Harley & Hengwrt
Nouns - Plural and possessive inflections
• Most of the plural nouns in the texts are marked with the <s> or <es> inflection of MnE,
which derived from the OE <as> plural: armes, wyues
• Fully assimilated French words: auctoritees, contractes, freres, lecchours etc.
• Also Old Norse words: housbondes.
• Some plural nouns of French origin in the texts are marked with a <z> inflection
mandementz, sacramentz, testamentz. These are relatively uncommon legal terms- a
French convention that did not survive.
Irregular Plurals
• The irregular MnE plurals like men, women, geese, mice derive directly from OE
through ME, eg - OE menn, wyfmenn; ges, mys; ME men, wimmen; ges, mis; MnE men,
women, geese, mice, but there are no examples in the texts.
• The common OE plural <an> only survives in three words today, oxen, children and
brethren. More of them had survived in southern dialects of ME, but only a few are found
in Chaucer's writing, like hosen, asshen, eyen and oxen.
• He used both forms of plural, <s - es> and <en> in some words, eg bees - been, toos -
toon, shoos - shoon.
Possessive
• An <es> inflection, identical to the plural, had become normal to mark the possessive by
l400. It derived unchanged from OE <es>, and most words with another common OE
possessive inflection <a> had adopted <es>.
• In the texts we have her lyues ende, at euery tounes eende, no vileyns worde, in
goddes name and þe ffreres tale (31)
Group Genitive
• The form of possessive in present-day English: The Wife of Bath's Tale has the <'s>
inflection acting as a suffix to the whole noun phrase.
• The Hengwrt MS has þe Wyues tale of Bathe, a form which occurs often in ME in
which the possessive inflection is a suffix on the head noun, Wyues, with its post-
modifier of Bathe following tale.
