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Adjective
The adjective in the Old English language had the forms of gender, number, case and degrees of comparison and strong and weak declension. Unlike the corresponding categories of the noun, number and case of the adjective had no independent semantics - they were forms of agreement with the noun. The use of the forms of the strong or weak declension depended on the context in
which the noun modified by the adjective was used. The forms of the weak declension were used when the noun was preceded by a demonstrative, possessive or indefinite pronoun and denoted a definite object or person. In all the other contexts the forms of the strong declension were used /Ильиш, 1973, 26 -27/.
34 Unlike the strong and weak declensions of nouns, when referred to adjectives the terms strong and weak declension have a somewhat different meaning. The difference is that nouns may belong to the strong or weak declension depending on the stem-forming phoneme. As for the adjectives, any of them may have the forms of the strong and weak declension depending on the conditions of its use.
How did the declensions of adjectives arise in Old English? In fact, in all Indo-European languages there was no differentiation of name, the noun and the adjective made up a single category and had the same paradigm. Later the noun and the adjective were differentiated and some forms of the adjective were
derived by the addition of demonstrative and some other types of pronouns. Thus there appeared strong (pronominal) declension alongside the weak (nominal) declension. E.g. Gothic blind (blind) – the weak, nominal declension; blindata, with the strong, pronominal ending –ata (cf. the demonstrative pronoun ata) – the pronominal declension.
O.E. go:d ma(o)nn – se: goda monn (a, this good man), þes godan (the -n suffix of the weak type) mannes go:d cwe:n – se:o go:de cwe:n (a, this good woman), þæ:re godan cwe:nes lytel bearn - þæt lyt(e)le bearn – (a, this little child), þæs godan bearnes
Table # 12
The Strong Declension of Adjectives
In the strong pronominal forms adjectives alone are used with nouns. The peculiarity of the strong declension of adjectives is that they have five cases (Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative and Instrumentative) and opposition in gender not only in the singular number but in the plural as well. The masculine and neuter gender nouns were declined like a-stem nouns. The feminine nouns were declined like O:-stem nouns.
In the weak, nominal declension four cases are distinguished (Nominative, Genitive, Dative and Accusative) and the category of gender is not expressed in the plural number. The weak declension almost completely reflects the N-type (weak) declension of nouns, as many forms in its paradigm end in –n.
Table # 13
The Weak Declension of Adjectives
Singular Number Plural Number
Mascul. Femin. Neuter
Nominative blaca blace blaca blacan
Genitive blacan blacan blacan blacra, blacena
Dative blacan blacan blacan blacum
Accusative blacan blacan blace blacan
It may be easily noticed that the adjectives in the weak declension have the same inflections as the nouns of the weak declension (with -n-stems). The exception is constituted by the genitive plural of all genders, which commonly takes the ending –ra, taken over from the strong declension.
35 For the comparative degree of the adjectives the suffix -ra was used, and for the superlative degree the suffix -ost or -est.
Table # 14
The Degrees of Comparison of Adjectives
(Standard Forms)
Unmarked Form Comparative Degree Superlative Degree
earm ‘poor’ earmra earmost
blæc ‘black’ blæcra blacost
In the comparative and superlative degrees of some adjectives the i-mutation (the umlaut) takes place.
The cause of this gradation in the superlative degree was the vowel /i/ of the suffix —*ist > -est. The change of the vowel in the comparative degree must have taken place by analogy with the superlative degree.
E.g. eald (old) – ie:ldra, ie:ldest; grea:t (great) – grie:tra, grie:test; long – lengra – lengest; strong – strengra, strengest; sceort (short) – scyrta, scyrtest..
Those degrees of comparison which were formed by the addition of the suffixes *-ost > - -est and *-ora > -ra, there was no umlaut (earm-earmra, earmost; glæd – glædra, glædost).
In the Old English language there were some adjectives with the suppletive forms of the degrees of comparison.
Table # 16
Suppletive Forms of the Degrees of Comparison
Unmarked Form Comparative Degree Superlative Degree
go:d ‘good’ betera betst
yfel ‘bad’ wiersa wierest
micel ‘big’ ma:ra mæ:st
lytel ‘little’ læ:ssa læ:st
4. Pronoun
In Old English there were the following classes of pronouns: personal, possessive, demonstrative, interrogative, relative, indefinite and negative /Ильиш 1958, 80/.
The personal pronouns in the Old English language had the category of person, number, case and gender (in the third person singular). The expression of gender was more lexical than grammatical – with living beings it depended on the natural gender of a person or animal, with objects the neuter gender was used already in Old English. One of the characteristic features of the Old English personal pronoun is the
existence of three forms of number - singular, dual and plural. The forms of the dual number are found only in the first and second person.
The form of the dual number WIT has the meaning ‘we two’ and the form GIT ‘you two’.
Many of these pronouns developed into the existing modern personal pronouns, but there were several important changes:
1. In the Middle English period the dual number of pronouns disappeared,
2.The genitive case forms later were ousted by independent possessive pronouns;
3.The dative and accusative merged into one objective case.
4.The 3rd person plural pronoun hi: was gradually superseded by the pronoun ‘they’ of Scandinavian origin to avoid the homonymy with the 3rd person feminine pronouns.
5.The initial h of the neutral pronoun hit was lost;
6.The new pronoun she: was developed from the Old English demonstrative pronoun se:o which gradually superseded the pronoun ‘he:o’, the reason being the avoidance of confusion with the masculine personal pronoun.
A personal pronoun could be accompanied by the pronoun ‘self’ (seolf, sylf), e.g. he: hit sylf negeseah ‘he himself did not see it’, sometimes the pronoun ‘self’ was used in the meaning of a personal pronoun,
e.g. selfa ne-dorste under y: þa gewin aldre gene: þan ‘he himself did not dare to plunge under the abyss of waves risking his life’.
The possessive pronouns in the Old English language were built on the basis of the Genitive case of the personal pronouns. The possessive pronouns formed on the basis of personal pronouns of the 1st and 2 nd person were declined according to the pattern of the strong declension of adjectives. The possessive pronouns of the 3rd person had no declension.
The demonstrative pronouns ÞES ‘this’ and SE: ‘that’ had the category of number, case and gender.
The meaning of the pronoun ‘that’ was often weakened to the meaning of the article ‘The”: se: mann ‘the man’, seo: sæ: ‘the sea’, þat lond ‘the land’. Traditionally, it is assumed that the definite article appeared in OE, while the indefinite – in Middle English. The fact is that in OE there was usually an absence of any article where there is the indefinite article ‘a’ now: e.g. in King Alfred’s translation of Orosius we find: He: wæs swi: þe spe:dig man ‘he was a very rich man’.
The Declension of the Demonstrative Pronoun THES ‘this’
This declension is remarkable for the element –s- which in some cases (e.g gen. and dat. sg masc and
neuter) is an agglutinative particle joined to on to the corresponding form of the pronoun ‘se’. Elsewhere
it is part and parcel of the stem and the case endings are added on to them. This gives Prof. Ilyish ground
to assume that ‘this’ emerged later than ‘that’. Other linguists, e.g. Prof. Arakin, hold that ‘this’ preceded
‘that’, the former being the demonstrative pronoun of full lexical meaning and the latter had weakened lexical meaning
The interrogative pronouns HWA: ‘who’ and HWÆT ‘what’ have case forms.
Table # 20
The Declension of Interrogative Pronouns
37(hwa ‘who’, hwæt ‘what’)
Nominative hwa hwæt
Genitive hwæs hwæs
Dative hwæm hwæm
Accusative hwone hwæt
Instrumentative - hwy:, hwi
The pronoun HWILC ‘which’ forms the cases according to the pattern of the strong declension of adjectives. The form hwy: later gave rise to another pronoun - WHY.
The relative pronouns were used for the introduction of attributive subordinate clauses. To this group belong the pronouns ÐE: ‘which’ and SE:ÐE ‘which’.
The determinative pronouns are used in the attributive functions to nouns. They are as follows: GEHWA ‘each’, GEHWILC ‘every’, ÆGTHER ‘either’, ÆLC ‘each’, SWILC ‘such’, SE ILCA ‘the very’.
The indefinite pronouns are used attributively. They are: SUM ‘some’ and ÆNIG ‘any’.
The negative pronouns were built up by the fusion of a pronominal or some other stem with the negative particle ne: NAN ‘none’ ( < NE ‘no’ + AN ‘one’); NÆNIG ‘no any’ ( < NE ‘no’ + ÆNIG ‘any’).