Semantic peculiarities of the English article and ways of its translation
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period already. This was probably partly due to Scandinavian influence.and head word.attribute usually precedes its head word, e. g. enzlisc zewrit 'English text', onzemanz ourum mistlicum and manizfealdum bis^um 'among other various and manifold affairs', hu zeslizlica tida 'what happy times', se foresprecena hunzur 'the above-mentioned famine', ealle оrе bec 'all other books', fter foryrnendre tide 'after the passing time'. However, a numeral attribute may follow its head word, e. g. his suna twezen 'his two sons', one naman anne 'the name alone'; also a bee ealle 'all the books'.attribute often follows its head word when used in direct address: wine mm 'my friend', fre-drihten min 'my lord', Beowulf leofa 'dear Beowulf. An attribute consisting of the pronoun se and an adjective also follows its head word: Sidroc eorl se alda 'earl Sidroc senior'.genitive attribute usually precedes its head word: para cyninza zetruman 'the kings' troops', Normanna land 'the Northmen's land', Seaxna peod 'the Saxons' people', monizra manna mod 'many people's mood'. But sometimes it comes after its head word: on ore healfe pre ea 'on the oilier side of the riverstudying the declension of substantives in ME, we have to consider the Southern dialects, on the one hand, and the Midland and Northern, on the other.the Southern dialects, distinction between genders and between strong and weak declensions was to some extent preserved, but differences between various types of strong declension were obliterated. Later, distinction of genders was weakened in connection with the development of the definite article, which lost its declension altogether.
Parenthesis means that the sound in question could drop. A second form coming after a comma means that alongside of the first form due to phonetic development a second one appeared, due to analogy.feminine substantives, weak declension endings (-en, -ene) spread from the weak to other declension types; in the singular the -ii-cnding was dropped, and all eases of the singular number had the endmg -e. The -e was also joined on to substantives with a long root syllable, which had no ending in Hie nominative singular, such as iir 'honour', synn 'sin'. Only a few substantives remain outside this tendency, such as hond 'hand', might 'might', cow 'cow'.a result of these changes the following system of declension arose:
The -en-ending of the plural was also extended to two neuter substantives which had in OE belonged to the -es-stems, viz., child 'child' and el 'egg'. In OE the nominative plural of these substantives had been cildru and zru; now they were changed into children and eiren.declension of substantives with a root stem, which had mutation in the dative singular and in the nominative and accusative plural, developed in ME Southern dialects in the following way:
The substantive boc 'book' lost its mutated forms: its plural is boken, bakes. The substantive burh 'borough' lost mutation in the dative singular and in the nominative and accusative plural. The dative singular form byriz > buri, biri, beri survived only as the second component of compound nouns - names of towns, which originally had the form of the dative case, such as Canterbury <OE Cantwarabyriz, dative of Cantwaraburz; Atter-bury < at per byriz 'at the city'.and midland dialects.Northern and Midland dialects all distinctions between different stems of strong declension and between strong and weak declension, and those between genders disappeared. The genitive singular ending of the ston and dor type substantives spread to all substantives; this also applies to the nominative and accusative ending -es (< OE -as) of the nominative and accusative plural ot the ston type substantives; it also spread to the genitive plural of all substantives.14-century literary English (Chaucer and Gower), developed from Midland dialect, the following declension system is found:
Substantives in -f and -th keep the alternation of voiceless and voiced consonants, e.g. lif 'life', gen. sing, lives, plural lives; path 'path', gen. sing, pathes [], plural pathes [].substantives with a root stem, which had mutation in the nominative and accusative plural, have the following system of declension-
Thus mutation is grammaticalized as a sign of plural number.neuter substantives preserved their nominative accusative plural form without an ending: thing, yer, hors, shep, swin, der. As will be readily seen, some of them are names of animals. Some masculine and feminine substantives also preserved plural forms without ending, e.g. winter, night. Gradually, however, the -es-ending penetrates into these words: thinges, yeres, monthes.substantives which belonged to the weak declension preserve their -n-plural: oxe - oxen; eye, ye - eyen, yen; fo - fon; to - ton. The substantive sceoh 'shoe', which had been a strong declension substantive in OE, acquired an -n-plural in ME: sho - shon. The weak en-ending also spread to the substantives brother -brethren, doghter - doghtren, and stister - snstren. Meanings which had been expressed by case endings now devolve to prepositions, in the first place of (for the genitive), to and wip for the dative.pronoun.OE forms of the demonstrative pronoun (or definite article) se, seo were changed into pe, peo on the analogy of the forms derived from the root p-. In Early ME forms like pe, peo, pat functioned both as demonstrative pronoun and as article. Since the 14th century, however, the form pat was only preserved as a demonstrative pronoun form., the declension system of the pronoun was undergoing changes. The form pos (from OE pas, nominative and accusative plural of the OE demonstrative pronoun pes) became the plural of pat.
Early ME declension.
However, in the 13th century declension of the definite article tends to disappear. Thus, while we find in Layamon's Brut (about 1200) phrases like to pan kinge (OE to pm cyninze), mid pan flode (OE mid pm flode), the Апогеи Riwle has, alongside of of pen epple (OE of рагт pple) mid te word (te assimilated from pe after mid; OE mid рт worde). Similar changes occur in other case and gender forms. In Late ME the definite article finally becomes invariable.
The other demonstrative pronoun, OE pes, developed in the following way in ME: singular this (from the OE nominative and accusative singular pis), plural thise, these; singular that (from the OE nominative and accusative singular neuter pt), plural tho, thos
The Adjective.declension of adjectives underwent substantial changes in ME. Declension of adjectives had always been determined by agreement with substantives in number, gender and case. In Germanic languages the use of strong and weak adjective declension depended on whether the adjective was preceded by the definite article or a similar word, or not. The disappearance of grammatical gender in ME substantives and the reduction of case endings led to a considerable change in adjective declension, too. Besides, the characteristic weak-declension ending -en was dropped. So the only case ending in adjectives came to be -e, and the highly developed OE paradigm was reduced to the following system:
In the Northern dialects, declension of adjectives was completely lost: the only surviving case ending -e was dropped, and the adjectives became invariable. the other dialects adjectives in -e became invariable, such as newe, trewe.
The indefinite article.
Numeralsfrom 1 to 3 are declined.from 4 to 19 are usually invariable, if used as attributes to a substantive, but they are declined if used without a substantive. Numerals denoting tens have their genitive in -es or in -a, -ra, their dative in -um.
The word 'both' bezen, bu, ba is declined in the same way as twezen, tu, twa.consisting of tens and units are denoted in the following way: 22 twa and twentiz, 48 eahta and feowertiz.pronoun sum 'some' is sometimes used in a meaning close to the articles as in the sentence: wses sum bropor '(there) was a (certain) brother' pa stod him sum топ set purh swefn 'then (there) stood a (certain) man near him in his dream'., however, a substantive in an indefinite application is not accompanied by any determinative, as in the sentence he was swype spediz man 'he was a very rich man'.a few words the consonant v when followed by another consonant changed into u, as in hafoc, gen. sing, hafces > havkes > haukes and on the analogy of the genitive haukes a new nominative hauk was derived; nafozar > navgar > nauger 'auger'.word eventually lost its initial n- as a result of what is called metanalysis: the phrase a nauger was, as it were, reinterpreted as an auger, with the intial n- of the substantive apprehended as a final n of the indefinite article.are more examples of this kind of metanalysis. A substantive might either lose or acquire an initial n-. Thus OE ejete 'newt' acquired an initial n- owing to a reinterpretation of an ewte as a newte in ME. The ME substantive ekename 'additional name', 'nickname' also acquired an initial n-: an ekename > a nekename. The ME substantive naperon (from French naperon), on the other hand, lost its initial n-: a naperon > an apron.similar phenomenon is also found in some substantives whose final -s, originally belonging to the stem, was apprehended as a plural ending. Thus, OE lmesse 'alms' (from Lat. alimosina from Greek eleemosyne 'pity') yielded ME alines > MnE alms; ME richesse (from Fren