Scots Grammar

Grammar

The grammar of Old Scots is basically the grammar of northern Middle English. Both share the development from the contact between Old English and Old Norse as could be the th- forms ofthe third person plural pronouns or the loss of most of the Old English inflections.
The Old Norse influence is notable because its domination in the Scots and English linguistic system.

· Lossof inflections

Old English inflections had different vowels, that were replaced by a single vowel, written . The /m/ of -um (dative plural of nouns) became /n/. These changes show the way from OldEnglish to Middle English.

· Personal pronouns

Old Scots personal pronouns 12

|S| I| N| G||P| L| U|
|1|2|3|||1|2|3|
|||Masc| Fem| Neu||||
NOM| I |thow| He| scho| it|we| ȝe| Thai|
ACCU| me| the| Him| hir| it| us| ȝou| Thaim|
GEN| my, mine| thi, thine| His| hir, hirris|| our, ouris |ȝowr, ȝowris| Thair|

Possessives
The idea ofpossession is not apply in the same ways to inanimates, the form it does not existe. On the other hand, the possessive forms of it are expressed by thareof and of the samin/same.
After the fifteenthcentury the form mine occurs only before vowels and /h/. So, my is at first more common before consonants, but sometimes also appeared before vowels from an early date. Myn an 'my own' gives nane bywrong division. Thi arises similary from thine. Thine occurs only before vowels and /h/ in the Dictionary of the Scots Language corpus. 13
Third person plural used for singular
As in moderncolloquial usage, thair(e) is used to recapitulate noun phrases containing ilk, every and na, where the reference is semantically plural, and there are also occasional instances where the gender cannot bespecified: 14
A man or woman being lang absent fra thair party (s.v. thair(e) posses).
· Nouns

The grammatical categories expressed in the noun are number and case.
Old English had some noun...