The ME Pronoun

The ME Adverb

The ME Adjective.

In the adjective the leveling of forms had even greater consequences. Partly as a result of the sound-changes, partly through the extensive working of analogy, the form of the nominative singular was early extended to all cases of the singular, and that of the nominative plural to all cases of the plural, both in the strong and the weak declensions. The result was that in the weak declension there was no longer any distinction between the singular and the plural: both ended in -e (blinda > blinde and blindan > blinde). This was also true of those adjectives under the strong declension whose singular ended in –e. By about 1250 the strong declension had distinctive forms for the singular and plural only in certain monosyllabic adjectives which ended in a consonant in Old English (sing. glad, plur. glade). Under the circumstances the only ending which remained to the adjective was often without distinctive grammatical meaning and its use was not governed by any strong sense of adjectival inflection. Although it is clear that the -e ending of the weak and plural forms was available for use in poetry in both the East and West Midlands until the end of the fourteenth century, it is impossible to know the most usual status of the form in the spoken language.

Adverbs in the ME period are changed phonetically, like all other parts of speech, yet there were some other changes.

All primary adverbs existed in their slightly modified form – theer (there), then, ofte (often) etc.

Secondary adverbs, formerly made from the adjectives by means of adding the suffix –e were also in use, but with the gradual loss of the final –e in ME the distinction between adjective and adverb was lost, and a new phenomenon appeared – it started the so-called adverbial use of adjectives.

At the same time there appears a new and very productive way of forming adverbs – adding the suffix –ly. The very suffix was not quite new. It goes back to Old English suffix –lice, but earlier it was limited in use. Now quite distinct adverbs were made this way. Native adjectives as well as borrowed took it freely, and such formations very soon become prevalent in the language.

All pronouns in ME with the exception of the personal ones lose the categories of gender and case, some lose their number – that is, agreeing with nouns they simplified their paradigm according to the changes in the system of the noun.

The loss was greatest in the demonstratives. Of the numerous forms of sē, sēo, þœt we have only the and that surviving through ME and continuing in use today. A plural tho (those) survived to Elizabethan times. All the other forms indicative of different gender, number, and case disappeared in most dialects early in the Middle English period.

In the personal pronoun the losses were not so great. Most of the distinctions that existed in OE were retained. However the forms of the dative and accusative cases were early combined, generally under that of the dative (him, her, hem). In the neuter the form of the accusative (h)it became the general objective case, partly because it was like the nominative, and partly because the dative him would have been subject to confusion with the corresponding case of the masculine. One other general simplification is to be noted: the loss of the dual number.

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