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Declension of the demonstrative pronoun sē

Number

Case

Masculine

Singular

Feminine

Singular

Neuter

Singular

Plural

Nominative

Genitive

Dative

Accusative

Instrumental

(that)

Þæs

þǽm

þone

þý, þon

sēo (that)

þǽre

þǽre

þā

Þæt

Þæs

þǽm

þæt

Þa

Þāra

þǽm

þā

þý

  1. The adjective

4.1. Declension of adjectives

The paradigm of the adjective is similar to that of the noun and the pronoun, i.e. it compromises Gender, Number, and Case.

The grammatical category of case was built up by five forms: the Nominative, the Accusative, the Dative, the Genitive and the Instrumental.

There were two ways of declining adjectives – the definite and the indefinite declension. The adjective followed the definite declension mainly if the noun if modified had another attribute – a demonstrative pronoun, and they were declined as indefinite otherwise.

The grammatical suffixes – forms of cases mainly coincided with those of nouns with the stem originally ending in a vowel or -n, yet in some cases we find pronominal suffixes example, in the Genitive Plural, in Dative Singular, etc.

Declension of adjectives

Declension

Case

Indefinite (strong)

Definite (weak)

Nominative

Genitive

Dative

Accusative

Instrumental

Зōd (good)

Зōdes

Зōdum

Зōdne

Зōde

Зōda

Зōdan

Nominative

Genitive

Dative

Accusative

Зōde

Зōdra

Зōdum

Зōde

Зōdan

Зōdra

Зōdum

Зōdan

4.2. Degrees of comparison

The adjective in Old English changed its forms not only to show the relation of the given adjective to other words in the sentence which was expressed by the gender, number and case of the adjective, but also to show the degree of the quality denoted by the adjective, i.e. the forms of the adjective in Old English could expressed degrees of comparison.

The degrees of comparison were expressed, the same as all other grammatical notions, synthetically, namely:

  1. by means of suffixation:

heard – heardra – heardost (hard)

  1. by means of vowel gradation plus suffixation:

eald – ieldra – ieldest (old)

  1. by means of suppletive forms

Зōd – bettra – betst (good)

the first means being unquestionably the most common.

Both suffixation and the use of suppletive forms in the formation of the degrees of comparison are original means that can be traced back to Common Germanic. But the use of vowel interchange is a feature which is typical of the English language only and was acquired by the language in the pre-historic period of its development.

The origin of vowel gradation in the forms

eald – ieldra – ieldest

is a result of the process of palatal mutation which the root-vowel ea underwent under the influence of the original stem-forming suffix –i, ie.

Positive Comparative Suppletive

degree degree degree

eald ieldra ieldest

ealdira ealdist

ealdira > ieldra ealdist > ieldest

A similar case is observed with strong (strong), long (long) etc.

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