35.Declension in the History of English.

The English language once had an extensive declension system similar to modern German or Icelandic. Old English distinguished between the nominative, accusative, dative, genitive, and instrumental cases. Declension fell into disuse during the Middle English period, when accusative and dative pronouns merged into a single objective pronoun. Modern English no longer uses declension, except for remnants of the former system in a few pronouns.

"Who" and "whom", "he" and "him", "she" and "her", etc. are remnants of both the old nominative vs. accusative and also of nominative vs. dative. In other words, "whom" serves as both the dative and accusative version of the nominative pronoun "who". In Old English (and in modern German, Icelandic, etc.), these cases had distinct pronouns. The word "whom" itself began falling into widespread disuse in the 20th century, and is being replaced by merely "who".

This collapse of the separate case pronouns into the same word is one of the reasons grammarians consider the dative and accusative cases to be extinct in English — neither is an ideal term for the role played by "whom". Instead, the term objective is often used; that is, "whom" is a generic objective pronoun which can describe either a direct or an indirect object. The nominative case, "who", is called simply the subjective. The information formerly conveyed by having distinct case forms is now mostly provided by prepositions and word order.

Modern English morphologically distinguishes only one case, the possessive case — which some linguists argue is not a case at all, but a clitic (see the entry for genitive case for more information). With only a few pronominal exceptions, the objective and subjective always have the same form.

36.Conjugation in the History of English

The decay of OE inflections, which transformed the nominal system, is also apparent in the conjugation of the verb — though to a lesser extent. Many markers of the grammatical forms of the verb were reduced, levelled and lost in ME and Early NE; the reduction, levelling and loss of endings resulted in the increased neutralisation of formal oppositions and the growth of homonymy.

The changes in the verb conjugation since the OE period can be seen from comparing the paradigms of the verbs find and look. ME forms of the verb are represented by numerous variants, which reflect dialectal differences and tendencies of potential changes. The intermixture of dialectal features in the speech of London and in the literary language of the Renaissance played an important role in the formation of the verb paradigm.

ME forms of the verb are represented by numerous variants, which reflect dialectal differences and tendencies of potential changes. The intermixture of dialectal features in the speech of London and in the literary language of the Renaissance played an important role in the formation of the verb paradigm.

Conjugation of verbs in Middle English and Early New English

	strong		weak
	ME	Early NE	ME	Early NE
Infinitive Present tense Indicative 1st 2nd 3rd Pl Subjunctive Sg Pl Imperative Participle I Past tense Indicative Sg 1st 2nd 3rd Pl Subjunctive Sg Pl ParticipleII	Finde(n) Finde Findest/finds Findeth/finds finde(n)/findeth /findes finde Finde(n) Find(e) Findeth/finde Finding(e)/-ende /findind(e) /findand(e) Fand Fande/fand/fandes Fand Founde(n) Founde Founde(n) founden	Find Find Findest Finds Find Find Finding Found Found found	Looke(n) Looke Lookest Looketh looke(n) / looketh/looks Looke Looke(n) Look(e) Looketh/looke Looking(e) /-ende/-ind(e) /-ande Looked(e) Lookedest Looked(e) Looked(en) Looked(e) Looked(en) looked	Look Look Lookest Looks Look Look Looking Looked looked

By the end of the 15^th cent. the two stems of the past tense of strong verbs fell together: fand and founde(n) was replaced by found.