30. The Adjective in oe. Degrees of comparison.

The comparative adjective is made by adding -r- between the root syllable and the inflectional ending, which is always weak regardless of context. The superlative is made by adding -ost, which may be followed by either a weak or a strong inflection. Examples:

heard 'hard, fierce'	heardra	heardost
milde 'kind'	mildra	mildost
hāliġ 'holy'	hāliġra	hālgost
sweotol 'clear'	sweotolra	sweotolost

Some adjectives have i-mutation in the comparative and superlative forms, and in these cases the superlative element is usually -est. For example:

eald 'old'	ieldra	ieldest
ġeong 'young'	ġinġra	ġinġest
hēah 'high'	hīera	hīehst
lang 'long'	lenġra	lenġest
strang 'strong'	strenġra	strenġest

A few adjectives have anomalous comparative and superlative forms; these are still anomalous in Modern English, though sometimes in different ways:

gōd 'good'	betera	betst
	sēlra	sēlest
lȳtel ‘little’	lǣssa	lǣst
miċel 'large'	māra	mǣst
yfel 'bad'	wiersa	wierrest, wierst

31. The Adjective in ME and NE. Degrees of comparison.

M.E. The adjectives no more agree with noun in case. the forms of the suffixes of the degrees of comparison were reduced to –er, -est

comparative OE -ra -> ME -re, then -er (by metathesis);

superlative OE -ost, -est -> ME -est;

beginnings of periphrastic comparison (French influence): swetter/more swete, more swetter, moste clennest; more and moste as intensifiers.

N.E. The adj lost the forms of plural and weak form and acquired its present-day qualities. The new way of forming the degree of comparison that appeared in M.E. by placing the adverb more and most before the adj comes into practice. The availability of the new periphrastic constructions also added yet one more option to the system, a hybrid form in which more and most are combined with the inflectional adjective, e.g. more quicker and most hardest.

32. English verb and its categories in oe.

Verbs in Old English are divided into strong or weak verbs. Strong have 7 classes, 4 forms (inf., past singular, past plural, participle II).

Class	I	II	III	IV	V	VI	VII
Inf	wrítan	béodan	drincan	stelan	cweþan	faran	feallan
Past s	wrát	béad	dranc	stæ'l	cwæ'þ	fór	feoll
Past p	writon	budon	druncon	stæ'lon	cwæ'don	fóron	feoll
P.P	writen	boden	druncen	stolen	cweden	faren	feallen

Strong verbs indicate tense by a change in the quality of a vowel, while weak verbs indicate tense by the addition of an ending. Strong verbs use the Germanic form of conjugation known as ablaut. In this form of conjugation, the stem of the word changes to indicate the tense. Verbs like this persist in modern English, for example sing, sang, sung is a strong verb, as are swim, swam, swum and choose, chose, chosen. The root portion of the word changes rather than its ending. In Old English, there were seven major classes of strong verb; each class has its own pattern of stem changes. Learning these is often a challenge for students of the language, though English speakers may see connections between the old verb classes and their modern forms.

 While the strong verbs form their past participle (as well as the infinitive) with the suffix *-no- added to the present tense stem, the weak type verbs have the suffix *-to- instead, which later became -d- or -ed or -de and spread to all the past forms.

Weak verbs in Old English (today's English regular verbs) were conjugated in a simpler way than the strong ones, and did not use the ablaut interchanges of the vowel stems. Weak verbs are divided into three classes which had only slight differences though. They did have the three forms - the infinitive, the past tense, the participle II. 

Class	I	II	III
Inf	nerian	endian	habban
Past	nerede	endode
Part. II	nered	endod

The category of Person was made up of three forms: th 1^st, the 2^nd and the 3^rd. The category of Mood was constituted by the Indicative, Imperative and Subjunctive. The category of Tense in OE consisted of two categorical forms, Present and Past. The use of Subj. forms conveyed a very general meaning of unreality or supposition.