Adjectives. Historically the Adjective is a younger class of words as compared to the Noun. So it has borrowed many of its categories and inflections from the Noun and the Pronoun.

Number – Singular (Sg) and Plural (Pl).

Gender – Masculine (M), Feminine (F), Neuter (N). was the first category to disappear in the 11^th c.

Case – Nominative (Nom), Genitive (Gen), Dative (Dat), Accusative (Acc) + Instrumental (Instr).

Instrumental Case was used to express instrumental meaning but only in the adjective while the noun stood in Dative Case:

by/with + Adjective (Instr) + Noun (Dat)

Degrees of Comparison – positive, comparative, superlative.

Determination (Definiteness- strong/Indefiniteness- weak) – today this category has to do with the Article

System of Declensions The system of declension was inherited from PG. Adjectives had two declensions that had to do also with the category of determination – strong (indefinite) and weak (definite) – and unlike nouns practically all adjectives could be declined both ways (by strong and weak declension). So an adjective did not belong to a particular declension, its declension depended on several factors that will be mentioned below:

There were exceptions from the rule: some adjectives were declined always strong (eall (all), maniζ (many), ōþer (other)), others – always weak (ilca (same)).

The endings of the adjectives showed the agreement between a noun and an adjective. There were a lot of homonymous forms à the distinction between the declensions faded in ME and the declensions disappeared as far as there was no necessity any more to keep them.

Number

There were some homonymous forms in Singular and Plural in both declensions, so the category of Number disappeared together with the system of declensions.

The Adjective lost many of its categories in ME as far as all the inflections were lost. Thus it became an unchangeable part of speech.

Degrees of Comparison In OE there were three ways of formation of the degrees of comparison:

In ME the following changes happened:

· In most cases inflections -er, -est were used to form the comparative and the superlative degrees;

· Root-sound interchange fell into disuse (long – longer – longest), though in some cases it was preserved as an exception from the rule (e.g. old – elder – eldest; far – further – furthest);

· A new way of formation of the degrees of comparison appeared:

more + Adj (comparative) || most + Adj (superlative)

The development of demonstrative pronouns (Dem pron, their categories , declentions, the decay of declentions & gramm. Categ in Middle E, the rise of articles.)

Demonstrative pronouns (se and bes) in OE changed in 2 Numbers, 5 Case( + the instrumental)

The forms of the pron may help to define the forms of the nouns.

In 12-13^th centuries due to the reduction of unstressed syl. And the decay of the nominal declension, the dem. Pronouns lost the traces of their inflections and became indeclinable.

The development of se, sēo þæt led to formation of the def article

In NE the Gender was lost due to the fact that there were some homonymous forms

· OE m Se and F seo  – turned into the form “the”

The only category that was left in the demonstrative pronouns was the Number (e.g. ModE this – these, that – those).

In OE the demonstrative pronouns were frequently used as noun-determines before the weak form of the adjective which expressed definiteness.

As the decay of the adj, declension took place – the dem. Pronoun remained the only means of expressing definiteness.

Since 14^th c, the forms ‘that’ and ‘this’ were only preserved as demonstrative pronoun forms.

The plural forms of both developed irregulary

- The pl. of ‘that’ was ‘thos’, the development of OE pō into ME with a –s, which was added by analogy with the other plurals in –s

- The plural of ‘this’ became ‘thise’ or these’ on analogy, but the latter became the only plural form by the end of 15^th century.

By the end of ME, the system of 2 demonstratives inflected only for number (this\these and that\those) and a sngle definite article ‘the’ fully established.

The indef. Article developed from the OE numeral ãn. In ME it split into 2 words:

- the indef. Pronoun an which was frequently used in unstressed position

- the numeral oon ‘one’

The unstressed form of the indefinite pronoun grew into the indefinite article – together with the definite art. They formed a new gram. Category.