > ss • If a noun form has ö in it, chances are that there’s back mutation!
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