3.1 Noun declensions and case system

Old English Noun Declensions

Old English nouns change their endings depending on their role in a sentence. This system of endings is called declension, and understanding it is the key to reading Old English accurately. If you can recognize a noun's gender, stem type, and case ending, you can figure out who's doing what to whom in any sentence.

Noun Declensions in Old English

Every Old English noun belongs to a declension class based on two things: its grammatical gender (masculine, feminine, or neuter) and its stem type (the historical vowel or consonant that once followed the root). You won't always see that stem vowel in the word itself anymore, but it shaped the ending patterns that survived.

Declensions fall into three broad groups:

Strong declensions have a wider variety of distinct endings across cases. These include:

• Masculine a-stem: cyning (king), stān (stone)
• Neuter a-stem: scip (ship), word (word)
• Feminine ō-stem: giefu (gift), lār (teaching)
• Masculine i-stem: wine (friend)
• Feminine i-stem: cwēn (queen)
• Feminine u-stem: duru (door)

Weak declensions (n-stems) are simpler because they rely heavily on the ending -an across multiple cases. All three genders have n-stem nouns:

• Masculine n-stem: guma (man), nama (name)
• Feminine n-stem: tunge (tongue), sunne (sun)
• Neuter n-stem: ēage (eye), ēare (ear)

Minor declensions are small groups with irregular or archaic patterns:

• r-stems: kinship nouns like fæder (father), mōdor (mother), brōþor (brother)
• nd-stems: frēond (friend), fēond (enemy)
• Root nouns: bōc (book), mann (man), fōt (foot). These change their root vowel in the plural (e.g., bōc → bēc), similar to Modern English "foot/feet."

Functions of Old English Cases

Old English has four cases, and each one tells you the grammatical role a noun plays in its sentence. Modern English mostly uses word order for this, but Old English uses endings.

• Nominative — marks the subject of a sentence: se cyning rīdeþ (the king rides). Also used for predicate nominatives: hē is cyning (he is a king).
• Accusative — marks the direct object of a verb: ic lufige þone cyning (I love the king). Also used after certain prepositions: ymbe þone cyning (about the king).
• Genitive — expresses possession or a close relationship between nouns: þæs cyninges burh (the king's city). Certain verbs and prepositions also take the genitive: þæs cyninges geþencan (to think of the king).
• Dative — marks the indirect object: ic sende þæm cyninge giefe (I send a gift to the king). Many prepositions take the dative: mid þæm cyninge (with the king). The dative also expresses instrument or means: mid sweorde (with a sword).

Declining Nouns Across Cases

Here's how a masculine a-stem noun like cyning (king) looks in all four cases. Notice that some forms are identical; you'll often rely on context and the accompanying article/demonstrative to tell them apart.

A few things to notice:

• The nominative and accusative singular are the same. This is typical for masculine a-stems.
• The nominative and accusative plural are also identical (cyningas).
• The genitive singular ending -es is the direct ancestor of the Modern English possessive 's.
• The dative plural ending -um is one of the most recognizable Old English endings and appears across nearly all declension classes.

Grammatical Gender and Noun Declension

Gender and Declension Relationships

In Old English, grammatical gender is a fixed property of each noun, and it doesn't always match the natural sex of the thing described. You need to learn each noun's gender because it determines which declension pattern the noun follows and which forms of articles and adjectives accompany it.

The general tendencies:

• Masculine nouns most often belong to the a-stem, i-stem, or n-stem classes (dæg "day," wine "friend," guma "man").
• Feminine nouns typically follow the ō-stem, i-stem, u-stem, or n-stem patterns (giefu "gift," cwēn "queen," duru "door," tunge "tongue").
• Neuter nouns usually fall into the a-stem or n-stem classes (scip "ship," ēage "eye").

Nouns of the same gender and stem type decline in very similar ways, so once you learn one masculine a-stem noun well, you can apply that pattern to others.

There are exceptions, though. The noun mægden (maiden/girl) is grammatically neuter, not feminine, even though it refers to a female person. This kind of mismatch between grammatical gender and natural meaning is common in Old English and something you just have to memorize case by case.