Define the grammatical categories of the Old English Articles and

Adjectives? Which other parts of speech did they generate form? How were
they different for the Mod. English articles and adjectives?

If we take a look in the Old Language system we can see that it was a very well-
developed system which was split into two groups. The first group is called: the
independent parts of speech and its components are: nouns, pronouns,
adjectives, numerals verbs and adverbs. The second group is Form-words which
are conjunctions and prepositions.

Old English articles

Old English articles include three different articles. One article for each gender:
se-masculine
seo-feminine
paet-neutral

As to English language, old English articles have developed from demonstrative

pronouns. The definite article was the first element to be developed and it was
used for defining or demonstrating one out of a class. As for the modern
English, the definite article “the” does the same action. Later after the definite
article was found, the indefinite article was created, and its main purpose was to
oppose the semantic individualism expressed by the use of the definite article.

Old English adjectives

Adjectives in old English had a very complex system of grammatical forms.

They had more forms than the adjectives used in modern English, where they
only precede the noun.

These adjectives had: 3 genders, 2 numbers and 4 cases. It had a complicated

system of grammatical forms, which served to express to agreement of the
adjectives with the nouns they modified.
Most adjectives in Old English could be declined in two ways: according to the
weak and to the strong declension. The formal differences between the
declensions, as well as their origin, were similar to those of the noun
declensions:
1. Strong declension, was mostly used with nouns that there were not
accompanied by a definite article. A demonstrative pronoun or a possessive
adjective.
2. Weak declension was used when the adjective was preceded by the
definite article “se” ,demonstrative pronoun “pes” or a possessive pronoun.

Moreover, the inflectional endings in Old English adjectives were numerous

and the forms of comparison have proved to be very stable. With some
modifications, the have survived until today. In Modern English there are only
four function-forms, while in Old English one adjective could occur in more
grammatical function-forms.

To conclude my answer, both old English articles and adjectives were declined,
while nouns and adjectives were declined according to number, gender and
case.

MARJO NEZIR