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 Vr Gen s V Sg Pl Dat i um Nom r ir Acc V 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 hestr hestar • Nom/acc pl can be Genitive hests hesta either ar/a or ir/i Dative hesti hestum • Gen sg is usually s, Accusative hest hesta sometimes ar

staðr “place” Sg Pl Nominative staðr staðir • Why stöðum, not staðum? 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 bardagi “battle” Sg Pl Nominative bardagi bardagar • Plural looks the same with Genitive bardaga bardaga strong masc! Dative bardaga bardögum Accusative bardaga bardaga Strong feminine

• Nom = acc mön “mane” Sg Pl Nominative mön manar • Nom/acc pl can be Genitive manar mana either ar or ir Dative mön mönum • A lot of back mutation! Accusative mön manar • Gen sg is always ar

hlíð “place” Sg Pl Nominative hlíð hlíðir Genitive hlíðar hlíða Dative hlíð hlíðum Accusative hlíð hlíðir Weak feminine

• Singular: a/u/u/u saga “story” Sg Pl Nominative saga sögur • Nom/acc pl is ur Genitive sögu sagna • Gen pl is na Dative sögu sögum Accusative sögu sögur Strong neuter

• Nom = acc vatn “lake” Sg Pl Nominative vatn vötn • Nom/acc sg = nothing, Genitive vatns vatna nom/acc pl = back mutation Dative vatni vötnum • Gen sg is always s 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 auga “eye” Sg Pl Nominative auga augu • Nom/acc pl is u Genitive auga augna • Gen pl is na 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, 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 read a dictionary entry? 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 niðjar Gen niðs niðja • Some nouns insert v before Dat nið niðjum endings beginning with a or i Acc nið niðja

• Why not ji or vu? 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.’ 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! 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; • Look up the head of the • -brunnr, m. well for watering cattle; compound! • -ferill, m. cattle-track; • -fjöldi, m., -flokkr, m. drove of cattle; • He is a truck driver. • -gæzla, f. the keeping of cattle; • He is a truck. • -hellir, m. a cave used as a stall; • He is a driver. Try declining • -maðr, m. neat-herd, herdsman; this! • -mark, n. cattle-mark; • • -vara, f. cattle-hides. ferill (dat. ferli), m. definitions… Sometimes, you just have to guess