A Book of Middle English. J. A. Burrow
grēne, swēte), remain unchanged throughout.
4.4.2 Inflexions for Case
Though this distinction between definite and indefinite adjectival inflexions survived for a considerable time, the Old English adjectival case system was dismantled much more rapidly. In Old English the adjective agreed with its noun in case, gender and number. Only in Southern and South‐Western texts do the case‐inflexions survive to a limited extent.
In Laʒamon’s Brut (text 3) there are, in addition to the ending ‐e (or ‐en) for adjectives of the definite declension, the following inflexions for indefinite adjectives:
| singular | ||
| masc. | nom. | no ending: god (137) |
| acc. | ‐ne: nenne (28), stærcne (59), bradne (115) | |
| gen. | ‐es | |
| dat. | ‐en: aðelen (11) | |
| fem. | dat. | ‐ere: ludere (30), hæhʒere (126) |
| plural | gen. | ‐(e)re: alre (33), wihtere (125) |
In The Owl and the Nightingale (text 2), adjectives add ‐e for all cases in the definite declension, and all in the indefinite declension except the nominative singular of all genders and the accusative singular masculine and neuter. So when qualifying a noun that is subject the adjective has no ending, as the three here: þat plait was stif and starc and strong (l. 5); with a feminine noun that is object, the adjective has ‐e as in grete tale, ‘a great debate’ (l. 3).
4.4.3 Comparison of Adjectives
Comparatives and superlatives are formed, as today, by the addition of ‐er, previously ‐(e)re, and ‐est to the positive form: wis, wiser, wisest; laþ, ‘hateful’, laþre, laþest. Where the vowel is long, it is often shortened in the comparative and superlative, with the final consonant doubled, as greet, ‘great’, 18a/133; grettest, 18a/200. Cortays, ‘courteous’, has superlative curtest (11/249). Adjectives ending in ‐ly or ‐lich have, beside ‐lier and ‐liest, alternative endings ‐loker and ‐lokest: semloker, ‘more seemly’, 9/83; semlokest, 14g/6.
A few adjectives change their stem vowel: long, lenger; old or ald, eldest; strong, strengest.
Irregular forms are mostly familiar from Modern English; for example, in text 9: god, better, best; littel, lasse, lest; muche, more, most; in text 1: yvel, werse.
4.4.4 Comparison of Adverbs
Adverbs have the same comparative and superlative forms as adjectives; e.g. sone, ‘quickly’, soner, sonest; wisely, comparative wiselier, 15/38; swote, ‘sweetly’, superlative (dropping the final ‐t) swotes, 14a/3. Longe, ‘for a long time’, has comparative leng or lenger: in the same text there is no leng abide, ‘stay no longer’, 5/84, and no lenger abide, 5/330. Neh, ‘nearly’, has comparative ner, and superlative next, although its comparative form is increasingly used simply to mean ‘nearly’: dispayred wel nere, 8/169. Wel has comparative bet and superlative best: ho wel wiste, ‘she knew well’, 2/147, on jousteþ wel, anoþer bet, 13/116.
4.5 Verbs
4.5.1 Introduction
In Middle English, as in Old and Modern English, the verb has just two tense‐forms, present and past. The way in which the past tense is formed divides the regular verbs into two classes, weak and strong. The great majority of verbs are weak and their numbers steadily increased, since most newly formed or introduced verbs were weak; also there was a tendency for verbs that were strong in Old English to become weak in Middle English. Many of the commonest verbs, however, are strong. The distinction between the two classes is that weak verbs form their past tense and past participle with ‘a dental suffix’, that is, an ending containing a d or t (e.g. in Modern English kill, laugh, learn, bend), whereas strong verbs form their past tense and past participle by changing their stem vowel in accordance with an ancient rule that goes right back to the remote ancestor of English, the ‘Indo‐European mother‐tongue’. Examples of strong verbs in Modern English are drive, sing, bear, choose. However, a few verbs both have a dental suffix and change their stem vowel (e.g. in Modern English seek, buy, bring, think); these are weak verbs, the change in their stem vowel not being ancient but having taken place in early Old English. See Guide to Old English, paragraphs 122–3.
The verb has three moods: indicative, subjunctive and imperative. The distinction between indicative and subjunctive is explained later (5.6.6); broadly, it is that the subjunctive is a non‐factual mood, used to express a doubt, hypothesis, conjecture, wish or the like. The imperative is used for orders and requests.
In the indicative mood, verbs may distinguish in form between the first, second and third persons of the singular, but all verbs have just one form throughout the plural (for we, ʒe and hi/þei). The subjunctive has just one form throughout the singular, to which it adds ‐n throughout the plural.
There are two participles or adjectival forms of the verb: the present participle (in Modern English the ‘‐ing participle’), and the past participle (used to form verb‐tenses with ‘have’ and ‘be’, and also as an adjective).
4.5.2 Present Tense
The endings of the present tense are the same for weak and strong verbs, but there are considerable variations according to dialect. Differences may be illustrated by setting out the forms in the language of the Ancrene Wisse (early thirteenth century, South‐West Midlands) side by side with those in the language of the Gawain manuscript (late fourteenth century, North‐West Midlands), taking the verb here(n), ‘to hear’, as the example:
| Ancrene Wisse | Gawain | ||||
| infinitive | heren | here | |||
| indicative | |||||
| sg. | 1 | ich | here | I | here |
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