§ 10. NOUNS: Gender, which in standard West Saxon had been to a great extent grammatical (i.e. dependent on the forms of the noun), was by the fourteenth century natural (i.e. dependent on the meaning of the noun). This change had accompanied and in some degree facilitated the transfer of nearly all nouns to the strong masculine type, which was the commonest and best defined in late OE.: OE. ME. Sg. nom. acc. _cniht_ _kniȝt_ gen. _cnihtes_ _kniȝtes_ dat. _cnihte_ _kniȝte_ OE. ME. Pl. nom. acc. _cnihtas_ _kniȝtes_ gen. _cnihta_ _kniȝtes_ dat. _cnihtum_ _kniȝtes_ In the North final _-e_ of the dat. sg. was regularly dropped early in the fourteenth century, and even in the South the dat. sg. is often uninflected, probably owing to the influence of the accusative. In the plural the inflexion of the nom. acc. spreads to all cases; but in early texts, and relatively late in the South, the historical forms are occasionally found, e.g. gen. pl. _cniste_ (MS. _cnistes_) XV _g_ 30 (note), dat. pl. _diaknen_ III 5. #Survivals#: (i) The common mutated plurals _man_: _men_, _fot_: _fet_, &c., are preserved, and in VIII _b_ a gen. pl. _menne_ (OE. _manna_) occurs; _ky_ pl. of _cow_ forms a new double pl. _kyn_, see (iii) below; _hend_ pl. of _hand_ is Norse, cp. XVI 75 (note). (ii) Some OE. neuters like _shep_ 'sheep' VIII _b_ 18, _ȝer_ 'year' II 492, _þing_ II 218, _folk_ II 389, resist the intrusion of the masculine pl. _-es_ in nominative and accusative. Pl. _hors_ II 304, XIII _a_ 34 remains beside _horses_ XIV _b_ 73; but _deores_ 'wild animals' occurs at XV _b_ 29, where Modern English preserves _deer_. (iii) In the South the old weak declension with pl. _-en_ persists, though by the fourteenth century the predominance of the strong type is assured. The weak forms occur not only where they are historically justified, e.g. _eyȝen_ (OE. _ēagan_) II 111, but also by analogy in words like _honden_ (OE. pl. _honda_) II 79, _tren_ (OE. pl. _trēo_) XIII _a_ 51, _platen_ (OFr. _plate_) XV _g_ 4. The inflexion still survives in three double plural formations: _children_ VIII _b_ 70 beside _childer_ (OE. pl. _cildru_); _bretheren_ VIII _a_ 201 beside _brether_ XVII 320 (OE. pl. _brōþor_); and _kyȝn_ IX 256 for _ky_ (cp. (i) above). The OE. weak gen. pl. in _-ena_ leaves its traces in the South, e.g. _knauene_ VIII _b_ 56, XV _h_ 4, and unhistorical _lordene_ VIII _b_ 77. (iv) The group _fader_, _moder_, _broþer_, _doghter_ commonly show the historical flexionless gen. sg., e.g. _doghtyr arme_ I 136; _moder wombe_ XI _b_ 29 f.; _brother hele_ XII _a_ 18; _Fadir voice_ XVI 79. (v) The historical gen. sg. of old strong feminines remains in _soule dede_ (OE. _sāwle_) I 212; but _Lady day_ (OE. _hlǣfdigan dæg_) I 242 is a survival of the weak fem. gen. sg.