4. Adjective

In ME period adjectives underwent greater simplifying changes than any other part of speech. It lost all its grammatical categories with the exception of the degrees of comparison.

The first category to disappear was Gender. To the end of the 13^lh cnt., all Case distinctions were lost.

In ME the degrees of comparison could be built in the same way as in OE, only the suffixes had been weakened to -er, est and the interchange of the root-vowels was less common than before. Since most adjectives with the sound alternation had parallel forms without it, the forms with an interchange soon fell into disuse: ME long, lenger, longest and long, longer, longest.

The most important innovation in the adjective system in ME was the growth of analytical forms of the degrees of comparison. The phrases with more and most became more common, they were used with all kinds of adjectives regardless of the number of syllables. The synthetic and analytical forms were used in free variation until the 17 and 18^th cnt, when the modern standard usage was established.

Another curious peculiarity observed in early NE texts is the use of the so-called "double comparatives" and "double superlatives": more fressher, most unkindest. In the "Age of Correctness"(18^th cnt.) double comparatives were banned as illogical and incorrect.

5. Development of nominal grammatical categories.

Grammatical categories
	Gender	Case	Number	Definiteness indefiniteness	Comparison
	OE late ME	OE late ME	OE late ME	OE late ME	OE late ME
Noun	3	4 2	2 2	-	-
Adjective	3	5	2	2	3 3
Personal prom 1st and 2nd p. 3rt p.	3 3	4 2 4 2	3 2 2 2	-	-
Demonstrative pronouns	3	5	2 2	-	-

The verb Simplifying changes in the verb conjugation

• Finite forms

Many markers of the grammatical forms of the verb were reduced, levelled and lost in ME and Early NE. Early NE had simplified conjugation of verbs.

• Number

Number distinctions became more consistent and regular in ME. However, in the 15th c. they were neutralized.

• Person

The OE endings of the 3^rd person singular - p, ep, iap - merged into a single ending -(e)th. In Chaucer's works we still find the old ending -eth. Shakespeare uses both forms, but forms in -s begin to prevail.

• Mood

In OE only a few forms of the Indicative and Subjunctive mood were homonymous (1^st p. sg of the Present Tense and the I^st and the 3rd p. sg of the past). In ME the homonymy of the mood forms grew. The Indicative

and Subjunctive moods could no longer be distinguished in the plural form, when -en became the dominant flection of the Indicative pi in the Present and Past. The reduction and loss of this ending in Early NE took place in all the forms irrespective of mood.

In the Past Tense of strong verbs the difference between the moods in the sg could be shown by means of a root-vowel interchange, for the Subjunctive mood was derived from Past pi, while the Indicative mood was derived from the Past sg. In the 15^th c. the two Past Tense stems of the strong verbs merged, all the forms of the moods in the Past tense fell together with the exception of the verb to be, which retained a distinct form of the Subjunctive in the Past sg - were as opposed to was.

• Tense

The Past tense, as before, was shown with the help of the dental suffix in the weak verbs and with the help of the root-vowel interchange - in the strong verbs. The only exception was a small group of verbs which came from OE weak verbs: in those verbs the dental suffix fused with the last consonant of the root [t] and after the loss of endings the three principal forms coincided: OE settan - sette - je-set; ME seten - sette - set; NE set - set - set

Continuous Forms. Category of aspect.

The development of aspect is linked up with the growth of the continuous forms.

Verb phrases consisting of beon (NE be) plus Participle I are frequently found in OE prose. They denote a quality or a lasting state, characterising the person or thing.

In early ME ben plus Participle I fell into disuse; it occurs occasionally in some dialectal areas: in Kent and in the North. In Late ME it extended to other dialects and grew again.

In the 15^th and 16^th centuries be plus Participle I was often confused with a phrase - be plus the preposition on plus a verbal noun. The prepositional phrase indicated a process, taking place at a certain period of time. It is believed that the meaning of process may have come from the prepositional phrase.

It was in the 18^th century that the Continuous forms acquired a specific meaning of their own - incomplete concrete process of limited duration. Only at that stage the continuous and non-continuous made up a new grammatical category - aspect.

Growth of Analytical forms and new grammatical categories of the verbs.

In ME texts we find different type of compound infinitive: the Passive infinitive; the Perfect infinitive, Active and Passive forms.

The analytical forms of Participle I began to develop later than the forms of the infinitive. It was not until 15 century that the first compound forms are found in the records.

The distinctions of the verbs in the 17^th and the 18* centuries are practically the same as in Modem English. The forms of the infinitive, Participle I and Gerund make up grammatical categories similar to those of the finite verb: voice, time-correlation and aspect.