The development of the grammatical categories of adjective

 

 

 

CONTENTS 
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ……....3

1 The English adjective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ……………..5

2 Old English adjective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . …………....6 
3 Middle English adjective. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ……………12

4 Early Modern English adjective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ………………15 
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ……20  
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . …...21 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                              

 

 

 

 

 

 

INTRODUCTION

 

This work is about the development and the changes of the English adjectives in Old English, Middle English, and Modern English. All languages in the world develop and change. A language is always developing and changes from generations to generations. Speakers of a certain language cannot prevent the language they speak from developing or changing. The development and the change of a language is not only on the lexicon, but it can be on the other elements of the linguistics, and the causes of the changes are various, such as: the political, social, cultural and technological development. There is a problem, however, of whether the development of the language can be directly observed or not. It is the genuine characteristic of a language that it develops, and the process goes for centuries. It is impossible to observe the development of a language directly since the age of man is limited. Something, which can be observed and studied are the proofs or the data of the changes. Unfortunately, not every language can give the proofs. Only languages which have written documents from era to era can provide them. The English, Arabic and Javanese belong to those which can be traced, because they have written documents. According to the documents, English can be categorized into three periods. The period from 450 to 1150 is known as Old English, from 1100 to 1500 is known as Middle English, and from 1500 up to now is known as Modern English [3].

The English language of modern speaking world reflects many developments and changes of the last centuries. The political and social events had effected the English. The Christianizing of Britain in 597 brought England into contact with Latin civilization and it made additions to the English vocabularies. The Scandinavian invasions made a considerable mixture of the two peoples and their languages. The English, for two centuries, was only used by the lower class while the nobles and those associated with them used French as the result of the Norman Conquest. In 1066, English regained supremacy as the language of all elements of the population, and it greatly changed in both the form and vocabulary. In a similar way the Hundred Years’ War, the rise on an important middle class, the Renaissance, the development of English as maritime power, the expansion of the British Empire, and the growth of commerce and industry of science and literature, have each in its way, contributed to make the English language what it is today. Therefore, the development of the English adjective can be traced and discussed.

Linguists differentiate the language changes into two, the internal and external changes. The first happens on the language itself, such as, the changes of the phonology, morphology, semantic, syntactic and lexicon system. And the latter undergoes changes because of the external influence such as contacts with other people having different languages. This happens because of word borrowing, word absorbing, phonological changing etc [6]. Actually the easiest language change to observe is the lexicon change. I intended to observe the development and the changes of the English adjectives. Since the discussion of the English adjective is quiet wide, it is limited on the discussion of the form and the degrees of comparison of the adjective.

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 THE ENGLISH ADJECTIVE

 

Many English words belong to more than one part of speech. Thus hope, love, sleep, etc., may be nouns as well as verbs; chief; general, vegetable, etc., may be nouns as well as adjectives; clean, dead, wide, etc., are adjectives as well as adverbs; while may be either a noun, a verb or a conjunction; since may be an adverb, a preposition, or a conjunction; adjectives as well as verbs. The examples are as follows: They like black shoes, the word black is an adjective, and in the sentence: They black their shoes once a week, the word black here is a verb.

So it is not so easy to say whether a word is an adjective just by looking at it in an isolation or form. It should be understood that an adjective is a word which is used with a noun or pronoun to describe the animate or inanimate things designated by the noun or pronoun. In other words, an adjective is a word which functions as a modifier to describe a noun or other substantive and traditionally, an adjective has been considered as a part of speech and used to denote word classes.

Adjectives are words that denote properties of objects, such as size (big), shape (round), color (red), texture (rough), material (wooden), state (sleeping), aesthetic qualities (beautiful), among many others.

As a grammatical category in English, adjectives modify nouns, appearing in either prenominal position (before the noun, such as What an adorable baby!) or in predicative  position, often after a copular verb (as in, Your baby is adorable!).

An adjective has some characteristics such as follows: 
1. It can freely occur in attributive position as a premodifier of a noun, for example: a beautiful park, naughty boys.

2. It can occur alone after a verb as a subject complement, e.g.: The car is beautiful. My father looks old.

3. It can be preceded by very and other intensifying words, for example: The car is very beautiful.

 
4. It can take comparative and superlative forms whether it is inflectionally or by the addition of pre-modifier, e.g.: happy, happier, the happiest, and beautiful, more beautiful, the most beautiful.

5. Most of adjectives can be added with –ly to form adverbs, e.g.: happy – happily, beautiful – beautifully.

However, not every adjective has these characteristics. A word can be considered as an adjective when it can function as an attribute or predicate and it cannot function as a direct object.

Adjectives are the prototypical modifiers. Adjectives are also one of the most difficult categories to classify, since they share many characteristics of either nouns or verbs. Adjectives, being less well-established as a category, are a more likely target for change. Adjectives in English have two distinct functions: they can be predicative (as in the rhythm is important) or attributive (as in contemporary poetry). In the former case they are closer to the verbal end of the continuum, because together with the copula verb they form the verbal phrase, and in the latter case they may (but need not) be closer to the nominal end of the cline. There are various formal means of distinguishing between these two functions: it may be done by position, by intonation or stress, or by inflection. In the history of English, there have been important changes , which will be the main topic of discussion here [2].

 

OLD ENGLISH ADJECTIVE

 

The period of the Old English is from 450 to 1150 and it is sometimes described as the period of full inflections, since during most of this period the endings of the noun, the adjective, and the verb are preserved more or less unimpaired. An important feature of the Germanic languages is the development of a twofold declension of the adjective: one, the strong declension; and the other is the weak one. The strong declension is used when the adjective alone must bear the primary burden of indicating the construction of the noun, and the weak or non-distinctive adjective, or a possessive has already performed the office of case, number and gender indication [9].

In all historical Indo-European languages adjectives possess practically the same morphological features as the nouns, the sequence of these two parts of speech is an ordinary thing in Indo-European.

The Proto-Indo-European language gives us some stems which are hard to denote whether they used to mean an adjective or a verb. Some later branches reflect such stems as verbs, but other made them adjectives. So it was the Proto-Indo-European epoch where adjectives as the part of speech began to transform from a verbal one to a nominal one. And all Indo-European branches already show the close similarity of the structure of adjectives and nouns in the language. So does the Old English language, where adjective is one of the nominal parts of speech [12].

As well as the noun, the adjective can be declined in case, gender and number. Moreover, the instrumental case which was discussed before was preserved in adjectives much stronger than in nouns. Adjectives must follow sequence with nouns which they define – that is why the same adjective can be masculine, neuter and feminine and therefore be declined in two different types: one for masculine and neuter, the other for feminine nouns. The declension is more or less simple, it looks much like the nominal system of declension, though there are several important differences. Interesting to know that one-syllable adjectives ("monosyllabic") have different declension than two-syllable ones ("disyllabic").

Strong Declension

a, ó-stems

Monosyllabic  
                  Sg.  
        Masc.     Neut.         Fem.

 
N blæc(black) blæc        blacu

G blaces          blaces      blæcre

D blacum        blacum      blæcre

A blæcne        blæc         blace

I  blace           blace         -  

Pl.  
N  blace         blacu         blaca

G  blacra        blacra        blacra

D  blacum      blacum      blacum

A  blace         blacu         blaca

Here "I" means that very instrumental case, answering the question (by what? with whom? with the help of what?).    

Disyllabic  
        Masc.     Neut.                Fem.  

Sg.

N  éadig (happy) éadig        éadigu

G  éadiges           éadiges     éadigre

D  éadigum          éadigum   éadigre

A  éadigne           éadig        éadige

I   éadige             éadige

 
                   Pl.

N  éadige            éadigu      éadiga

G  éadigra           éadigra     éadigra

D  éadigum          éadigum   éadigum

A  éadige            éadigu       éadigu

 

So not many new endings: for accusative singular we have -ne, and for genitive plural -ra, which cannot be met in the declension of nouns. The difference between monosyllabic and disyllabic is the accusative plural feminine ending -a / -u.

The adjectival declension is the same as a whole for all stems, as concerns the strong type. In general, the endings look the following way, with very few varieties (note that "-" means the null ending):

 

	Masc.		Fem.		Neut.
	Sg.	Pl.	Sg.	Pl.	Sg.	Pl.
N	-	-e	-u	-a	-	-u
G	-es	-ra	-re	-ra	-es	-ra
D	-um	-um	-re	-um	-um	-um
A	-ne	-e	-e	-a	-	-u
I	-e				-e

 

As for weak adjectives, they also exist in the language. The thing is that one need not learn by heart which adjective is which type – strong or weak, as you should do with the nouns. If you have a weak noun as a subject, its attributive adjective will be weak as well. So – a strong adjective for a strong noun, a weak adjective for a weak noun, the rule is as simple as that.

The Old English adjective had three genders: masculine, feminine and neutral. It also had the same cases as on: nominative, genitive, dative, with the addition of an instrumental in the masculine and neutral singular. It is necessary to mention only such distinctive endings as the masculine accusative singular -ne, the feminine genitive and dative -re, and the genitive plural -ra as illustrations of this point. In the sense that this inflectional pattern contains such inflections especially associated with certain case and gender forms, it is a strong declension.

It can be seen clearly in the following table that we find the ending -a for a masculine nominative singular adjective, -an for the accusative singular of the same gender, and – e for a feminine nominative singular. In fact the weak adjective declension corresponds with the weak noun declension, even to the distinctive -e form in the neuter accusative singular. For example: An O. E. noun eag = eye becomes eage in the neuter nominative singular, and nam = name becomes naman in the masculine dative singular.

The strong declension is used predicatively and attributively without any other defining word, or when the adjective is not preceded by a demonstrative or possessive pronoun, such as follows:

Waes seo faemne geong    the woman was young 
          Dol cyning                                                         a foolish king

The weak declension is used after the demonstrative and possessive pronoun or after a definite article:

Se dola cyning   the foolish king  
Se ofermoda cyning    the proud king  
Min leofa sunu   my dear son 

The last thing to be said about the adjectives is the degrees of comparison. Again, the traditional Indo-European structure is preserved here: three degrees (absolutive, comparative, superlative) - though some languages also had the so-called "equalitative" grade; the special suffices for forming comparatives and absolutives; suppletive stems for several certain adjectives.

The suffixes we are used to see in Modern English, those -er and -est in weak, weaker, the weakest, are the direct descendants of the Old English ones. At that time they sounded as -ra and -est. See the examples:

earm (poor) - earmra - earmost

blæc (black) - blæcra - blacost

Many adjectives changed the root vowel – another example of the Germanic ablaut:

eald (old) - ieldra - ieldest

 

strong - strengra – strengest

 

long - lengra - lengest

 

geong (young) - gingra - gingest

The most widespread and widely used adjectives always had their degrees formed from another stem, which is called "suppletive" in linguistics. Many of them are still seen in today's English:

 

gód (good) - betera - betst (or sélra - sélest)

  
yfel (bad) - wiersa - wierest

 
micel (much) - mára - máést

 
lýtel (little) - læ'ssa - læ'st

  
fear (far) - fierra - fierrest, fyrrest

 
néah (near) - néarra - níehst, nýhst

 
æ'r (early) - æ'rra - æ'rest

 
fore (before) - furþra - fyrest (first)

 

Positive (absolutive)	Comparative	Superlative	Meaning
eald	ieldra	ieldest	old
earm	earmra	earmost	poor

 

We also find some words with the comparative formed from an adverb or preposition with the superlative –um, or –uma , in Latin loan words: optimus (best), summus (highest). For the word ending in –m ceased to be felt as having superlative force, some words taken by analogy the additional ending -est. It makes the double superlative with the suffix -umist- , then becomes -ymist- and develops further into -imest -, -emest-, and mest , such as in formest, midmest, and further examples are:

Positive	Comparative	Superlative	Meaning
inne	innemra	innemest	within
after	after	aftermest	after

 
 
MIDDLE ENGLISH ADJECTIVE

 

The English language between the year 1150 and 1500 has already been characterized as Middle English. It was marked by momentous changes in English language, changes were more extensive and fundamental than those that have taken place at any time before or since. The changes of this period affected English in both its grammar and its vocabulary and the changes in English grammar may be described as a general reduction of inflection.

Adjectives in Middle English work much the same way as they do in Modern English. These descriptive words come before the noun they modify: yong sone young son. There is a Germanic twist, though. As in German and Icelandic, Middle English differentiates between strong and weak adjectives.

Strong adjectives stand on their own before a noun, like the yong in yong sone. They often do not have a final -e (schwa sound).

Weak adjectives come between the article the, the demonstratives (this, that, these, those) or a possessive (his, Annes his, Anne's) and the modified noun. Such adjectives have a final -e (schwa): the yonge man and his sweete breeth the young man and his sweet breath.

With plural nouns, it's far easier: adjectives generally take -e, weak or strong (yonge sones, the yonge children young sons, the young children).

Endings of the noun and adjective marking distinctions of number and case and often of gender were so altered in pronunciation as to lose their distinctive form and hence their usefulness [5].

The result of the changes was that in Middle English the indication of gender distinguishing the masculine form was lost, because the ending –a (masculine nominative) and -e (neuter nominative – accusative and feminine nominative) fell together in a single forms as -e. For example:

Old English Middle English

Se ealdu man      the olde man(masculine) 
Se ealde talu         the olde tale (feminine) 
Paet ealde swurd        the olde sword (neuter) 
The weak adjective ending -an and -urn had already fallen together as -en. And because of the loss of final -n they also became to have only -e. But, there are very few sunrivals of the Old English genitive plural in –ra as Middle English -er, notably in aller from Old English ealra. Thus , the singular and plural forms of the weak adjective declension, -a, -e, -an, :em, and -urn, were reduced to a single ending in -e.

Middle English monosyllabic adjectives ending in consonants remained uninflected throughout the singular and had -e throughout the plural: 
 

Singular	Plural
Brod	brode
God	gode
Glad	glade