Degrees of Comparison

§ 187.Like adjectives in other languages, most OE adjectives distinguished between three degrees of comparison: positive, comparative and superlative. The regular means used to form the comparative and the superlative from the positive were the suffixes -ra and -est/ost. Sometimes suffixation was accompanied by an Interchange of the root-vowel (see Table 8).

Table 8

Comparison of Adjectives in Old English

Means of form-building	Positive	Comparative	Superlative	NE
Suffixation	soft	softra	softost	soft
	wēriʒ	wēriʒra	wēriʒost	weary
Suffixation plus vowel interchange	ʒlæd	ʒlædra	ʒladost	glad
lonʒ	lenʒra	lenʒest	long
eald	ieldra	ieldest	old
(also:	ealdra	ealdost, ealdest)
Suppletion	ʒōd	bettra	bet(e)st	good
	lӯtel	lǣssa	lǣst	little
	micel	māra	mǣst	much

The root-vowel interchanges in long, eald, ʒlæd go back to different sources. The variation [a ~ æ] is a purely phonetic phenomenon; retraction of [æ] before the back vowel in the suffix -ost is not peculiar to the adjective (see § 163 for similar interchanges in nouns and § 117 for pertinent phonetic changes). The interchange in long and eald is of an entirely different nature: the narrowed or fronted root-vowel is regularly employed as a marker of the comparative and the superlative degrees, together with the suffixes. The mutation of the root-vowel was caused by i-umlaut in Early OE. At that stage the suffixes were either -ira, -ist or -ora, -ost. In the forms with -i- the root vowel was fronted and/or made narrower (see palatal mutation § 125 ff); later -i- was lost or weakened to -e- — but the mutated root-vowel survived as an additional formal marker of the comparative and superlative degrees.

Some adjectives had parallel sets of forms: with and without a vowel interchange. These sets could arise if the adjective had originally employed both kinds of suffixes; or else the non-mutated vowel was restored on the analogy of the positive degree and other adjectives without sound interchanges.

§ 188. The adjective ʒōd had suppletive forms. Suppletion was a very old way of building the degrees of comparison (it can be illustrated by the forms of adjectives in other IE languages: G gut, besser, beste, Fr mal, pire, R хороший, лучше).

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