Re: [tied] Fwd: question re English grammar

From: fortuna11111
Message: 36385
Date: 2005-02-18

Hi Piotr,

I found your post most useful. Can you give me a reference on all
this? I would like to read it in detail. Thanks.

Evelina



> Just to put it in a historical perspective: in Old English, adverbs
> derived from adjectives were, etymologically, just oblique case
forms
> (dative/locative in most instances), and usually differed from the
> quotation forms of adjectives only in having a final -e (e.g.
lang 'long
> [adj.]' vs. lange [adv.]). This -e was lost by the 15th century,
which
> resulted in complete homophony between adjectives and inherites
adverbs.
> This is what we still have in such words as <high, low, fast, hard,
> only, early, late, far, near, long, wide> etc., not to mention
<bloody
> [UK], damned, fucking> and the like.
>
> In the course of Middle English the suffix -ly(che) became
specialised
> as an adverb marker. Originally, however, OE -li:c formed
adjectives
> (with corresponding adverbs in -li:c-e, e.g. ­fre:ond-li:c 'friendly
> [adj.]', fre:ond-li:ce 'in a friendly manner'). Note that even in
Modern
> English <only, early> may belong to either category and <friendly,
> kingly, dastardly, manly> etc. are normally adjectives, not
adverbs.
> <lowly> is an adverb when it means 'in a low degree,
insufficiently',
> but only an adjective when it means 'low in rank/social class'.
>
> For some items, doublets have developed, usually with
differentiated
> meanings. <slow>, <quick> and <loud>, if used as adverbs (opinions
> differ as to how "correct" these are in standard English), mean
roughly
> the same as <slowly>, <quickly> and <loudly>; but <hardly, shortly,
> lately, widely, highly> and some other such words have specialised
> meanings different from those of the endingless adverbs.
>
> In non-standard varieties of English endingless adverbs are
extremely
> common (<love me tender, love me true>). You can also find <scarce,
> uncommon, wondrous> etc. as archaisms consciously employed as such
in
> older poetry.
>
> Piotr