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
blжc (black) - blжcra - 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:
gуd (good) - betera - betst (or sйlra - sйlest)
yfel (bad) - wiersa - wierest
micel (much) - mбra - mбйst
lэtel (little) - lж'ssa - lж'st
fear (far) - fierra - fierrest, fyrrest
nйah (near) - nйarra - nнehst, nэhst
ж'r (early) - ж'rra - ж'rest
fore (before) - furюra - fyrest (first)
Now you see what the word "first" means - just the superlative degree
from the adjective "before, forward". The same is with nнehst from nйah
(near) which is now "next".
Old English affixation for adjectives:
1. -ede (group "adjective stem + substantive stem") - micelhйafdede
(large-headed)
2. -ihte (from substantives with mutation) - юirnihte (thorny)
3. -ig (from substantives with mutation) - hбlig (holy), mistig (misty)
4. -en, -in (with mutation) - gylden (golden), wyllen (wуllen)
5. -isc (nationality) - Englisc, Welisc, mennisc (human)
6. -sum (from stems of verbs, adjectives, substantives) - sibbsum
(peaceful), hнersum (obedient)
7. -feald (from stems of numerals, adjectives) - юrнefeald (threefold)
8. -full (from abstract substantive stems) - sorgfull (sorrowful)
9. -lйбs (from verbal and nominal stems) - slжplйбs (sleepless)
10. -lнc (from substantive and adjective stems) - eorюlнc (earthly)
11. -weard (from adjective, substantive, adverb stems) - inneweard
(internal), hбmweard (homeward)
The Old English Pronoun.
Pronouns were the only part of speech in Old English which preserved the
dual number in declension, but only this makes them more archaic than the
rest parts of speech. Most of pronouns are declined in numnber, case and
gender, in plural the majority have only one form for all genders.
We will touch each group of Old English pronouns and comment on them.
1.Personal pronouns
[pic]
Through the last 1500 years mнn became mine, gй turned into you (ye as
a colloquial variant). But changes are still significant: the 2nd person
singular pronouns disappeared from the language, remaining only in poetic
speech and in some dialects in the north of England. This is really a
strange feature - I can hardly recall any other Indo-European language
which lacks the special pronoun for the 2nd person singular (French tu,
German du, Russian ty etc.). The polite form replaced the colloquial one,
maybe due to the English traditional "ladies and gentlemen" customs.
Another extreme exists in Irish Gaelic, which has no polite form of
personal pronoun, and you turn to your close friend the same way as you
spoke with a prime minister - the familiar word, translated into French as
tu. It can sound normal for English, but really funny for Slavic, Baltic,
German people who make a thorough distinction between speaking to a friend
and to a stranger
2. Demonstrative pronouns ('I' means the instrumental case)
[pic]
3. Interrogative pronouns
N hwб hwжt
G hwжs hwжs
D hwж'm hwж'm
A hwone hwжt
I - hwэ, hwн
These pronouns, which actually mean the masculine and the neuter
varieties of the same pronoun, derive from Proto-Indo-European *kwis, with
*kw becoming hw in Germanic languages. In Gothic the combination hw was
considered as one sound which is another proof that the Indo-European the
labiovelar sound kw was a single sound with some specific articulation.
Later Germanic languages changed the sound in a different way: in
Norwegian it remained as hv, in German turned into w (as in wer 'who', was
'what'), in English finally changed into wh pronounced in most cases [w],
but somewhere also like [h] or [hw].
Interesting that the instrumental of the word hwжt, once being a pronoun
form, later became the word why in English. So 'why?' is originally an
instrumental case of the interrogative pronoun.
Other interrogative pronouns, or adverbs, as they are sometimes
called, include the following, all beginning with hw:
hwilc 'which?' - is declined as the strong adjective (see adjectives above)
hwonne 'when?' - this and following are not declined, naturally
hwж'r 'where?'
hwider 'whither?'
hwonan 'whence?'
4. Other kinds of pronouns
They include definite, indefinite, negative and relative, all typical for
Indo-European languages. All of them still exist in Modern English, and all
of them are given here:
a) definite
gehwб (every) - declined the same way as hwб
gehwilc (each),
жgюer (either),
ж'lc (each),
swilc (such) - all declined like strong adjectives
sй ylca (the same) - declined like a weak adjective
b) indefinite
sum (some),
ж'nig (any) - both behave the same way as strong adjectives
c) negative
nбn, nж'nig (no, none) - declined like strong adjectives
d) relative
юe (which, that)
sйюe (which, that) - they are not declined
In Proto-Indo-European and in many ancient Indo-European languages there
was a special kind of declension calleed pronominal, using only by pronouns
and opposed to the one used by nouns, adjectives and numerals. Old English
lost it, and its pronouns use all the same endings as the nouns and
adjectives. Maybe the only inflection which remembers the Proto-language
times, is the neuter nominative -t in hwжt and южt, the ancient ending for
inanimate (inactive) nouns and pronouns.
The Old English Numeral.
It is obvious that all Indo-European languages have the general trend
of transformation
from the synthetic (or inflectional) stage to the analytic one. At least
for the latest 1,000 years this trend could be observed in all branches of
the family. The level of this analitization process in each single language
can be estimated by several features, their presence or absence in the
language. One of them is for sure the declension of the numerals. In Proto-
Indo-European all numerals, both cardinal and ordinal, were declined, as
they derived on a very ancient stage from nouns or adjectives, originally
being a declined part of speech. There are still language groups within the
family with decline their numerals: among them, Slavic and Baltic are the
most typical samples. They practically did not suffer any influence of the
analytic processes. But all other groups seem to have been influenced
somehow. Ancient Italic and Hellenic languages left the declension only for
the first four cardinal pronouns (from 1 to 4), the same with ancient
Celtic.
The Old English language preserves this system of declension only for
three numerals. It is therefore much easier to learn, though not for
English speakers I guess - Modern English lacks declension at all.
Here is the list of the cardinal numerals:
[pic]
Ordinal numerals use the suffix -ta or -юa, etymologically a common Indo-
European one (*-to-).
[pic]
The Old English Adverb.
Adverbs can be either primary (original adverbs) or derive from the
adjectives. In fact, adverbs appeared in the language rather late, and
eraly Proto-Indo-European did not use them, but later some auxiliary nouns
and pronouns losing their declension started to play the role of adverbial
modifiers. That's how thew primary adverbs emerged.
In Old English the basic primary adverbs were the following ones:
юa (then)
юonne (then)
юж'r (there)
юider (thither)
nъ (now)
hйr (here)
hider (hither)
heonan (hence)
sуna (soon)
oft (often)
eft (again)
swб (so)
hwнlum (sometimes).
Secondary adverbs originated from the instrumental singular of the
neuter adjectives of strong declension. They all add the suffix -e: wide
(widely), dйope (deeply), fжste (fast), hearde (hard). Another major
sugroup of them used the suffixes -lнc, -lнce from more complexed
adjectives: bealdlнce (boldly), freondlнce (in a friendly way).
Adverbs, as well as adjectives, had their degrees of comparison:
wнde - wнdor - wнdost (widely - more widely - most widely)
long - leng (long - longer)
feorr (far) - fierr
sуfte (softly) - sйft
йaюe (easily) - нeю
wel (well) - betre - best
yfele (badly) - wiers, wyrs - wierst
micele (much) - mбre - mж'st
The Old English Verb.
Old English system had strong and weak verbs: the ones which used the
ancient Germanic type of conjugation (the Ablaut), and the ones which just
added endings to their past and participle forms. Strong verbs make the
clear majority. According to the traditional division, which is taken form
Gothic and is accepted by modern linguistics, all strong verbs are
distinguished between seven classes, each having its peculiarities in
conjugation and in the stem structure. It is easy to define which verb is
which class, so you will not swear trying to identify the type of
conjugation of this or that verb (unlike the situation with the
substantives).
Here is the table which is composed for you to see the root vowels of all
strong verb classes. Except the VII class, they all have exact stem vowels
for all four main forms:
[pic]
Now let us see what Old English strong verbs of all those seven
