The OE Adjectives

B) Demonstrative Pronouns.

A) Personal Pronouns.

The OE Pronouns.

OE pronouns fell roughly under the same main classes as modern pronouns: personal, demonstrative, interrogative and indefinite. Some scholars (e.g. Boris Ilyish) distinguish also possessive, definite, negative and relative pronouns in OE. The grammatical categories of the pronouns were either similar to those of nouns (in "nouns-pronouns") or corresponded to those of adjectives (in "adjective-pronouns").

In OE, as in Gothic, there were besides singular and plural personal pronouns, also dual pronouns for the 1^st and 2^nd persons.

Declension of personal pronouns Table 2

1^st person

Case singular	dual	plural
Nom. ic Gen. mīn Dat. mē Acc. mec, mē (NE I, me)	wit uncer unc uncit (≈ NE we both, us both)	wē ūre, ūser ūs ūsic, ūs (NE we, us)

2^nd person

Nom. þū Gen. þīn Dat. þē Acc. þēc, þē (NE you)

3it incer inc incit, inc (NE you both)

3ē ēower ēow ēowic, ēow (NE you)

3^rd person

singular	plural
M F N	All genders
Nom. hē hēo, hīo hit Gen. his hire, hiere his Dat. him hire, hiere him Acc. hine hīe, hī, hý hit (NE he, him) (she, her) (it)	hīe, hī, hý, hēo hira, heora, hiera, hyra him, heom hīe, hī, hý, hēo (NE they, them)

There were 2 demonstrative pronouns in OE. The first one was the prototype of NE that, which distinguished 3 genders in the sg (Nom. M sē, se; N þæt; F sēo) and had 1 form for all the genders in the pl (þā). The second one was the prototype of this with the same subdivisions: M. þes, F þēos, N þis and þās pl.

c) Other Classes of Pronouns.

Interrogative pronouns – hwā, Masc. and Fem., and hwæt, Neut., - had a four-case paradigm (NE who, what).The Instr. Case of hwat was used as a separate interrogative word hwý (NE why).

Indefinite pronouns were a numerous class embracing several simple pronouns and a large number of compounds. For instance, ān and its derivatives ǽni3 (NE one, any); nān, made up of ān and the negative particle ne (NE none); nānþin3, made up of the preceding the noun þing (NE nothing).

Like nouns, OE adjectives had 3 genders and 2 numbers. The category of case in adjectives differed from that of nouns: in addition to the 4 cases of nouns they had one more case, Instrumental. It was used when the adjective served as an attribute to a noun in the Dative case, expressing an instrumental meaning – e.g.:

lýtle werede – "with (the help) of small troop".

OE adjective had the following typological features:

1) the grammatical agreement with the noun it modified;

2) declension according to the weak and strong forms which depended on the definiteness or indefiniteness of the nouns;

3) distinguishing between the degrees of comparison.

a) Adjectives of Weak and Strong Declension.

The relations between the declensions of nouns, adjectives and pronouns are shown in the following chart:

PRONOUNS NOUNS

↓ a-stems ō-stems n-stems (weak)

↓ ↓ ↓

ADJECTIVES OF STRONG DECLENSION

ADJECTIVES OF WEAK DECLENSION

The difference between the strong and weak declension was formal (depending on the stem-forming suffixes) and semantic: the strong forms were associated with the meaning of indefiniteness (roughly corresponding to the meaning of the modern indefinite article), the weak forms – with the meaning of definiteness (corresponding to the meaning of the definite article). The formal and semantic opposition between the two declensions of adjectives is regarded by some historians as a grammatical category of "definiteness/ indefiniteness" (A.I. Smirnitsky).

Most adjectives could be declined in both ways. The adjective had a strong form when used predicatively and when used attributively without any other determiners, e.g.:

Þā menn sindon 3ōde “the men are good”,

mid hnescre beddin3e “with soft bedding”.

The weak form was employed when the adjective was preceded by a demonstrative pronoun or the Gen. case of personal pronouns, e. g.:

Þæt wēste land "that uninhabited land",

Þý betstan lēoþe "with the best song";

And also when the adjective formed a part of a direct address:

Þū lēofa drihten "thou dear Lord".

Table 3

Declensions of adjectives

Singular

Strong (pure a- and ō-stems) M N F	Weak M N F
Nom. blind blind blind Gen. blindes blindes blindre Dat. blindum blindum blindre Acc. blindne blind blinde Instr. blinde blinde blindre	blinda blinde blinde blindan blindan blindan blindan blindan blindan blindan blinde blindan blindan blindan blindan

Plural

Nom. blinde blind blinda, -e Gen. blindra blindra blindra Dat. blindum blindum blindum Acc. blinde blind blinda, -e Instr. blindum blindum blindum (NE blind)

All genders blindan blindra, -ena blindum blindan blindum

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