The Position of the Adjective in Old English Introduction

References

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9

10 Bettelou Los suggested (p.c.) that the absence of such constructions may not have a syntactic cause, that in fact such constructions may be rare in Present-day English too, or that, when they occur in Present-day English, they are the result of the development of a literary style. It would be difficult to prove the influence of style. However, I have consulted the recent newspaper corpus collected by a colleague, Tom van Brederode, which is about the same seize as the Old English corpus I have used here (4,682,625 words as against the Old English Corpus of 5,894,365 words) and have found 100 occurrences of phrases with the determiner the and very followed by an adjective and a noun (e.g. the very intelligent suggestion, the very limited powers, the very strong-willed attitudes). I have not checked any other forms of determiner nor any other adverbs, but this at least suggests that the construction is quite common in present-day English. I have also briefly checked the website of the Middle English Dictionary (Middle English Compendium http://www.hti.umich.edu/mec/) and found that these constructions only begin to occur in the 15^th century; only constructions such as the moste+Adj.+Noun are somewhat earlier, e.g. I found þe most kyd kny3tes in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the moste reale place in The Allitterative Morte Arthur. But again these too only become common in the fifteenth century

11 The adjectives in –weard are a special case, in the sense that they are the only adjectives which, at least in prose, regularly occur prenominally (i), postnominally (ii), and even before the determiner (iii). When they are postnominal they can often be interpreted adverbially as in (iib), the dictionaries even give the –um ending as an adverbial ending (this case could be similar to the one mentioned below: i.e. the ‘adverbial’ status of miclan and also miclum). The fact that they can also be used as particles no doubt accounts for their ‘adverbial’ usage. It is also quite clear from the examples given below that the meaning of the adjective depends quite crucially on position in these cases. Thus inneweard usually means ‘on the inside’ postnominally, but ‘sincere’ prenominally as in (ia). Likewise toweard used postnominally expresses that the event lies in the future (see iia), whereas prenominally it refers to a kind of future life, i.e. the Christian heaven.
(i)a we hine biddað mid inneweardre heortan (ÆHom l.39)
we him pray with (a) sincere heart
b þæt he ne þurfe þrowian on ðam toweardan life (ÆHom l.157)
so that he need not suffer in the future life
(ii)a and him sige towardne geheht (BlHom5 l.95) (towardne is acc. sg. str., hence adjectival)
and him victory impending promised
b se leoma gehran þæm treowum ufonweardum (Alex. l.849)
the light touched the trees highest/above (here ufonweardum can be both adj. and adv.)

3. 
   and þa heafda ealle wurdon gesette on ufeweardum þam geate (Apol. Tyre l.6.1)
   

and the heads all were placed on above the gate (on top of the gate)