Топик: The history of Old English and its development
-an
-
-a
Genitive
-an
-ena
-a
-a
Dative
-an
-um
-a
-um
Accustive
-an
-an
-
-a
The Old English Adjective.
In all historical Indo-European languages adjectives possess practically the same morphological features as the nouns, the the sequence of these two parts of speech is an ordinary thing in Indo-European. However, the Nostratic theory (the one which unites Altaic, Uralic, Semitic, Dravidian and Indo-European language families into one Nostratic super-family, once speaking a common Proto-Nostratic language) represented by Illych-Svitych and many other famous linguists, states that adjectives in this Proto-Nostratic tongue were morphologically closer to the verbs than to the nouns.
This theory is quite interesting, because even in Proto-Indo-European, a language which was spoken much later than Proto-Nostratic, there are some proofs of the former predicative function of the adjectives. In other families of the super-family this function is even more clear. In Altaic languages, and also in Korean and Japanese, which are originally Altaic, the adjective plays the part of the predicate, and in Korean, for example, the majority of adjectives are predicative. It means that though they always denote the quality of the noun, they act the same way as verbs which denote action. Adjective "red" is actually translated from Japanese as "to be red", and the sentence Bara-wa utsukusii will mean "the rose is beautiful", while bara is "a rose", -wa is the nominative marker, and utsukusii is "to be beautiful". So no verb here, and the adjective is a predicate. This structure is typical for many Altaic languages, and probably was normal for Proto-Nostratic as well.
The Proto-Indo-European language gives us some stems which are hard to denote whether they used to mean an adjective or a verb. Some later branches reflect such stems as verbs, but other made them adjectives. So it was the Proto-Indo-European epoch where adjectives as the part of speech began to transform from a verbal one to a nominal one. And all Indo-European branches already show the close similarity of the structure of adjectives and nouns in the language. So does the Old English language, where adjective is one of the nominal parts of speech.
As well as the noun, the adjective can be declined in case, gender and number. Moreover, the instrumental case which was discussed before was preserved in adjectives much stronger than in nouns. Adjectives must follow sequence with nouns which they define - thet is why the same adjective can be masculine, neuter and feminine and therefore be declined in two different types: one for masculine and neuter, the other for feminine nouns. The declension is more or less simple, it looks much like the nominal system of declension, though there are several important differences. Interesting to know that one-syllable adjectives ("monosyllabic") have different declension than two-syllable ones ("disyllabic"). See for yourselves:
Strong Declension
a, ó -stems
Monosyllabic
Sg.
Masc. Neut. Fem.
N blæc (black) blæc blacu
G blaces blaces blæcre
D blacum blacum blæcre
A blæcne blæc blace
I blace blace -
Pl.
N blace blacu blaca
G blacra blacra blacra
D blacum blacum blacum
A blace blacu blaca
Here "I" means that very instrumental case, answering the question (by what? with whom? with the help of what?).
Disyllabic
Masc. Neut. Fem.
Sg.
N éadig (happy) éadig éadigu
G éadiges éadiges éadigre
D éadigum éadigum éadigre
A éadigne éadig éadige
I éadige éadige
Pl.
N éadige éadigu éadiga
G éadigra éadigra éadigra
D éadigum éadigum éadigum
A éadige éadigu éadigu
So not many new endings: for accusative singular we have -ne , and for genitive plural -ra , which cannot be met in the declension of nouns. The difference between monosyllabic and disyllabic is the accusative plural feminine ending -a / -u . That's all.
ja, jó -stems (swéte - sweet)
Sg. Pl.
Masc. Neut. Fem. Masc. Neut. Fem.
N swéte swéte swétu swéte swétu swéta
G swétes swétes swétre swétra swétra swétra
D swétum swétum swétre swétum swétum swétum
A swétne swéte swéte swéte swétu swéta
I swéte swéte -
wa, wó -stems
Sg.
Masc. Neut. Fem.
N nearu (narrow) nearu nearu
G nearwes nearwes nearore
D nearwum nearwum nearore
A nearone nearu nearwe
I nearwe nearwe
Pl.
N nearwe nearu nearwa
G nearora nearora nearora
D nearwum nearwum nearwum
A nearwe nearu nearwa
Actually, some can just omit all those examples - the adjectival declension is the same as a whole for all stems, as concerns the strong type. In general, the endings look the following way, with very few varieties (note that "-" means the null ending):