Declensions 1 98-348: Lecture 3 This class counts as a linguistics - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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 Nom r ar Gen s a Dat i um Acc a Sg Pl Nom r ir Gen s i Dat i um Acc i Sg Pl Nom ar Gen ar a Dat um Acc ar Sg Pl Nom i ar Gen a a Dat a um Acc a a

Categorizing declension patterns

Sg Pl Nom r ar Gen s a Dat i um Acc a Sg Pl Nom r ir Gen s i Dat i um Acc i Sg Pl Nom r Vr Gen s V Dat i um Acc V

V = a or 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!
• Nom/acc pl can be

either ar/a or ir/i

• Gen sg is usually s,

sometimes ar

• Why stöðum, not staðum?

hestr “horse” Sg Pl Nominative hestr hestar Genitive hests hesta Dative hesti hestum Accusative hest hesta staðr “place” Sg Pl Nominative staðr staðir Genitive staðar staða Dative staði stöðum Accusative stað staði

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
• Plural looks the same with

strong masc!

bardagi “battle” Sg Pl Nominative bardagi bardagar Genitive bardaga bardaga Dative bardaga bardögum Accusative bardaga bardaga

Strong feminine

• Nom = acc
• Nom/acc pl can be

either ar or ir

• A lot of back mutation!
• Gen sg is always ar

mön “mane” Sg Pl Nominative mön manar Genitive manar mana Dative mön mönum Accusative mön manar hlíð “place” Sg Pl Nominative hlíð hlíðir Genitive hlíðar hlíða Dative hlíð hlíðum Accusative hlíð hlíðir

Weak feminine

• Singular: a/u/u/u
• Nom/acc pl is ur
• Gen pl is na

saga “story” Sg Pl Nominative saga sögur Genitive sögu sagna Dative sögu sögum Accusative sögu sögur

Strong neuter

• Nom = acc
• Nom/acc sg = nothing,

nom/acc pl = back mutation

• Gen sg is always s

vatn “lake” Sg Pl Nominative vatn vötn Genitive vatns vatna Dative vatni vötnum Accusative vatn vötn erindi “message” Sg Pl Nominative erindi erindi Genitive erindis erinda Dative erindi erindum Accusative erindi erindi

Weak neuter

• Singular: a/a/a/a
• Nom/acc pl is u
• Gen pl is na

auga “eye” Sg Pl Nominative auga augu Genitive auga augna Dative auga augum Accusative auga augu

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,

it assimilates to the n

• *hrafnr > *hrafnn > hrafn

(In this case there is also a reduction from nn to n)

• This happens to stems ending in

s, r, l and n

• Why?

Sg Pl Nom hrafnr hrafn hrafnar Gen hrafns hrafna Dat hrafni hröfnum Acc hrafn hrafna 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?

róðr (gen. róðrar), m. rowing, pulling (hafa búnar árar til róðrar). konungr (-s, -ar), m. king.

Back to practice

• Try declining himinn “sky”!
• Strong masculine

Vowel syncope

• Unstressed syllables of disyllabic

nouns lose their vowel when an ending which itself consists of a syllable is added

• I will illustrate on whiteboard
• Examples in English?

Sg Pl Nom himinn himinar himnar Gen himins himina himna Dat himini himni himinum himnum Acc himin himina himna

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

endings beginning with a or u

• Some nouns insert v before

endings beginning with a or i

• Why not ji or vu?

Sg Pl Nom niðr niðjar Gen niðs niðja Dat nið niðjum Acc nið niðja Sg Pl Nom söngr söngvar Gen söngs söngva Dat söngvi söngum Acc söng söngva

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.’

• 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?

For now, this just means a word or phrase

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!

Don’t know if a noun is (ir)regular?

• Look it up on the dictionary
• Irregular forms will be indicated only if necessary
• Regular nouns have no additional descriptions
• Compare:
• fyrnd, f. (1) age, antiquity
• fótr (gen. fótar, dat. fœti, pl. fœtr), m. (1) foot, foot and leg

Looking up compounds

• nauta-beit, f. pasture for cattle;
• -brunnr, m. well for watering cattle;
• -ferill, m. cattle-track;
• -fjöldi, m., -flokkr, m. drove of cattle;
• -gæzla, f. the keeping of cattle;
• -hellir, m. a cave used as a stall;
• -maðr, m. neat-herd, herdsman;
• -mark, n. cattle-mark;
• -vara, f. cattle-hides.
• Look up the head of the

compound!

• He is a truck driver.
• He is a truck.
• He is a driver.
• ferill (dat. ferli), m. definitions…

Try declining this!

Sometimes, you just have to guess