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)

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

Demonstrative pronouns belong to an ancient class of words that goes back to two Indo-European roots – se and to. In OE the sound [Ө] started to dominate over the sound [s] due to the pressure of the system (the forms with the sound [Ө] were more numerous (see the table below)).

Demonstrative pronouns in OEchanged in Gender, Number, Case:

Dem pron were frequently used as noun determiners & through agreement with the noun, indicated its number, gender, case. The forms of the pron may help to define the forms of the nouns.

In ME the Case system disappeared due to the fact that there were some homonymous forms (see the table above: e.g. þǽre – F, Sg, Gen; F, Sg, Dat; F, Sg, Instr; þa – Pl, Nom; Pl, Acc; þisse – F, Sg, Gen; F, Sg, Dat) and due to phonetic reduction.

1)In early ME dem pron se, sēo þæt… lost most of their inflected forms

2)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 (see the table above: e.g. þes/þæs – M, Sg, Gen; N, Sg, Gen; þæm – M, Sg, Dat; N, Sg, Dat; þissum – M, Sg, Dat; N, Sg, Dat) and the following changes happened to the pronouns marked with * in the table above:

· se (M, Sg, Nom) – turned into the definite article “the” (discussed more particularly in the point “Rise of Articles” below);

· sēo (F, Sg, Nom) – turned into the personal pronoun “she” (discussed more particularly in the point “Personal Pronouns” (changes in the 3^rd person) below);

· þæt (N, Sg, Nom) – remained as the unchangeable demonstrative pronoun “that”;

· þis (N, Sg, Nom) – remained as the unchangeable demonstrative pronoun “this”;

· þý (M, Sg, Instr) – in OE was used in the comparative constructions like “the sooner…the better” but in NE was not distinguished any more phonetically and merged with the unchangeable form of the definite article “the”.

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

The articles have to do with the category of Determination (definiteness/indefiniteness). Causes for Rise of Articles:

1. In OE the there were two declensions of adjectives – strong (definite) and weak (indefinite) – and the inflections of these declensions indicated whether the noun that followed the adjective was definite or indefinite. At the end of the ME Period the declensions of the Adjective disappeared and there was a necessity to find another way to indicate the definiteness/indefiniteness of a noun. Thus the articles appeared.

2. In OE the word-order was free because inflections were employed to show the relations of the words in a sentence. In ME and NE the majority of the inflections disappeared and the word-order became fixed. This meant that the first place in a sentence was usually occupied by the theme (information already known à marked with the definite article) and the second place – by the rheme (new information à marked with the indefinite article).

Definite Article.As it was mentioned above, the definite article appeared from the OE demonstrative pronoun se (M, Sg, Nom) from the paradigm of the OE demonstrative pronoun “that” because it was often used to indicate a definite object or notion.

Indefinite Article.The indefinite article appeared from the OE numeral ān (one) and had the meaning of “oneness” (it still indicates only nouns in Sg, i.e. nouns indicating one object or notion).

In OE ān had 5-case paradigm that was lost in ME and only one form was left – oon/one. Later it was employed in the building of the indefinite article a/an.