The Southern form is, for adjectives, _-lich_ (sing.), _-liche_ (pl.); for
adverbs _-liche_. Thus the adoption of this affix really (though at first
it appears a matter of no importance) marks a _stage_ in the language when
the distinction between the sing. and pl. form of adjectives was not very
strictly observed, and was, moreover, a step towards our modern _-ly_,
which is adjectival as well as adverbial.
Even in this poem adjectives occur in _-li_, as _reuli_ = piteous, which is
the earliest example I have met with. Orm employs double forms in _-like_
and _-liȝȝ_ (= _ly_?). _-ly_ has arisen not out of _-lich_ or _-liche_
(which would have become _lidge_ or _litch_), but out of some such softened
form as _liȝ_.
8. The tendency to drop the initial _y_, _i_ (A.S. _ge_) of the passive
participles of strong verbs.
The Ormulum has two or three examples of this prefixal element, and in our
poem it occurs but seldom.
IV. A tendency to drop the _t_ of the second person of verbs, as _as_,
hast; _beas_, beëst; _findes_, findest.
Examples of this practice are very common in the Bestiary and Genesis and
Exodus, but it occurs only four times in the Ormulum.[19] It was very
common for the West-Midland to drop the _-e_ of 2nd person in strong verbs.
See Preface to O.E. Homilies, 1st Series.
V. The use of _arn_, _aren_, for _ben_ of the Midland dialect, or _beð_ of
the Southern dialect.[20]
VI. The employment of the adverbs _thethen_, _hethen_, _quethen_ (of
Scandinavian origin),[21] instead of the Southern _thenne_ (_thennen_),
thence; _henne_ (_hennen_), hence; _whanne_ (_whanene_), whence.
VII. The use of _oc_, _ok_ (also, and), a form which does not occur in any
specimen of a Southern, West-Midland, or Northern dialect that has come
under my notice. The use of _on_, _o_, for the Southern _an_ or _a_, as
_onlike_, _olike_, alike, _on-rum_, apart, _on-sunder_, asunder, is also
worth noticing.
VIII. The coalition of the pronoun _it_ with pronouns and verbs, as _get_
(Bestiary) = she it (_ȝhöt_ in Ormulum; cf. _þüt_ = _thu itt_, thou it);
_tellet_ = tell it; _wuldet_ = would it; _ist_ = is it, is there; _wast_,
was it, was there, etc. _þit_ = _þe_ + _hit_ = who it, occurs in O.E.
Homilies, 2nd Series.
The Ormulum, the Bestiary, and Genesis and Exodus have some few other
points of agreement which will be found noticed in the Grammatical Details
and Glossary. There are, however, grammatical forms in the latter works
which do not present themselves in the former, and which, in my opinion,
seem to indicate a more Southern origin. (See Preface to O.E. Homilies, 2nd
Series.)