4.1. Declension of adjectives

Like in other OG languages, most adjectives in OE could be declined in two ways: according to the strong and to the weak declension.

The strong declension was used for an adjective when a noun, modified by it, was not preceded by the demonstrative pronoun or another determiner, e.g. ōd månn ‘a good man’.

The weak declension was used when a modified noun had a determiner, e.g. sē ōda månn ‘that good man’.

The strong declension of adjectives is also termed pronominal, since the paradigm of this type of declension is typical of declension of pronouns.

The weak declension of adjectives is also termed sunstantival, since the paradigm of this type of declension is typical of weak declension of nouns (except the Gen. pl. –ra borrowed from the paradigm of the strong declension).

The relations between the declensions of nouns, adjectives and pronouns are shown in the following chart:

PRONOUNS			NOUNS
			a-stems		ō-stems			n-stems (weak)
	Strong							Weak
	ADJECTIVES

Fig.1. The relations between the declensions of nouns, adjectives and pronouns

The difference between the strong and the weak declension of adjectives was not only formal but also semantic. Unlike a noun, an adjective did not belong to a certain type of declension. Most adjectives could be declined in both ways. The choice of the declension was determined by a number of factors: the syntactical function of an adjective, the degree of comparison and the presence of noun determiners. Thus, the adjective had a strong form when used predicatively and when used attributively without any determiners, e. g.: þā menn sindon ōde ‘the men are good’; mid hnescre beddine ‘with soft bedding’.

The weak form was employed when the adjective was preceded by a de­monstrative pronoun or the Gen. case of personal pronouns, e.g. þæt wēste land 'that uninhabited land'; þý betstan lēope 'with the best song'; also when the adjective formed a part of a direct address: þū lēofa drihten 'thou dear Lord'.

Table 3.10 Declension of Adjectives

Strong declension

Singular masc. neut. fem.

Plural masc. neut. fem. blind blindre blindre blinde blindre

Nom. Gen. Dat. Acc. Instr.

ōd ōdes ōdum ōdne ōde

ōd ōdes ōdum ōd ōde

ōd ōdre ōdre ōde (ōdre)?

ōde ōd ōdra ōdra ōdum ōdum ōde ōd -

ōda ōdra ōdum ōda -

Weak declension

blinda, -e blindra blindum blinda, -e blindum adjective; short hich took -u or

Singular masc. neut. fem.

Plural All genders

Nom. Gen. Dat. Acc.

ōda ōdan ōdan ōdan

ōde ōdan ōdan ōde

ōde ōdan ōdan ōdan

ōdan ōdra (ōdena) ōdum ōdan

Some adjectives, however, did not conform with these rules: a few adjectives were always declined strong, e. g. eall ‘all’, mani ‘many’, ōþer ‘other’, while several others were always weak: adjectives in the superlative and comparative degrees, ordinal numerals, the adjective ilca ‘same'. Despite these instances of fixed, unmotivated usage, there existed a certain semantic contrast between the strong and weak forms: the strong forms were associated with the meaning of indefiniteness (roughly corresponding to the meaning of the modern indefinite article), the weak forms – with the meaning of "definiteness" (corresponding to the meaning of the definite article). Therefore the weak forms were regularly used together with demonstrative pronouns.