The head of the noun phrase

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(see Chapter 2). These morphological changes, however, have had repercussions on the syntax. The loss of case, for instance, meant that in certain constructions the functional role that the head nouns play in the clause (e.g. that of subject, or indirect object) had to be expressed by other means, such as a preposition or a fixed position (see further Sections 3.4 and 3.5). The loss of gender caused changes in the anaphorical or referential system (see Chapter 2) and further morphological changes.

Personal and indefinite pronouns can function by themselves as heads, while other pronouns, such as relatives, interrogatives and demonstratives, can be either head or determiner of a nominal head.

Personal pronouns occasionally occur with a modifier, as in poor old me, us girls and he in the corner. In such usages, they are in fact similar to referential nouns. Denison (1998: 106ff.), from whom these examples have been taken, notes an interesting diachronic change in these forms when they function as subject or subject complement: the older nominative form in such combinations comes to be replaced by the oblique form. This is a late ModE development, which affects not only modified pronouns (compare the earlier example in (1a) with the later one in (1b)), but also personal pronouns used independently (see (2) – third person lags well behind first) or used as a subject (complement) not occurring in the usual subject position (see (3)).

(1)a. That poor I must write helter-skelter (1832 Gaskell, Letters 2, p. 2)

b.The miserable little me to be taken up and loved after tearing myself to pieces (1879 Meredith, Egoist xlviii.606)

(2)a. ‘Not she,’ said the Psammead a little crossly. (1906 Nesbit, Amulet viii, 146)

b.‘Not me!’ was Gerald’s unhesitating rejoinder. (1907 Nesbit, Enchanted Castle I, 26)

(3)a. The children were as white as he (1906 Nesbit, Amulet v.83)

b.for they are quite as well educated as me (1816 Austen, Emma I.iv.31)

(spoken by the ‘vulgar’ Harriet Smith)

The change is quite recent: in the nineteenth century the oblique forms were still considered vulgar, but now they are normal even in educated speech. For some speakers they are still a source of uncertainty, especially when coordinated, as in

X and me/myself/I.

When adjectives were still declined (in OE), showing case, number and gender, we frequently come across adjectives used substantively, as (4) shows.

(4)a he gehælde untrume on ðæs Hælendes naman, blinde and deafe

always he healed infirm in the Saviour’s name, blind and deaf ‘he healed sick people in the name of the Saviour, blind as well as deaf’

(ÆLS (Mark)45)

These adjectives could be used generically to refer to the whole group, as in PDE (the Dutch, the poor), but they could also be used to refer to a specific group, person or thing, as in (4). This is now possible only with a small relic group of

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participial adjectives: the accused, my beloved, etc. With the loss of inflections in the ME period, this ‘specific’ usage became more infrequent. It survived for a while, especially in poetry, but by the end of the eModE period it had all but disappeared. For specific reference, the numeral one came to be used as a propword with adjectives from eModE onwards. This numeral had been developing into an indefinite (personal) pronoun in the ME period meaning both ‘a certain’ as well as being used non-specifically, in the sense of ‘someone’ (e.g. þare cam on and seruede ‘there came (some)one and served’, Sleg(Ld)227: 282). Later in the fifteenth century, perhaps under the influence of Old French on, it also develops into a generic pronoun used, at first at least, in subject function, where it replaces the OE indefinite pronoun man. At the same time, also in ME, it begins to be used as an anaphoric pronoun, replacing an earlier NP. This probably led to an extension from personal ‘one’ to general ‘one’, and hence to the prop-word ‘one’ as we now have it, used with adjectives, thus filling the gap that had come into existence after the loss of adjectival endings.

The most common determiner in PDE is the article (definite the and indefinite a(n)). It is therefore perhaps rather surprising that in the very earliest stages of English there was no article at all. When a language develops an article system through a process called grammaticalisation, it usually does so using a limited number of sources, e.g. definite articles from demonstrative pronouns, indefinite articles from the numeral ‘one’ or sometimes from a quantifier (e.g. sum in OE; see (5b)). There is also a more or less fixed path of development: the article first appears in positions in which the NP is presentational or referential, i.e. plays some role in the further discourse (see (5)), while it is slower to develop when the NP functions predicatively, as in (6), or generically, as in (7), and slower still when the NP is in the scope of a modal or a negative element, as in (8).

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its function. In ME we find proximate þes(e)/þis(e) at first used indiscriminately in the singular and the plural; later the plural generally is written with an <e> at the end, and the singular without <e>, to distinguish them. At first, we also find another proximate, þos (with the regular phonetic development of [a ] to [ɔ ]), but since this form was rather similar to distal þo (the regular development of OE þa), these forms soon became ambiguous (also because the -s tended to be misanalysed as a plural marker). The two forms therefore collapsed, and þos became the new distal plural form (for its adoption, see also Section 2.2). In the meantime, the article system had developed invariant þe, so that þat could keep or resume its distal singular function.

Other common determiners, which occur all through the history of English, are possessive and genitive phrases, interrogative, indefinite and relative pronouns, and quantifiers (as in ‘his’ or ‘Tom’s daughter’, ‘which daughter did you meet?’, ‘you can take what book you like’, ‘the woman, whose daughter . . .’, ‘some passers-by’ respectively – the determiner-relative whose is in fact also a genitive phrase). Syntactically, not much has changed concerning the possessive, interrogative and indefinite determiners; for changes in their forms, see Chapter 2. Quite categorial changes, however, have taken place in the relatives, which are dealt with in Section 3.2.4

Most genitive phrases in PDE are functionally similar to possessive pronouns, but this was not always so. There are two main developments to be noted in the use of the genitive phrase, a formal and a functional one, closely linked. Formally, the genitive case in nominal phrases gradually lost ground to a prepositional phrase with of. Mustanoja (1960: 75) shows how the of-phrase rose rapidly from barely 1 per cent of all genitives in the nominal phrase in OE, to roughly 85 per cent in late ME. There was a revival, however, of the s-genitive after ME; see below. The new of-construction itself is probably native (cf. similar developments in other Germanic languages) but may have been aided by the French de-phrase. The real ‘culprit’ in the loss of the inflectional genitive was of course the general loss of inflections that marked the ME period. The genitive, although one of the ‘stronger’ case forms, gradually became eroded, so that of all the variant OE forms (with inflections in -an, -es, -e, -a, -ena, depending on type of declension, gender and number) only an analogical -(e)s form remained, doing duty for both singular and plural. It is possible that a zero type of genitive survived in phrases like mother tongue (OE Bæde þu forþi þinre modor spræce ‘suppress therefore your mother tongue’, ÆLS (Julian and Basilissa) 3.5 353), although it is probable that such phrases were looked upon as compounds already in OE (see further Chapter 4).

In the course of the ME period the -(e)s form itself stops behaving like a true case ending. First of all the genitive NP became fixed in prenominal position, and postposition disappeared (cf. OE heretoga þæs folces ‘leader of the people’ (ÆCHom I, 12 (Pref) 531.1) versus þæs folces ealdor ‘the people’s lord’ (Mald 202)). Secondly, the close link between noun and case inflection became loosened, so that by the beginning of the ME period we begin to come across the so-called group genitive. While in OE both name and rank would have to be inflected

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new system has come into being, it becomes the norm for the synthetic genitive to occur with all human possessors. Discourse factors also play a role in the choice; thus when the human possessor is topical, the incidence of s-genitives is noticeably higher than when the possessor is not topical. In this way, after a quite general loss, the s-genitive slowly rehabilitates itself in a clearly defined niche. We will see below that discourse or information structure requirements also play a role in syntactic (word order) changes involving adjectives.

In PDE the determiner slot can only be filled by one element. This was not the case in OE, where we find combinations of possessive and demonstrative pronouns, and also genitive phrases and demonstratives, as in on Godes þa gehalgodan cyricean (HomU 20 (BlHom 10)(66)) ‘in God’s the hallowed church’, and se heora arwyrða bisceop ‘the their venerable bishop’ (LS 25 (MichaelMor) 88). Examples are still found in early ME but soon die out in common usage (cf. Rissanen, 1999: 206; Denison, 1998: 115). The reason is presumably that most genitive phrases (especially pronominal ones such as his and hiera) came to be treated as definite determiners; having a genitive as well as a demonstrative would therefore be tantamount to expressing definiteness twice. This development must therefore be seen as part of a larger development in which an explicit determiner system developed in ME. Note that in PDE we can still have a combination of an article with a genitive, as in the plane’s flight was smooth and in phrases like these nice women’s clothes. In the former, the article is part of the genitive phrase and does not directly modify the head noun, while in the latter women’s is a modifier rather than a determiner.

The predeterminer category is the least clearly defined slot in the noun phrase. The elements that can occur there, mainly quantifiers, very often also occur in other slots, e.g. such would be a predeterminer in such a to-do, a determiner in ‘such people’ and a postdeterminer in another such holiday. Likewise all and both function as predeterminers in all/both the girls, but more or less the same meaning is also conveyed by the expressions all/both girls (with all and both as determiners), and all/both of the girls (with all and both as pronominals), and even the girls (. . .) all/both. Quantifiers, in fact, are generally mobile, both as regards position and function: they may function as pronominals (indefinite pronouns) as well as semi-adverbials (all soaked he was) and peripheral modifiers (she was all gentleness). It is not surprising therefore that they occur in many of the slots given in Table 3.2 above.

The quantifiers that can occur before the determiner are fairly restricted in PDE (only all, both and half occur here). In ME (with some instances already occurring in OE) other quantifiers were found there too, such as each (OE ælc an hagelstan ‘each a hailstone’ HomU 36 (Nap 45) 51, ME þurh out vch a toune, Horn (Hrl) 218); some (OE sume þa englas ‘some the angels’, ÆCHom I, 7 236.147, ME some þe messagers, Glo. Chron. A (Clg) 2718); (m)any (ME ony

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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 in these formal means, which will be the main topic of discussion here.

From a discourse point of view predicative adjectives are often salient because they convey ‘new’ rather than ‘given’ information. It has been noted in discourse and in typological studies that the more salient exponents of a category tend to be more clearly or more explicitly marked (cf. Hopper and Thompson, 1984; Thompson, 1988); we will see below that this is indeed the case with certain adjectives, but that the ways in which they have been marked have changed in the history of English.

Attributive adjectives may be either salient or non-salient. When they are salient, as is often the case with an attributive adjective in an indefinite NP (because an indefinite NP is likely to convey new information), they have some stress in PDE, but when they are non-salient the head noun receives the main stress; compare She chose herself a red` dress´ with She spilled juice on her red dress´. In the first case we are talking about a dress which has the important property of being red; in the second case we are dealing with a particular dress – which happens to be red. In other words, salience or new information in adjectives in PDE can be conveyed by position (predicative adjectives follow the noun) or by the stress pattern within the NP, when position is not variable. In some cases in PDE the salience of an attributive adjective can be conveyed by position too, but these are rare; compare prenominal The present class structure is based . . . with postnominal . . . to allow the people present to jive. In the first example the adjective indicates what kind of class structure is the topic of the discourse; it qualifies the head noun. In the second example ‘present’ separates one group of people from another; it distinguishes between two groups, but does not qualify the ‘group’ itself. We will now look at what kinds of changes have occurred in the ways the different types of adjective are marked.

More work needs to be done on the status of the adjective in OE and ME, which has been meagrely investigated so far, but some distinctive features are emerging. The most notable differences between the OE and ModE/PDE systems (with ME as a period of transition) are: (i) loss of inflections (including the strong/weak distinction); (ii) different use of position; (iii) clearer differentiation

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those following indefinites (something good, etc.), some idiomatic ‘French’ (often quasi-legal) expressions (The Princess Royal, heir apparent, etc.), and adjectives that cannot be used attributively because they are too verbal or adverbial, such as no person alive, the people involved, the music played (all three groups can in fact be seen as historical relics, with the first and the third group still obeying the adjectival rules of OE). In other words, with the increasing fixity of word order in the course of ME, the more frequent adjective position (i.e. the prenominal one) became the rule for both the restrictive and the non-restrictive function. Thus linear iconicity got replaced by phonological iconicity, i.e. stress has become the main distinguishing factor.

The OE strong adjectives were predicative in nature, as we have seen, and it is not surprising, therefore, that these strong adjectives were closer to the verbal end of the cline. We see then that some of the OE postnominal adjectives are now more easily translated adverbially or with an adverbial clause than adjectivally, as with ufewearde in the example above, and unsynnigne and lifigende in (10):

Adjectives derived from verbs (participles) and adverbs (e.g. ufewearde and other adjectives ending in -weard) occur more frequently in postnominal position than other adjectives, and the same is true for negative adjectives, as in (10a). Negation is typically an attribute of the predicate, rather than of the nominal group; consequently it has its position usually close to the verb. Likewise, negative adjectives generally tend to be predicative, rather than attributive. Thus when we want to convey that something is not large, we do not normally speak of an unlarge or non-large object. Another striking fact suggesting there is something verbal about strong adjectives and something nominal about weak adjectives is the total absence of intensifying adverbs like swiþe ‘very’ preceding weak adjectives, and their high frequency before strong ones. Thus a phrase like the very old man does not occur in OE (the equivalents of a very old man and he is very old, on the other hand, are frequent) and only begins to appear from the fifteenth century onwards. In a similar way one does not find prepositional phrases or infinitives associated with a weak adjective in OE. In PDE we can talk about an easy dictionary to use, and even this easy-to-use dictionary, but in OE this was out of the question. There, we only find the type a dictionary easy to use and even more frequently a predicative phrase, as in (11).

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The fate of the preand postmodifiers is closely linked to that of the modifiers. We have seen that adverbial premodifiers first occurred only with predicative or attributive non-restrictive adjectives, and that they only began to occur with restrictive attributives once adjective position became fixed in ME. The fixing of adjective position and the loss of the weak/strong distinction must also have led to a string of adjectives without the linking word and becoming common, and an adverbial modifier becoming possible with formerly weak adjectives. Both facts together would almost naturally lead to a situation in which an adjective in a string could begin to modify the next adjective plus head noun, just as an adverb before an adjective could. It is difficult to determine when exactly this possibility became available, but that it did is clear from a development in which formerly descriptive adjectives like nice or horrid develop into value adjectives, which cannot modify a noun but only an adjective, as in We need a good fast car, where good clearly modifies fast or fast car, not car. Adamson (2000) has shown that to trace such a development one would first have to ascertain when an adjective like horrid starts being used in a row with another adjective, and secondly when horrid-adjectives begin to be predominantly placed in left-most position. No answers to these questions are available as yet, but it is clear from the complete corpus of Chaucerian (late ME) texts that such a development with the now classic value adjectives horrible/horrid and nice had not yet taken place. Nice in Chaucer occurs only by itself. Horrible occurs by itself 28 times; 9 times there is another adjective. Of these latter cases, 2 instances show the use of and (horrible and strong prison, KnT 1451); one instance has the adjectives draped around the noun (sodeyn deth horrible, FrlT 1010); 5 have two consecutive adjectives. Of these 5, however, one has horrible not in leftmost position (this false horrible boke, RR 7132), in three more horrible is likely to be descriptive because the other adjectives describe feelings of horror too (swollen, disordinate, dedly), while the last double adjective construction, horrible grete synnes, is more likely to be descriptive too, because it is followed by or smale (ParsT 960). In other words there is no evidence yet in Chaucer of the adjectives having become premodifiers.

There are both finite and non-finite clausal postmodifiers. No changes of note occurred in the non-finite ones, i.e. already in OE a head noun could be followed by an infinitival or a present participle construction:

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Indeed, in cases like (13a), where a demonstrative pronoun by itself functions as a relative and where there is no clear indication of coordinateness as there is in (14), it is not clear whether the relative clause is subordinate or paratactic.

Relative clauses which take a demonstrative pronoun as head as well as a particle, as in (13c), may have developed from an appositive construction, whereby the demonstrative originally was part of the main clause, as can be seen in a number of cases where the demonstrative pronoun bears the case form of the antecedent in the main clause rather than the case form of the function it reflects in the subordinate clause. Thus in (13c) the demonstrative seo has nominative case because it functions as subject of the relative clause, while in (15) the demonstrative þara is in the genitive plural, like its antecedent ealra, in spite of the fact that it functions as subject in the relative clause:

‘and you must set the example for all who through you believe in God’

(LS 4 (Christoph)57)

Another type of relative that is appositional in nature is the non-introduced relative clause:

‘This maiden was the offspring of Noah’s eldest son, (who was) called Sem.’ (ÆCHom I, 186.222)

This was the main type of zero-relative clause possible in OE. A zero relative where the relative element functions as any kind of object in the subordinate clause, as in This is the book Ø I came to pick up, first occurs in the ME period and only becomes common in ModE.

The greatest change in the ME period is the introduction of the wh-relative. In OE wh-pronouns were used as interrogatives and generalising, indefinite pronouns, but never as relatives. The introduction of wh-relatives is partly a natural development, but its use may also be due to the collapse of the OE relative system. þe went out of use (probably because it was phonetically weak and identical to the new, undeclined, definite article) in the early part of the ME period – a little later in the south – and was replaced by that, as the only left-over of the original demonstrative pronoun series se, seo, þæt. The use of wh-relatives ((the) which (that), whom, whose) dates from the beginning of the ME period, but became really frequent only in the early ModE period. The earliest instances are with whom and whose, possibly because, unlike that, they could indicate case. The development of interrogative into relative pronouns is natural when one considers their use in indirect questions such as He wanted to know who did this, where the interrogative could be said to function as an indefinite (‘the one who’) or generalising (‘whoever’) pronoun. Already in OE, interrogatives like hwa, hwæt