As with us neither of the articles nor any adjective changes its form on account of gender, a knowledge even of sex is essential only in determining which of the third personal pronouns he, she, or it, in the singular-should be used in place of the noun, if any is employed. The total abandonment of grammatical gender by the Anglo-Saxon and the Norman-French nouns took place largely while the languages were uniting to form the English. The loss is an enormous gain in relieving the memory and in aiding personification. CHAPTER V. GRAMMATICAL CHANGES OF THE ANGLO-SAXON IN BECOM ING ENGLISH.-THE ADJECTIVE. XIX. Forms of the Adjective.-1. Its Declension.—In Anglo-Saxon, the adjective was inflected much as were the nouns of the vowel declension. But if a demonstrative or a possessive pronoun preceded the adjective, the terminations were precisely those of the noun in the n, or consonant, declension. Of this cumbersome mass of endings, matched or a little overmatched by the modern German, traces may be seen in the e ending of Chaucer's adjectives in the plural. But by 1550, even this vowel, to which, as in the noun, the other vowels had weakened, disappeared, and the adjective became flectionless. 2. Its Comparison in er and est.—In our Indo-European family of languages, the comparative is formed by adding a syllable to the simple stem of the adjective; the superlative, by adding a suffix to the comparative. In the Teutonic member of the family, is or os was the suffix added to form the comparative; to this, ta was attached to form the superlative. The s of the comparative is or os, except in worse and less, passed over into r. Professor Hadley in his scholarly essay On Passive Formations has paralleled this change of stor, showing that the r in the passive of the Latin verb -in laudor, laudaris, laudatur, laudamur, laudantur, for instance is the s of the reflexive pronoun se (self) changed to r. To this essay the reader is referred for the additional support which an examination of other languages, in our family and out of it, gives to this assigned origin of the r of our comparatives. The i or o of the comparative suffix of adjectives, but not of adverbs, was dropped in Anglo-Saxon; not, however, without occasionally having an effect upon the vowel of the preceding syllable, an effect still seen in elder and eldest, from the positive old. The s of the full superlative suffix ista or osta did not undergo rhotacism, but remained s. When now the i or the o of the Teutonic suffix, dropped in Anglo-Saxon, was resumed in early English; when the weakening of it to e, and of the i and o of the superlative to e, took place; and when the final a of that degree, softened to e, was dropped; then the adjective formed its comparative in er and the superlative in est, as now. 3. Its Comparison by Adverbs.—It is said that the first comparison by means of adverbs is found in the Ancren Riwle, about 1220—the meste dredful. This method is not Anglo-Saxon but Norman-French; though it is worth noting that the adverbs used in the comparison, more and most, less and least, are themselves compared in the old way. The adverbial comparison, used mainly with polysyllabic adjectives, and with participles employed as adjectives, has gained so rapidly upon the other that Trench predicted the extinction of the comparison in er and est. We do not, as they did in Shakespeare's and in Milton's day, write preposterousest, flourishingest, and dangerouser; but, when we find in writers like Hawthorne, Whately, Professor Whitney, Matthew Arnold, Lowell, Thackeray, Hadley, George Eliot, James Martineau, Henry Taylor, Holmes, Black, Browning, Carlyle, Hutton, and Kingsley such forms as : Cheerfulest, immensest, beautifulest, correctest, succincter, distincter, incessanter, commoner, splendider, manliest, neatliest, distinctest, advisablest, profitablest, easilier, nakedest, firiest, chiefest, supremest, extremest, diviner, divinest, surelier, pitifulest, tiresomest, mournfuller, directer, cunninger, etc., we may suspect that usage is now setting towards the good old Anglo-Saxon form, if ever it had ebbed away from it. Not long after the introduction of comparison by the use of adverbs, it became fashionable to use it to strengthen that in er and est. Shakespeare is fond of these double comparatives and superlatives. You may count twelve double comparatives, such as more richer, more corrupter, more harder, in the single play of King Lear; and superlatives like most worst, most boldest, most unkindest are found, as well as double comparatives, in his dramas. The usage died out soon after Shakespeare's time. It may be seen from correctest, incessanter, nakedest, chiefest, supremest, divinest, extremest, and directer, quoted above, that adjectives which denote qualities not susceptible of increase or decrease are nevertheless compared. Indeed, such authors as George Eliot, Freeman, Motley, Symonds, J. R. Seely, Lowell, Warner, Alford, Holmes, and others use universal with more, as, or so before it. We add that our irregular adjectives are an inheritance from the Anglo-Saxon. We close this subject by saying that while there is authority, respectable in quality and quantity, for the superlative degree in the comparison of two things, and for such expressions as three first, three last, etc., we are able from a wide |