Personal and Possessive Pronouns

The ME forms of personal pronouns underwent little change in the NE period. The tendency to use the pronoun ye in addressing one person arose in ME already. In Shakespeare’s works, both ye and thou are found with stylistic differentiation between them. Eventually thou completely vanished from ordinary literary language and was preserved in elevated, poetic, religious style.

In the 16th century the distinction between the Nominative ye and Objective you began to disappear. In the 17th century ye finally became archaic. In the Neuter personal pronouns, vacillation between hit and it continued during the 16th century. By the end of the century hit disappeared.

The Neuter possessive pronoun was hit until the 17th century. The new form its seems to have appeared in the early 17th century. Shakespeare used it in a few cases only.

In the course of the 17th century neuter his was finally superseded by its. In the Feminine possessive pronouns there was some tiny vacillation between hir and her, which may be due to weakening of the vowel in an unstressed position. The forms mine and thine were used in 2 cases only in Early New English.

1) as a non-attributive part of the sentence. e.g. This island is mine.

2) as an attribute before a word with initial vowel e.g. mine eyes, mine enemies, thine eyes.

Reflexive Pronouns

They developed in NE from the corresponding ME forms without any particular changes.

Demonstrative Pronouns

In NE, the demonstrative pronouns acquired the following forms:

1) this (ME this, OE Neuter form Þis) and plural these (ME thise, these, derived from this)

2) that   ME that, OE neuter form Þæt) and plural those (ME thos, OE Þas)

 

Interrogative Pronouns

NE interrogative pronouns developed from ME in the following way:

1) who (ME who – OE hwa), objective whom (ME whom, OE hwæm)

2) whose (ME whos, OE hwa)

3) what (ME what, OE hwæt)

4) which (ME which, OE hwilc)

Other Pronouns

ME ilke (that) did not survive in NE.

The pronouns each, such, some, any, none were preserved in NE.

Besides, the compound pronouns somebody, nobody are formed, which develop a two-case system, and also something, anything, nothing.

LECTURE 7

EVOLUTION OF THE ENGLISH ADJECTIVE AND ADVERB

OUTLINE

1. Evolution of the English Adjective

1.1.Old English Adjective

1.2. Middle English Adjective

1.3. New English Adjective

2. Evolution of the English Adverb

2.1. Old English Adverb

2.2. Middle English Adverb

2.3. New English Adverb

 

EVOLUTION OF THE ENGLISH ADJECTIVE

OLD ENGLISH ADJECTIVE

Declension

The forms of all OE adjectives express the categories of gender, number and case. Every adjective could be declined according to the weak and strong declensions.

The Strong Declension of adjectives differs to some extent from the strong declension of nouns. Some case-forms of the adjectives correspond to those of the pronouns. The strong declension of the adjectives as a whole is a combination of nominal and pronominal forms. Most adjectives are declined as a-stems for Masculine and Neutre and as o-stems for the Feminine.

The Weak Declension does not differ from that of nouns, except in the Genetive Plural of all genders, which often takes the ending -ra, taken over from the strong declension.

 

Degrees of Comparison

Like the adjectives in other languages most of OE adjectives could form degrees of comparison. The regular means used in the building of the Comparative and Superlative degrees were the suffixes -ra and -est / -ost. Sometimes suffixation was accompanied by an interchange of the root vowel. Many adjectives had mutation.

The comparatives are declined as strong adjectives. The superlatives take the forms of the strong declensions very rarely and mostly follow the weak declension.

e.g. blæc - blæcra – blacost

In some adjectives the vowel undergoes mutation in the comparative and superlative degrees. Some adjectives have suppletive forms of the comparative and superlative degrees:

ʒod (good) – betera – betst

yfel (bad) – wiersa – wierest

micel (large, much) – mara – mæst

lytel (little) læssa – læst

 

MIDDLE ENGLISH ADJECTIVE

The declension of adjectives underwent substantial changes in ME. Declension of adjectives had always been determined by agreement with nouns in Number, Gender and Case. In Germanic languages the use of strong and weak adjective declension depended on whether the adjective was preceded by the definite article or a similar word or not. But the disappearance of grammatical genders in ME nouns and the reduction of case endings led to a considerable change in adjective declension. Besides, the characteristic weak declension ending -en was dropped.

The only case ending in adjectives came to be -e and the highly developed OE paradigm was reduced to the following system:

 

	Strong		Weak
N., G., D., Acc.	god	Singular	gode
N., G., D., Acc.	gode	Plural	gode

 

In the Northern dialects declension of adjectives was completely lost. The only surviving case ending -e was dropped, the adjective became invariable.

The degrees of comparison had the following suffixes:

 

	Comparative	Superlative
OE	-ra	-ost, -est
ME	-er	-est

 

e.g. glad – gladder – gladdest

Some adjectives keep a mutated vowel in comparative and superlative degrees:

e.g. old – elder – eldest

long – lenger – longest

Several adjectives preserve suppletive degrees of comparison:

e.g. god – bettre – best

  evil – werse – werst

Alongside such degrees of comparison analytical forms of degrees of comparison like more and most appear.

NEW ENGLISH ADJECTIVE

In ME adjectives dropped the ending -e, which had signaled the plural and the weak declension in ME. Thus, ME adjectives no longer agree with their nouns in number. This was essential for the syntactic structure of the language.

 

Degrees of Comparison

As it was mentioned, alongside synthetic degrees of comparison, phrases consisting of more and most + adjective appear in ME. In ME the two mentioned above types were differentiated:

1) suffixes of the degrees of comparison are used with monosyllabic and some disyllabic adjectives;

2) the phrases with more and most are limited to the other disyllabic and polysyllabic ones. In the 15th century mutation, which had survived in ME in the comparative and superlative of some adjectives is eliminated. The only remnant of mutation in degrees of comparison is seen in elder – eldest from old (alongside with older – oldest).