Declension - Modern English

Modern English

Further information: Old English declension, Old English morphology, and Old English pronouns

In Modern English, nouns have distinct singular and plural forms; that is, they decline to reflect their grammatical number. (Consider the difference between book and books.) In addition, a few English pronouns have distinct nominative and objective forms; that is, they decline to reflect their relationship to a verb or preposition. (Consider the difference between he (nominative) and him (dative or accusative), as in "He saw it" and "It saw him".) Further, these pronouns and a few others have distinct possessive forms, such as his. By contrast, nouns have no distinct nominative and objective forms, the two being merged into a single plain case. For example, chair does not change form between "the chair is here" (subject) and "I saw the chair" (direct object). Possession is shown by the clitic -'s attached to a possessive noun phrase, rather than by declension of the noun itself.

Gender is at best only weakly grammaticalized in Modern English. While masculine, feminine, and neuter genders are recognized, nouns do not normally decline for gender, though some nouns, especially Latin words and personal names, exist in multiple forms corresponding to different genders: Alumnus (male, singular)/Alumna (female, singular); Andrew/Andrea, Paul/Paula, etc. Suffixes such as -ess, -ette, and -er can also derive overtly gendered versions of nouns, with marking for feminine being much more common than marking for masculine. Many nouns can actually function as members of two genders or even all three, and the gender classes of English nouns are usually determined by their agreement with pronouns, rather than marking on the nouns themselves.

Adjectives are rarely declined for any purpose. They can be declined for number when they are used as substitutes for nouns (as in, "I'll take the reds", meaning "I'll take the red ones" or as shorthand for "I'll take the red wines", for example). Some adjectives borrowed from other languages are, or can be, declined for gender, at least in writing: blond (male) and blonde (female) or a bonie lad as compared to a bonnie lass. Adjectives are not declined for case in Modern English, though they were in Old English.

The article is never regarded as declined in Modern English, although technically the words this and that, and their plural forms these and those, are modern forms of the as it was declined in Old English. Certain non-standard regional and economic class-associated dialects do decline the article, either in regular speech or in slang - as in expressions such as "How do you like them apples?" and "Oh, them are nice!" (instead of "those").