English morphology content and its changes in diachrony

Аннотация

This article is dedicated to the English morphology content and its changes in diachrony: in the Old English and Middle English periods. The morphology of parts of speech such as: noun, verb, adjective, numeral will be considered. They will be analyzed in terms of meaning, form, and function and their changes in the period of transition of the English language from the inflectional (synthetic) to the analytical type. Comparisons of the results obtained from these two periods contribute to a deeper understanding of these topics in synchrony. Key words: morphology, Old English period, Middle English period, grammatical changes, language evolution,nominativeparts ofspeech. Before conducting a comparative analysis of Old English period morphology in the MiddleEnglish period, it is essential todefinethe term «morphology». The first scholar to introduce this originally biological term into linguistics was the German linguist August Schleicher, during the period of active development of comparative-historical linguistics, when scholars began studying the origins of languages, changes in their structure and patterns ofdevelopment. Various scholars’ opinions on morphology have been analyzed. According to B. A. Ilyish, «Morphology is thepart ofgrammar which treats oftheforms ofwords.»[1] Academician V. V. Vinogradov defined morphology as «The teaching about the grammatical structure ofwords, about theforms of words and about theformation ofwords»[2]. The definition provided by the founder of structuralism, Ferdinand de Saussure states: «Morphology is a branch of grammar that deals with various categories of words (verbs, nouns, adjectives, pronouns, etc.) and various forms of inflection.»[3] By analyzing definitions from different linguists, both Soviet and foreign, it is possible to identify common elements and derive thefollowing definition: Morphologyis afundamental branchof linguistics/grammar that examines words, fromthepoint ofinternal structures, meanings, forms withinalanguage. Examining the formation of grammatical categories allows for tracing the historical changes in specific parts of speech. The American linguist Leonard Bloomfield describes this function as follows: «Morphological elements serve as linguistic fossils that preserve the history andcultural evolution of alanguage overtime.»[4] The analysis of morphological changes provides insight into the evolution of a language andillustrates howit has changed under theinfluence ofvarious internal and external factors. The Old English period is classified as an inflectional language. This means that grammatical meanings were expressed through a system of flexions rather than analytic structure. Old English possessed a highly developed morphological system, in which the primary parts of speech nouns, verbs, adjectives, and numerals, had complex paradigms of declensions andconjugations. For instance, nouns were inflected not only for gender and number but also had four cases. In addition to these categories, nouns were classified into strong and weak declensions. I. NOUNS: 1а) Gender in Old English nouns always had morphological meaning, it did not depend on the word’s meaning and was a fixed feature. For instance, the following words belonged to Samarkand State Institute of Foreign Languages 124 ILMIYVAPROFESSIONALTA’LIMJARAYONIDAMULOQOT,FANVAMADANIYATLAR INTEGRATSIYASI the masculine gender: mann «man», fæder «father», sunu «son». The following words were classified as feminine: mōdor «mother», dohtor «daughter», cwēn «queen». The following words were categorized as neuter: rice «kingdom», dēor «animal», cild «baby». As noted in the article by E. M. Popkova, it was difficult to determine the gender of nouns, because morphological signs did not give clear indications of gender and this classification has not reached our days, but analyzing the written monuments and dictionaries that have reached modern times, we can identify the following groups of concepts, the relationship of a word with a particular gender. The masculine gender was more often attributed to words related to: war and/or hunting, trade and management, the concept of strength, power and fear, the water element. The feminine gender was more often considered to be words that related to nature, which most likely had the image of mother nature. The neuter gender includes words that are used to namebaby animals and children.[5] 1b). Old English had four cases: the nominative, which marked the subject of a sentence; the genitive, which expressed the possession or relation; the dative, which indicated the indirect object; theaccusative, used for direct object. [6] 1c).The classification of nouns into «strong» and «weak» declensions depended on their stemtype. Strong nouns had stemsa-, o-, u-, i-, whileweak nounshad stem inn-. 1d). Plural forms also varied depending on the declension type. For instance a-stem nouns formed the plural with the ending -as (stān – «stone», stānas – «stones»),whereas n-