5. Declension.—In Anglo-Saxon it was necessary to determine the declension of a substantive. There was the weak, or simple declension for words ending in a vowel (as, eage, steorra, tunga), and the strong declension for words ending in a consonant (smið, spræc, leáf). The letters i and u were dealt with as semivowels, semi-vowels being dealt with as consonants; so that words like sunu and gifu belonged to the same declension as smið and sprǽc.
6. Definite and indefinite form of adjectives.—In Anglo-Saxon each adjective had two forms, one definite
and one indefinite. There is nothing of this kind in English. We say a good sword, and the good sword equally. In Anglo-Saxon, however, the first combination would be se gode sweord, the second án god sweord, the definite form being distinguished from the indefinite by the addition of a vowel.
7. Pronouns personal.—The Anglo-Saxon language had for the first two persons a dual number; inflected as follows:
| 1st Person. | 2nd Person. | ||||
| Nom. | Wit | We two | Nom. | Git | Ye two |
| Acc. | Unc | Us two | Acc. | Ince | You two |
| Gen. | Uncer | Of us two | Gen. | Incer | Of you two. |
Besides this, the demonstrative, possessive, and relative pronouns, as well as the numerals twa and þreo, had a fuller declension than they have at present.
VERBS.
8. Mood.—The subjunctive mood that in the present English (with one exception[[41]]) differs from the indicative only in the third person singular, was in Anglo-Saxon considerably different from the indicative.
| Indicative Mood. | |||||||
| Pres. Sing. | 1. | Lufige. | Plur. | 1. |
| Lufiað. | |
| 2. | Lufast. | 2. | |||||
| 3. | Lufað. | 3. | |||||
| Subjunctive Mood. | |||||||
| Pres. Sing. | 1. |
| Lufige. | Plur. | 1. |
| Lufion. |
| 2. | 2. | ||||||
| 3. | 3. | ||||||
