27. Pronoun in ne

in NE the ME forms of the personal pronouns underwent a little change.

In Shakespeare’s works both pronouns «thou» and «ye» are found with stylistic differenciation between them.

Eventually «thou» completely vanished from the ordinary literary language and was only preserved in elevated poetic and religious style.

In the 16^th century distinction between nominative «ye» and objective «you» began to disappear. In the 17^th century «ye» finally became archaic.

Main significant change in Early modern English was the shift to using you for 2^nd person

A new class of pronouns appears – possessive pronouns. The former genitive case of the personal pronouns now retains only the possessive meaning

My and thy become mine and thine before words beginning with a vowel or the letter h. More accurately, the older forms "mine" and "thine" had become "my" and "thy" before words beginning with a consonant other than "h", while "mine" and "thine" were retained before words beginning with a vowel or "h", as in mine eyes or thine hand.

28. The Adjective in oe. Declension.

Adjectives in Old English are declined using the same categories as nouns: five cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, and instrumental), three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter), and two numbers (singular, plural). In addition, they can be declined either strong or weak. If the adjective follows a demonstrative pronoun, possessive adjective, or genitive noun or noun phrase, one of the so-called "weak" endings is added to it; otherwise it is given a "strong" ending.

		m	n	f
		Strong (gōd mann)
sing	nominative	--	--	-u / --
	accusative	-ne	--	-e
	genitive	-es	-es	-re
	dative	-um	-um	-re
	instrumental	-e	-e
pl	nominative	-e	-u / -- / -e	-a / -e
	accusative
	genitive	-ra	-ra	-ra
	dative	-um	-um	-um

			Weak (se gōda mann)
sing	nominative	-a		-e	-e
	accusative	-an		-e	-an
	genitive	-an		-an	-an
	dative	-an		-an	-an
pl	nominative	-an		-an	-an
	accusative
	genitive	-ra / -ena		-ra / -ena	-ra / -ena
	dative	-um		-um	-um

29. The Adjective in me and ne. Endings

M.E adjectives: greatest inflectional losses;

• totally uninflected by end of ME period;

• loss of case, gender, and number distinctions;

• distinction strong/weak lost;

• causes in loss of unstressed endings, rising use of definite and indefinite articles;

• comparative OE -ra -> ME -re, then -er (by metathesis), superlative OE -ost, -est -> ME -est: swetter/more swete, more swetter, moste clennest; more and moste as intensifiers.

N.E. Typical adjective endings:

-able\-ible: achievable, capable, illegible, remarkable

-al: biographical, functional, internal, logical

-ful: beautiful, careful, grateful, harmful

-ic: cubic, manic, rustic, terrific

-ive: attractive, dismissive, inventive, persuasive

-less: breathless, careless, groundless, restless

-ous: courageous, dangerous, disastrous, fabulous