e) 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 жzru; 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
Substantives in-f and-th keep the alternation of voiceless and voiced consonants, eg lif «life», gen. sing, lives, plural lives; path «path», gen. sing, pathes [р], plural pathes [р]. 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, eg winter, night. Gradually, however, the-es-ending penetrates into these words: thinges, yeres, monthesbstantives 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 (o...
