Grammatical categories of the adjective in the history of English.

Old English. Most historians agree that the number of adjectives in Old English is not very significant. There are primary adjectives, dating back from the very old times and derivative adjectives made by adjective-forming suffixes from nouns. The part of the speech agrees with noun it modifies in number, gender and case. The adjectives have the same categories as the nouns do. Besides, they have categories which are purely adjectival. The adjective in Old English had the following categories:

Number – the singular and the plural; Gender – masculine, neuter and feminine; Case – 4/5 (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative and partly instrumental).

Besides, the adjectives had two declensions (відміни), strong and weak. The weak form of the adjective is used after a demonstrative pronoun, a personal pronoun or a noun in the genitive case, no matter whether the adjective is before the noun or after it and may be a stable epithet to the noun. When the adjective is not so accompanied, or is preceded by an adjective of quantity or number, it is declined strong.

Specifically adjectival categories are the degrees of comparison – the positive, the comparative and the superlative. These are characteristic only for the qualitative adjectives. The forms of the comparative and the superlative degree are made synthetically, by adding suffixes –ra and –ost/-est: soft – softra – softest; blæc – blæcra –blacost.

The number of syllables in the adjective did not affect the rule – even polysyllabic adjectives may take these suffixes. Four adjectives in Old English had suppletive degrees of comparison, that is their comparative and superlative degree are formed by adding the suffixes to the stems of other adjectives: good, bad, much, little. The paradigm of adjective was rich in forms.

Middle English. The paradigm of the adjectives in Middle English is simplified drastically (радикально). The endings become scarce (рідко зустрічатися). The category of gender is lost, for the nouns no longer have it. The adjective no longer agrees with the noun in case, the only remaining endings being – the plural form having the ending –e and the remains of the weak declension, the weak form (the one preceded by an article) –e:

Young knight/the younge knight

Younge knightes/the younge knightes

The forms of the suffixes of the degrees of comparison were reduced to –er, -est:

glad – gladder – gladdest

greet – gretter – grettest

Some preserve former suppletivity, and their degrees of comparison look like this:

good – better – best

evil (bad) – werse – werst

muchel –more –most, mest

litel –lasse – lest

Early New English Adjective. The adjective in Early New English lost the form of plural and weak forms and acquired its present-day qualities. The degrees of comparison are formed by means of the suffixes –er and –est, vowel mutation which was characteristic of some of them was almost lost. The forms elder/older, eldest/oldest and further/farther, furthest/farthest are distinguished in use. So, older forms elder, eldest are used to denote relations within a family and further/furthest are used in relation to time whereas farther/farthest to distance. In Shakespeare’s time this not yet is firmly established.

The new way of forming the degrees of comparison that appeared in Middle English – that is, analytically, by placing the adverb more and most before the adjective comes into practice. The rule that this new form is to be used only with polysyllabic and a limited number of bisyllabic adjectives was not yet established.

The tendency to unification of a general norm sometimes brings to the general rule even those the comparatives and superlatives of which were traditionally in suppletive way: Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear (Hamlet).

Double comparatives and superlatives – the instances when the adjective with a suffix is preceded by more/most are also found: Without more wider and overt test (Othello).

At the same time more and most may also be used as comparative and superlative degrees of the adjective much – that is, they are not auxiliaries but adjectives of full semantics (equivalent to present-day greater, greatest).