266

The Loom of Language

dictate the past tense-form, and the two following rules about personal
endings*

(a) In German and Dutch, the Biole English -th of cometh is hardened
to -r> and the plural forms of both tenses have the infinitive
ending -en tacked on to the stem,

(6) In modern Scandinavian languages the ending of the invariant
present tense is -a or -ar, the past tense is invariant as in
English, and the infinitive ends in -e (Danish and Norwegian); or
-a (Swedish)

For an American or anyone born in the British Isles, the difficulties
of a Teutonic language begin with the noun and the adjective, especially

OLD ENGLISH AND GERMAN NOUNS

DAY (masc )
WATER (neut ) | TONGUE (fern )
BLAH (masc )

(a) OLD ENGLISH

{Norn Ace
j daeg
j- waeter
tunge
-V
bera

Dat
daege
waetere
> tunga^z
beran

Gen
daeges
waeteres
J

(Norn Ace
| dagos
r waeter
> tunga?2
r berara

Gen
daga
waeteia
tunge?za
berew<3

Dat
dagww
TOeterww
tungwm
berww

(6) GERMAN:

{Nom Ace Dat
} Tag Tag(^)
J- Wasser
Izunge
Bar IBarew

Gen
Tagss
Wassers

fNom
1
T
1
I

UAcc glGen
Tag5
^ Wasser
> Zwigen
> Baren

IDat
Tagen
Wassetrt
J
J

the ktter The modern English noun has four forms in writing Of
these, only two are in common use, viz the ordinary singular form
(e g mother),, the ordinary plural (e g mothers) nearly always derived
irom the singular by adding -s Nowadays we rarely use the optional
genitives (eg. mother's and mothets*) when the noun stands for an
inanimate object such as chamber or pot The Old English noun had