§ 11. ADJECTIVES. Separate flexional forms for each gender are not preserved in the fourteenth century; but until its end the distinction of strong and weak declensions remains in the South and South Midlands, and is well marked in the careful verse of Chaucer and Gower. The strong is the normal form. The weak form is used after demonstratives, _the_, _his_, &c., and in the vocative. As types _god_ (OE. _gōd_) 'good' and _grene_ (OE. _grēne_) 'green' will serve, because in OE. _grēne_ had a vowel-ending in the strong nom. sg. masc., while _gōd_ did not. The ME. paradigms are: Singular. Plural. Strong Weak Strong and Weak _god_ _godė_ _godė_ _grenė_ _grenė_ _grenė_ Examples: Strong sg. _a gret serpent_ (OE. _grēat_) XII _b_ 72; _an unkindė man_ (OE. _uncynde_) XII _b_ 1; _a stillė water_ (OE. _stille_) XII _a_ 83. Weak sg. _The gretė gastli serpent_ XII _b_ 126; _hire oghnė hertes lif_ XII _a_ 4; _O lef liif_ (where the metre indicates _leuė_ for the original) II 102. Strong pl. _þer wer widė wones_ II 365. Weak pl. _the smalė stones_ XII _a_ 84. Note that strong and weak forms are identical in the plural; that even in the singular there is no formal distinction when the OE. strong masc. nom. ended in a vowel (_grēne_); that monosyllables ending in a vowel (e.g. _fre_), polysyllables, and participles, are usually invariable; and that regular dropping of final _-e_ levels all distinctions, so that the North and N. Midlands early reached the relatively flexionless stage of Modern English. #Survivals.# The _Ayenbyte_ shows some living use of the adjective inflexions. Otherwise the survivals are limited to set phrases, e.g. gen. sg. _nones cunnes_ 'of no kind', _enes cunnes_ 'of any kind', XV _g_ 20, 22. That the force of the inflexion was lost is shown by the early wrong analysis _no skynnes_, _al skynnes_, &c. #Definite Article.# Parallel to the simplification of the adjective, the full OE. declension _sē_, _sēo_, _þæt_, &c., is reduced to invariable _þe_. The _Ayenbyte_ alone of our specimens keeps some of the older distinctions. Elsewhere traces appear in set phrases, e.g. neut. sg. _þat_, _þet_ in _þat on_ 'the one', _þat oþer_ 'the other' V 344, and, with wrong division, _þe ton_ XI _b_ 27, _the toþer_ IX 4; neut. sg. dat. _þen_ (OE. _þǣm_), with wrong division, in _atte nale_ (for _at þen ale_) VIII _a_ 109.