Re: [tied] Fwd: question re English grammar

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