Adjectives in Middle English The situation in Middle English: a brief discussion of the literature

so long ‘for he was away so long’ (CMKEMPE, 118.2711); & durst no lengar abydyn in Leycetyr (CMKEMPE 114.2628). Also left out are instances with complex numerals such as ‘five and twenty’; cases where the adjective was seen as complex because of its compound nature (as in Alle holie beden ben godfruhte [‘god-fearing’] men biheue, CMTRINIT,201.2810); and instances like þat is a lytul town in þe foot of Olyuete, a myle fro Ierusaleem (CMWYCSER,327.1793), where the addition of a myle fro Ierusaleem is not in any way related to the AP lytul. This reduced the number of occurrences considerably, from 1,669 to 900.

1^ PPCME2, The Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Middle English, 2nd edition (for details see http://www.ling.upenn.edu/hist-corpora/)

2^ Rickard, P. (1974) A history of the French language. London: Hutchinson University Library.

3^ Huddleston, R. & G. Pullum (2002). The Cambridge grammar of the English language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

4^ Bermúdez-Otero, R., D. Denison, R. M. Hogg & C.B. McCully, eds. (2000). Generative theory and corpus studies. A dialogue from 10ICEHL. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

5^ Adamson, S. (2000). A lovely little example. Word order options and category shift in the premodifying string. In Fischer, O, A. Rosenbach & Dieter Stein (eds), Pathways of change. Grammaticalization in English. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

6^ PPCME2, The Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Middle English, 2nd edition (for details see http://www.ling.upenn.edu/hist-corpora/)

7^ Huddleston, R. & G. Pullum (2002). The Cambridge grammar of the English language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

8^ Bermúdez-Otero, R., D. Denison, R. M. Hogg & C.B. McCully, eds. (2000). Generative theory and corpus studies. A dialogue from 10ICEHL. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.