Originally, adjectives differed from nouns only in meaning and syntactic use but not graphically :: lat. lupus ( n. wolf) - bonus (adj. good), aqua (n. water) - bona (adj. good ) .Old English, whose usage covered a period of approximately 700 years - from the Anglo-Saxon migrations that created England in the 5 th century to some time after the Norman Conquest of 1 066 the adjective could change for number, gender and case.nouns , adjectives had three genders (masculine, neuter, and feminine) and two numbers (singular and plural). The category of case in adjectives differed from that of nouns: in addition to four cases of nouns (Nominative, Genitive, Accusative and Dative) 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: l? Tel werede (with (the help of) a small troop). [Strang, Barbara MH, p.93] adjectives in other languages, most OE adjectives distinguished between three degrees of comparison: positive, comparative and superlative. The regular means used to form the comparative and superlative from the positive were the suffixes -ra and -est/-ost. Sometimes suffixation was accompanied by an interchange of the root-vowel. Besides that, some adjectives had suppletive forms of degrees of comparison. Several examples of comparison of adjectives in Old English are given in chart 1.
1. Comparison of Adjectives in Old English
Means of form-buildingPositiveComparativeSuperlativeSuffixationsoft soft w? ri? weary sweotol clear heard hard, fierce softra w? ri? ra sweotolra heardrasoftost w? ri? ost sweotolost heardostSuffixation plus vowel interchange? l? d glad lon? long eald old? l? dra len? ra ieldra (also: ealdra? ladost len? est ieldest ealdost, ealdest) Suppletion? ? d good lytel little micel large yfel bad betera, bettra, selra laessa m? ra wiersabet (e) st, s? lest laest maest wierrest, wierst
As follows from the Chart 1, those adjectives, which have the suffix -ost in the superlative degree, have the same root-vowel in all forms with the exception of the adjectives with the root-vowel -?-. In the superlative degree it alternates with the root-vowel -a- before the back vowel in the suffix -ost:? l? d -? ladost., some linguists say that, since? l? d refers to the words which used to form their degrees of comparison by adding the suffixes -ora and -ost, it had no vowel interchange:? l? d -? l? dra -? l? dost.
Degrees of comparison with -mest are generally derived from adverbs but they function as adjectives. We can see several examples in Chart 2.
The initial adverbComparative degreeSuperlative degree? te outside inne inside l? t late? terra, yterra innera l? tra? temest, ytemest innemest l? temest degrees of comparison is the only set of forms which the adjective has preserved through all historical periods. However, the means employed to build up the forms of the degrees of comparison have considerably altered.Middle English the degrees of comparison could be built in the same way as in Old English - by adding the suffixes to the form of the positive degree (sometimes suffixation was accompanied by an interchange of the root-vowel; a few adjectives had suppletive forms). But the comparative degree suffix -ra had been weakened to -er; afterwards, the final unstressed -e disappears completely and before -r we find a weak vowel, ie-ra?-re?-r?-er. As a result of weakening of an unstressed vowel, the OE suffix -ost coincided in Middle English with the suffix -est.new system of comparisons emerged at the end of the Middle English period. To form the comparative and superlative degrees they began to use such words as more and most. But the ground for this method had already been prepared by the use of the OE adverbs m ?, bet, betst, sw? Por - more, better, to a greater degree with adjectives and participles. It is noteworthy that in Middle English the phrases with more and most became popular and were used with all kinds of adjectives, regardless of the number of syllables and were even preferred with mono- and disyllabic words. [Curme, George O, p33]
1.4 Degrees of comparison in English
In English grammar the degree of comparison of an adjective lt; # justify gt; However, the oppositional interpretation of grammatical categories underlying our considerations does not admit of such an exclusion; on the contrary, the non-expression of superiority by the basic form is understood in the oppositional presentation of comparison as a pre-requisite for the expression of the category as such. In this expression of the category the basic form is the unmarked member, not distinguished by any comparis...
