4.5.2.2. Possessive Pronouns

The possessive pronouns my, mine (<ME mī, mīn), which were originally but phonetic variants, (the –n was lost before consonants, as in an, a: mīn eyes, mīn ears but my lord) acquired different combinability and consequently different functions. Cf. It is my book. – This book is mine. This distinction became relevant and spread to other possessive pronouns to which the suffix –s was added, hence the forms her and hers, our and ours, your and yours, their and theirs. The neuter possessive pronoun was his up to the XVII c. The form «its» was introduced in the XVII c.

4.5.3. The Adjective

The adjective lost all its inflections but those of the degrees of comparison.

Synthetic and analytical forms of comparison began to differ: suffixes came to be used with monosyllabic and some disyllabic adjectives, more and most were limited to disyllabic and polysyllabic ones.

Vowel interchange in the comparative and superlative degrees of some adjectives disappeared. The series of the type long - longer - longest replaced long - lenger - lengest. With the adjective old both forms older-oldest and elder, eldest survived with some difference in meaning and function.

A few adjectives preserved suppletive degrees of comparison up to the present time, e.g.

good - better - best, bad – worse - worst, much – more - most, little – less - least.

Note In NE the adjective bad replaced evil, which acquired the meaning «wicked».

4.5.4. The Adverb

In NE the suffix -ly became the only productive adverb-forming suffix. This suffix can be joined on to the stem of any adjective whose meaning admits of adverb formation.

The ME adverbs with the -e suffix (inherited from OE) lost their -e and coincided with the corresponding adjectives. A few adverbs of this type have been preserved up to the present time, e.g. fast, loud, hard, whereas others were replaced by new adverbs derived by means of the -ly- suffix.

In the formation of degrees of comparison no change occurred in NE as against ME.

4.5.5. The Verb

4.5.5.1. Personal Endings

The verb lost the ending of the infinitive and all the inflections of the present tense but that of the 3-rd person singular. The latter acquired the form -(e)s (from the Northern dialects) instead of the Southern -(e)th.

The form of the 2-nd person singular thou speakest was lost or became archaic.

4.5.5.2. Changes in Strong Verbs

Most verbs (except be) have lost the distinctions between the past tense singular and the past tense plural, so there remained only three basic forms instead of four: infinitive, past tense, past participle.

Of the two past tense stems some verbs have preserved that of the singular (the influence of the Northern dialects), some – that of the plural (the influence of the Western dialects) and some – neither the one nor the other.

Most of the former strong verbs of the 1-st class have preserved the singular past tense: wrote, drove, rode. It is clear that they have developed from OE wrāt, drāf, rād, not from OE writon, drifon, ridon.

On the contrary, the past tense bit of the verb bite (OE bītan, a strong verb of the 1st class) is a development of the OE plural past stem biton, not bat.

Now the verb bear has the past tense form bore, which could not develop either from OE past singular bær, or from the past plural bǣron. It was built on the analogy of the stem of the past participle born. Similarly, wore and tore were built after worn and torn, spoke was built after spoken. Whether the past singular or the past plural took the upper hand would, apparently, depend on the frequency of their usage.

The past tense forms acquired their final shape only in the XVII-XVIII cc. In Shakespeare’s time wrote, rode, sang, began could be used alongside writ, rid, sung, begun.

With a few verbs hesitation in their main forms occasionally goes on until today, as in the verb spun, whose past tense is either span or spun.

In Shakespeare’s time and sometimes even later the past participle coincided with the past tense.