Theme: The main features of the Noun and the Adjectives in the Middle English period Contents: Introduction

3. Adjectives in the Middle English as an important part of speech
In the course of the Middle English period the adjective underwent greater simplifying changes than any other part of speech. It lost all its grammatical categories with the exception of the degrees of comparison. In Old English the adjective was declined to show the gender, case and number of the noun it modified; it had a five-case paradigm and two types of declension, weak and strong. By the end of the Old English period the agreement of the adjective with the noun had become looser and in the course of Early Middle English it was practically lost. Though the grammatical categories of the adjective reflected those of the noun, most of them disappeared even before the noun lost the respective distinctions. ¹⁶
The decay of the grammatical categories of the adjective proceeded in the following order. The first category to disappear was Gender. The number of cases shown in the adjective paradigm was reduced.
In the 13^th c. case could be shown only by some variable adjective endings in the strong declension (but not by the weak forms); towards the end of the century all case distinctions were lost. ¹⁷
The strong and weak forms of adjectives were often confused in Early ME texts. In the 14^th c. the difference between the strong and weak form is sometimes shown in the sg with the help of the ending –e. In the 13^th and particularly14th c. there appeared a new pl ending-s. the use of –s is attributed to the influence of French adjectives. ¹⁸
This paradigm can be postulated only for monosyllabic adjectives ending in a consonant, such as Middle English bad, good, long. Adjectives ending in vowels and polysyllabic adjectives took no endings and could not show the difference between sg and pl forms or strong and weak forms: Middle English able, swete, bisy, thredbare. ¹⁹
The distinctions between the sg and plural forms, and the weak and strong forms, could not be preserved for long, as they were not shown by all the adjectives; besides, the reduced ending –e was very unstable even in the 14^th c. English. The loss of final-e in the transition to New English made the adjective an entirely uninflected part of speech. ²⁰
The degrees of comparison is the only set of forms which the adjective has preserved through all historical periods. However, the means employed to build up the forms of the degrees of comparison have considerably altered. In Old English the forms of the comparative and the superlative degree, like all the grammatical forms, were synthetic: they were built by adding the suffixes –ra and –est/ost, to the form of the positive degree. Sometimes suffixation was accompanied by an interchange of the root-vowel; a few adjectives had suppletive forms. In Middle English the degrees of comparison could be built in the same way, only the suffixes had been weakened to –er, -est and the interchange of the root-vowel was less common than before. Since most adjectives with the sound alternation had parallel forms without it, the forms with an interchange soon fell into disuse. Middle English long-lenger-lengest and long-longer-longest. The alternation of root-vowels in Early New English survived in the adjective old, elder, eldest, where the difference in meaning from older, oldest, made the formal distinction essential. Other traces of the old alternation are found in the pairs farther and further. The most important innovation in the adjective system in the Middle English period was the growth of analytical forms of the degrees of comparison. The new system of comparisons emerged in Middle English, but the ground for it had already been prepared by the use of the Old English adverbs ma, bet, betst-more, better with adjectives and participles. It is noteworthy that in ME, when the phrases with Middle English more and most became more and more common, they were used with all kinds of adjective, regardless of the number of syllables and were even preferred with mono- and disyllabic words. It appears that in the course of history the adjective has lost all the dependent grammatical categories but has preserved the only specifically adjectival category-the comparison. The adjective is the only nominal part of speech which makes use of the new, analytical, way of form-building. ²¹