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.