ABSTRACT
l0.11. The origin of the ModE construction a (the) good one has been variously explained, see Gerber, Substantivierung des adjectivs (Göttingen 1895); Einenkel in Grundriss and in Anglia 26 (1903) 469ff = Das englische indefinitum 25 ff.; Luick, Anglia 29 (1906). 339; Einenkel, ib 36 (1912). 539. According to Gerber, the good one is a blending of ME. the best oon = 'der beste' and he was a maister oon = 'er war meister'. But the real ME form of the former construction is oon the best, in which oon strengthens or emphasizes the superlative; the latter does not really occur in the form given, as it is abstracted from A wonder maister was he on (Rob. Gl.). In all the instances given by Gerber p. 10—11 on stands by itself after the verb, except only in Orrm 2333 "ʒho wass ædiʒ wimmann an All wimmannkinn bitwenenn", where we should probably place a dash between wimmann and an. Besides, it is not easy to see how the two constructions should have been blended ('contaminated') and how the result should have been the ModE construction. Luick is on safer ground when he refers to OE (Riddles 50) "Ic wat eardfæstne ānne standan, dēafne dumban", where an is the numeral placed after the adjective in a similar way as elsewhere sum, tu, twegen (unhȳdig sum | dēore tu | mŌdige twegen). About 1000 we find an + substantivized adj as ǣnne scyldigne, etc. But though we have ME examples of postpositive oon when the adj is preceded by so (RobBr 3271 so grete one | Ch T 1.373 so goodely oon | Rose 563 so semly oon), we do not seem to have any contemporaneous examples of greter one. Luick thinks that this is accidental, but I think there is the same psychological reason for this word-order as for so great a man: the speaker thinks first of the emphatic comparison; therefore so precedes, with which the adj is so intimately connected that it is placed immediately after so; then, and not till then, the indefiniteness calls for expression (one, an). Einenkel, in his latest treatment of the subject, rightly lays stress on such combinations as swich. an, many an, ech an, while still ascribing to the construction with the superlative OE ān se betsta more influence on the development of our idiom than I should accord it. — Cf. below, p. 501.
