Читать книгу A Book of Middle English - J. A. Burrow - Страница 41

The indefinite article ‘a’ is an unstressed form of the Old English numeral ān, ‘one’. In early texts its spellings are very variable, as is illustrated within the one line An hule and one niʒtingale, ‘an owl and a nightingale’, 2/4. There are also some inflected forms, such as (in text 3) masculine accusative ænne, dative ane; (in text 2) dative feminine ore. Even in these early texts the form is often reduced to a before a consonant: a word, 2/45.