The OE adjective (grammatical categories and declensions)

The adjective in OE could change for number, gender and case. Those were dependent grammatical categories or forms of agreement of the adjective with the noun it modified or with the subject of the sentence – if the adjective was a predicative. Like nouns, adjectives had three genders and two numbers. The category of case in adjectives differed from that of nouns: in addition to the four cases of nouns they had one more case, Instr. It was used when the adjective served as an attribute to a noun in the Dat. case expressing an instrumental meaning.

Historically the Adjective is a younger class of words as compared to the Noun. So it has borrowed many of its categories and inflections from the Noun and the Pronoun.

The Adjective had the following categories: Gender. It still existed in OE but was the first category to disappear in the 11^th c. Case. -At the end of OE Period Instrumental Case fell together with Dative Case due to the homonymy of inflections; -All other cases disappeared by the end of the 13^th c. also due to the homonymy of inflections.

System of Declensions. The system of declension was inherited from PG. Adjectives had two declensions that had to do also with the category of determination – strong (definite) and weak (indefinite) – and unlike nouns practically all adjectives could be declined both ways (by strong and weak declension). So an adjective did not belong to a particular declension, its declension depended on several factors: Strong (definite) from a-stem and o-stem: when Adj used attributively without any determiners (dem. pronouns); Adj used predicatively. Weak (indefinite) from n-stem when Adj preceded by a demonstrative pronoun or Genitive Case of a noun;

The difference between the strong and weak declension of adjectives was not only formal but also semantic. The choice of the declension was determined by a number of factors: the syntactical function of the adjective, the degree of comparison and the presence of noun determiners. The adjective had a strong form when used predicatively and when used attributively without any determiners. The weak form was employed when the adjective was preceded by a demonstrative pronoun or the Gen. case of personal pronouns.