Lessons Home
Course%20Info Lessons Texts Grammar Credit%20Exercises Links
Site%20Index
You are here: English 401 > Lessons > Lesson 3 > Four Main Cases

The Four Main Cases: Masculine and Neuter Strong Nouns

Cases are grammatical categories that express relationships between nouns, noun-like things (e.g. pronouns, gerunds), and modifiers of nouns. In Modern English we have really only two cases, the common case, for example boy, and the genitive or possessive case, for example boy's. For the personal pronouns and some others, we also make a distinction between a subjective or subject case and an objective or object case:

We say

He loves me.

but we say

I love him.

not

*Me loves he.

Me and him are in the "objective case" in Modern English; I and he are in the "subjective case."

Old English had four main cases, the nominative, accusative, genitive, and dative (and a fifth, the instrumental case for some pronouns and adjectives). We have already seen the first two in Lesson 2. They are the cases used for the subject of a sentence and for the direct object. (sé fæder is in nominative case, and þone fæder is in accusative case).

This lesson will introduce the other two cases and show more about how the case system works for the most common class of Old English nouns, the masculine and neuter strong nouns.

The Genitive Case for Possession

Possession (except for "possession" of parts of the body) is indicated by the genitive case in Old English. The strong masculine and neuter nouns take an -es ending in the genitive singular. The corresponding plural ending is -a:

Abrahames gehiersumnesseAbraham's obedience
Godes engelGod's angel
þara Terfinna landthe land of the Terfinns

The genitive case is also used for a lot of other relationships more or less remotely analogous to possession. Usually you can make sense of these relationships by using the preposition "of" in your Modern English translation:

on oðre healfe þæs moreson the other side of the moor
þæs landes sceawungethe observation of the land
he ealra Norþmonna norþmest budehe lived northernmost of all Norwegians

One use of the genitive that most students simply have to accept as idiomatic is its use with numbers:

tamra deora unbebohtra syx hundsix hundred unpurchased tame deer
(literally of unpurchased tame deer)
syfan elna langseven ells long
(literally seven of ells long)

(There are other idiomatic uses of the genitive as well, which you may come across in your reading, but we will leave them until later in the course.)

The Dative Case for Prepositions and Indirect Objects

The word "dative" means "having to do with giving," and derives from the use of this case for the indirect object (the recipient of the gift) in sentences with verbs of giving, but you are actually going to meet this case most often in prepositional phrases, because it is the most frequent case used for the object of a preposition. (For a brief review of what a preposition is, you may find this extract from the U of C online grammar helpful.) The ending indicating the dative singular in strong masculine and neuter nouns is an -e; the corresponding plural ending is -um. Here are some examples of the dative used for the object of a preposition (the preposition is marked in red):
on þam landein that land
to þæm moreto the moor
mid þam assumwith the asses (donkies)
betweox þam bremelumamong the brambles

You may need to refresh your memory as to the meaning of the term "indirect object" in Modern English, in which case you may again find this extract from the U of C online grammar useful. (If you still aren't sure you get it, please let me know and I'll suggest some printed resources.)

The indirect object construction is used more freely with a wide range of verbs in Old English than in Modern English, but generally they are verbs that involve giving something to someone or something, making something for someone or something, or telling or saying something to someone or something.

Two examples that show up early in our reading are:

Ohthere sæde his hlaforde
Ælfrede cyninge . . .
Ohtere said to his lord,
(to) King Alfred . . .
hie brohton sume þæm cyningethey brought some to the king

Note that the preposition to is used to translate the dative case into Modern English here. Usually you can use either to or for to translate a dative used as indirect object, and these prepositions are also worth trying on a dative case that you're not sure of the reason for.

(There are other idiomatic uses of the dative as well, which you may come across in your reading, but we will leave them until later in the course.)

The Nominative and Accusative Cases (review--and a bit of sneaky augmentation--of Lesson 2)

The subjects of Old English sentences are in the nominative case. For masculine strong nouns, the demonstrative pronoun alone signals the case: it is in the singular. Neuter strong nouns have demonstrative þæt for the nominative singular. Unlike masculine nouns for which the demonstrative changes in the accusative (the object case, in the sentences we saw in Lesson 2) to þone, the neuter demonstrative does not change from nominative to accusative: it remains þæt, so word order alone may indicate which noun is the subject and which the object. Note as well that there is no change to the nouns themselves from nominative to accusative (sé fæder [subject] and þone fæder [object]; þæt scip [subject] and þæt scip [object]).

A similar situation occurs in the plurals. The masculine nominative plural is identical to the masculine accusative plural; the neuter accusative plural is identical to the neuter nominative plural. Using the nouns from the tables in the Outline Grammar, the endings and demonstratives are:

Strong Masculine Nouns

plural
nominativeþá stánas
accusativeþá stánas

Strong Neuter Nouns

plural
nominativeþá word
accusativeþá word

plural
nominativeþá scipu
accusativeþá scipu

Return to top


Return to Lesson 3

|[ HOME ]|[ Course Information ]|[ Lessons ]|[ Texts ]|[ Grammar ]|[ Credit Exercises ]|[ Links ]|[ Site Index ]|

Contact: Murray McGillivray at mmcgilli@acs.ucalgary.ca or the Listserv at mailto:eg401-m@acs.ucalgary.ca