Old English grammar
Encyclopedia
The grammar of Old English is quite different from that of Modern English
, predominantly by being much more highly inflected
, similar to Latin
. As an old Germanic language, Old English's morphological
system is similar to that of the hypothetical Proto-Germanic reconstruction, retaining many of the inflections theorized to have been common in Proto-Indo-European
and also including characteristically Germanic constructions such as umlaut
.
Among living languages, Old English morphology most closely resembles that of modern Icelandic
, which is among the most conservative of the Germanic languages; to a lesser extent, the Old English inflectional system is similar to that of modern High German.
Nouns, pronouns, adjectives and determiners were fully inflected
with five grammatical case
s (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative
, and instrumental
), two grammatical number
s (singular
and plural
) and three grammatical gender
s (masculine
, feminine
, and neuter
). First and second person personal pronoun
s also had dual forms
for referring to groups of two people, in addition to the usual singular and plural forms.
The instrumental case was somewhat rare and occurred only in the masculine and neuter singular; it could typically be replaced by the dative. Adjectives, pronouns and (sometimes) participles agreed with their antecedent nouns in case, number and gender. Finite verbs agreed with their subject in person and number.
Noun
s came in numerous declension
s (with deep parallels in Latin
, Ancient Greek
and Sanskrit
). Verb
s came in nine main conjugation
s (seven strong and two weak), each with numerous subtypes, as well as a few additional smaller conjugations and a handful of irregular verbs. The main difference from other ancient Indo-European languages, such as Latin
, is that verbs can be conjugated in only two tenses (vs. the six "tenses" – really tense/aspect combinations – of Latin), and have no synthetic passive voice (although it did still exist in Gothic
).
Note that gender in noun
s was grammatical
, as opposed to the natural gender that prevails in modern English. That is, the grammatical gender of a given noun did not necessarily correspond its natural gender, even for nouns referring to people. For example, sēo sunne (the Sun
) was feminine, se mōna (the Moon
) was masculine, and þæt wīf "the woman/wife" was neuter. (Compare modern German
die Sonne, der Mond, das Weib.) Pronominal usage could reflect either natural or grammatical gender, when it conflicted.
or weak
verbs. Strong verbs indicate tense by a change in the quality of a vowel
, while weak verbs indicate tense by the addition of an ending.
known as ablaut
. In this form of conjugation, the stem of the word changes to indicate the tense. Verbs like this persist in modern English, for example sing, sang, sung is a strong verb, as are swim, swam, swum and choose, chose, chosen. The root portion of the word changes rather than its ending. In Old English, there were seven major classes of strong verb; each class has its own pattern of stem changes. Learning these is often a challenge for students of the language, though English speakers may see connections between the old verb classes and their modern forms.
The classes had the following distinguishing features to their infinitive stems:
The first preterite stem is used in the preterite
, for the first
and third persons singular
. The second preterite stem is used for second person singular, and all persons in the plural
(as well as the preterite subjunctive
). Strong verbs also exhibit i-mutation of the stem in the second and third persons singular in the present tense
.
The third class went through so many sound changes that it was barely recognisable as a single class. The first was a process called 'breaking'. Before, and + another consonant, <æ> turned into , and to . Also, before + another consonant, the same happened to <æ>, but remained unchanged (except before combination ).
The second sound-change to affect it was the influence of palatal sounds, , and . These turned anteceding and <æ> to and , respectively.
The third sound change turned to <i>, <æ> to , and to <u> before nasals.
Altogether, this split the third class into five sub-classes:
Regular strong verbs were all conjugated roughly the same, with the main differences being in the stem vowel. Thus stelan 'to steal' represents the strong verb conjugation paradigm.
Originally, the weak ending was used to form the preterite of informal, noun-derived verbs such as often emerge in conversation and which have no established system of stem-change. By nature, these verbs were almost always transitive, and even today, most weak verbs are transitive verbs formed in the same way. However, as English came into contact with non-Germanic languages, it invariably borrowed useful verbs which lacked established stem-change patterns. Rather than invent and standardize new classes or learn foreign conjugations, English speakers simply applied the weak ending to the foreign bases.
The linguistic trends of borrowing foreign verbs and verbalizing nouns have greatly increased the number of weak verbs over the last 1,200 years. Some verbs that were originally strong (for example help, holp, holpen) have become weak by analogy; most foreign verbs are adopted as weak verbs; and when verbs are made from nouns (for example "to scroll" or "to water") the resulting verb is weak. Additionally, conjugation of weak verbs is easier to teach, since there are fewer classes of variation. In combination, these factors have drastically increased the number of weak verbs, so that in modern English weak verbs are the most numerous and productive form (although occasionally a weak verb may turn into a strong verb through the process of analogy, such as sneak (originally only a noun), where snuck is an analogical formation rather than a survival from Old English).
There are three major classes of weak verbs in Old English. The first class displays i-mutation in the root, and the second class none. There is also a third class explained below.
Class-one verbs with short roots exhibit gemination
of the final stem consonant in certain forms. With verbs in this appears as or , where <i> and are pronounced [j]. Geminated appears as , and that of appears as . Class one verbs may receive an epenthetic
vowel before endings beginning in a consonant.
Where class-one verbs have gemination, class-two verbs have <i> or, which is a separate syllable pronounced [i]. All class-two verbs have an epenthetic vowel, which appears as or .
In the following table, three verbs are conjugated. Swebban 'to put to sleep' is a class one verb exhibiting gemination and an epenthetic vowel. 'to heal' is a class-one verb exhibiting neither gemination nor an epenthetic vowel. Sīðian 'to journey' is a class-two verb.
During the Old English period the third class was significantly reduced; only four verbs belonged to this group: habban 'have', libban 'live', secgan 'say', and hycgan 'think'. Each of these verbs is distinctly irregular, though they share some commonalities.
Few preterite present appear in the Old English corpus, and some are not attested in all forms.
Note that the Old English meanings of many of the verbs are significantly different than that of the modern descendants; in fact, the verbs "can, may, must" appear to have chain shift
ed in meaning.
[Forms above with asterisk (*) unattested.]
Dōn 'to do' and gān 'to go' are conjugated alike; willan 'to want' is similar outside of the present tense.
The verb 'to be' is actually composed of three different stems:
The present forms of wesan are almost never used. Therefore, wesan is used as the past, imperative, and present participle versions of sindon, and does not have a separate meaning. The bēon forms are usually used in reference to future actions. Only the present forms of bēon contrast with the present forms of sindon/wesan in that bēon tends to be used to refer to eternal or permanent truths, while sindon/wesan is used more commonly to refer to temporary or subjective facts. This semantic distinction was lost as Old English developed into modern English, so that the modern verb 'to be' is a single verb which takes its present indicative forms from sindon, its past indicative forms from wesan, its present subjunctive forms from bēon, its past subjunctive forms from wesan, and its imperative and participle forms from bēon.
language, and as such its noun
s, pronoun
s, adjective
s and determiners must be declined
in order to serve a grammatical function. A set of declined forms of the same word pattern is called a declension. As in several other ancient Germanic languages
, there are five major cases
: nominative, accusative, dative, genitive and instrumental
.
The small body of evidence we have for Runic
texts suggests that there may also have a been a separate locative case in early or Northumbrian forms of the language (e.g., on rodi "on the Cross").
In addition to inflection for case, nouns take different endings depending on whether the noun was in the singular (for example, 'one ring') or plural (for example, 'many rings'). Also, some nouns pluralize by way of Umlaut
, and some undergo no pluralizing change in certain cases.
Nouns are also categorised by grammatical gender
– masculine, feminine, or neuter. In general, masculine and neuter words share their endings. Feminine words have their own subset of endings. The plural of some declension types distinguishes between genders, e.g., a-stem masculine nominative plural "stones" vs. neuter nominative plural "ships" and "words"; or i-stem masculine nominative plural "victories" vs. neuter nominative plural "sieves" and "hilts".
Furthermore, Old English nouns are divided as either strong or weak. Weak nouns have their own endings. In general, weak nouns are easier than strong nouns, since they had begun to lose their declensional system. However, there is a great deal of overlap between the various classes of noun: they are not totally distinct from one another.
Old English language grammars often follow the common NOM-ACC-GEN-DAT-INST order used for the Germanic languages.
For the '-u/–' forms above, the '-u' is used with a root consisting of a single short syllable or ending in a long syllable followed by a short syllable, while roots ending in a long syllable or two short syllables are not inflected. (A long syllable contains a long vowel or is followed by two consonants. Note also that there are some exceptions; for example, feminine nouns ending in -þu such as strengþu 'strength'.)
Note the syncope of the second e in engel when an ending follows. This syncope of the vowel in the second syllable occurs with two-syllable strong nouns, which have a long vowel in the first syllable and a second syllable consisting of a short vowel and single consonant (for example, engel, wuldor 'glory', and hēafod 'head'). However, this syncope is not always present, so forms such as engelas may be seen.
Some masculine and neuter nouns end in -e in their base form. These drop the -e and add normal endings. Note that neuter nouns in -e always have -u in the plural, even with a long vowel:
Nouns ending in -h lose this when an ending is added, and lengthen the vowel in compensation (this can result in compression of the ending as well):
Nouns whose stem ends in -w change this to -u or drop it in the nominative singular. (Note that this '-u/–' distinction depends on syllable weight
, as for strong nouns, above.)
A few nouns follow the -u declension, with an entirely different set of endings. The following examples are both masculine, although feminines also exist, with the same endings (for example duru 'door' and hand 'hand'). Note that the '-u/–' distinction in the singular depends on syllable weight, as for strong nouns, above.
Other such nouns include (with singular and plural nominative forms given):
Masculine: tōþ, tēþ 'tooth'; mann, menn 'man'; frēond, frīend 'friend'; fēond, fīend 'enemy' (cf. 'fiend')
Feminine: studu, styde 'post' (cf. 'stud'); hnitu, hnite 'nit'; āc, 'oak'; gāt, 'goat'; brōc, brēc 'leg covering' (cf. 'breeches'); gōs, gēs 'goose'; burg, byrg 'city' (cf. 'borough', '-bury' and German cities in -burg); dung, dyng 'prison' (cf. 'dungeon' by way of French and Frankish); turf, tyrf 'turf'; grūt, 'meal' (cf. 'grout'); lūs, 'louse'; mūs, 'mouse'; neaht, niht 'night'
Feminine with loss of -h in some forms: furh, fyrh 'furrow' or 'fir'; sulh, sylh 'plough'; þrūh, 'trough'; wlōh, wlēh 'fringe'.
Feminine with compression of endings: cū, 'cow' (cf. dialectal plural 'kine')
Neuter: In addition, scrūd 'clothing, garment' has the umlauted dative-singular form scrȳd.
Other such nouns: , 'egg' (ancestor of the archaic/dialectical form 'ey', plural 'eyren'; the form 'egg' is a borrowing from Old Norse); bread, breadru 'crumb'; cealf, cealfru 'calf'; cild 'child' has either the normal plural cild or cildru (cf. 'children', with -en from the weak nouns); hǣmed, hǣmedru 'cohabitation'; speld, speldru 'torch'.
For the '-u/–' forms above, the distinction is the same as for strong nouns.
Note that the same variants described above for nouns also exist for adjectives. The following example shows both the æ/a variation and the -u forms in the feminine singular and neuter plural:
The following shows an example of an adjective ending with -h:
The following shows an example of an adjective ending with -w:
Modern English 'that' descends from the neuter nominative/accusative form, and 'the' from the masculine nominative form, with 's' replaced analogously by the 'th' of the other forms. The feminine nominative form was probably the source of Modern English 'she.'
(which is specifically for talking about groups of two things, for example "we two" or "you two" or "they two"). These were uncommon even then, but remained in use throughout the period.
Many of the forms above bear strong resemblances to their contemporary English language equivalents: for instance in the genitive case ēower became "your", ūre became "our", mīn became "mine".
The following is a list of prepositions in the Old English language
. Many of them, particularly
those marked "etc.", are found in other variant spellings. Prepositions may govern the
accusative
, genitive
, dative
or instrumental
cases
- the question of which is beyond the scope of this article.
In addition:
s was common, and even sometimes scrambling within a constituent occurred, as in Beowulf
line 708 wrāþum on andan:
Something similar occurs in line 713 in sele þām hēan "in the high hall" (lit. "in hall the high").
Extraposition of constituents out of larger constituents is common even in prose, as in the well-known tale of Cynewulf and Cyneheard, which begins
Note how the words ond Westseaxna wiotan "and the West Saxon counselors" (lit. "and (the) counselors of (the) West Saxons") have been extraposed from (moved out of) the compound subject they belong in, in a way that would be totally impossible in modern English. Case marking helps somewhat: wiotan "counselors" can be nominative or accusative but definitely not genitive, which is the case of rīces "kingdom" and the case governed by benam "deprived"; hence, Cynewulf can't possibly have deprived Sigebryht of the West Saxon counselors, as the order suggests.
Main clauses in Old English tend to have a verb-second (V2) order, where the verb is the second constituent in a sentence, regardless of what comes first. There are echoes of this in modern English, e.g. "Hardly did he arrive when ...", "Never can it be said that ...", "Over went the boat", "Ever onward marched the weary soldiers ...", "Then came a loud sound from the sky above". In Old English, however, it was much more extensive, much as in modern German
. Note that if the subject appears first, this yields an SVO order; but it can also yield orders such as OVS, CVSO, etc.
In subordinate clauses, however, the word order is completely different, with verb-final constructions the norm – again as in modern German. Furthermore, in poetry, all these rules were frequently broken. In Beowulf, for example, main clauses frequently have verb-initial or verb-final order, and subordinate clauses often have verb-second order. (However, in clauses introduced by þā, which can mean either "when" or "then" and where word order is crucial for telling the difference, the normal word order is nearly always followed.)
Those linguists who work within the Chomskyan transformational grammar
paradigm often believe that it is more accurate to describe Old English (and other Germanic languages
with the same word-order patterns, e.g. modern German) as having underlying subject-object-verb (SOV) ordering. According to this theory, all sentences are initially generated using this order, but then in main clauses the verb is moved back to the V2 position (technically, the verb undergoes V-to-T raising). This is said to explain the fact that Old English allows inversion of subject and verb as a general strategy for forming questions, while modern English only uses this strategy with auxiliary verb
s and main-verb "to be" (and occasionally main-verb "to have", especially in British English
), requiring do-support
in other cases.
Instead, relative clause
s used one of the following:
Preposition-fronting ("The man with whom I spoke") did not normally occur.
Subordinate clauses tended to use correlative conjunctions, e.g.
The word order usually distinguished the subordinate clause (with verb-final order) from the main clause (with verb-second word order).
The equivalents of "who, when, where" were used only as interrogative pronouns and indefinite pronoun
s, as in Ancient Greek
and Sanskrit
.
Besides þā ... þā ..., other correlative conjunctions occurred, often in pairs of identical words, e.g.:
of Old English is necessarily somewhat speculative, since it is preserved purely as a written language
. Nevertheless, there is a very large corpus
of Old English, and the written language apparently indicates phonological alternations
quite faithfully, so it is not difficult to draw certain conclusions about the nature of Old English phonology
.
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, predominantly by being much more highly inflected
Inflection
In grammar, inflection or inflexion is the modification of a word to express different grammatical categories such as tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, aspect, person, number, gender and case...
, similar to Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
. As an old Germanic language, Old English's morphological
Morphology (linguistics)
In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
system is similar to that of the hypothetical Proto-Germanic reconstruction, retaining many of the inflections theorized to have been common in Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European language
The Proto-Indo-European language is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans...
and also including characteristically Germanic constructions such as umlaut
Germanic umlaut
In linguistics, umlaut is a process whereby a vowel is pronounced more like a following vowel or semivowel. The term umlaut was originally coined and is used principally in connection with the study of the Germanic languages...
.
Among living languages, Old English morphology most closely resembles that of modern Icelandic
Icelandic language
Icelandic is a North Germanic language, the main language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese.Icelandic is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic or Nordic branch of the Germanic languages. Historically, it was the westernmost of the Indo-European languages prior to the...
, which is among the most conservative of the Germanic languages; to a lesser extent, the Old English inflectional system is similar to that of modern High German.
Nouns, pronouns, adjectives and determiners were fully inflected
Inflection
In grammar, inflection or inflexion is the modification of a word to express different grammatical categories such as tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, aspect, person, number, gender and case...
with five grammatical case
Grammatical case
In grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun is an inflectional form that indicates its grammatical function in a phrase, clause, or sentence. For example, a pronoun may play the role of subject , of direct object , or of possessor...
s (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative
Dative case
The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given, as in "George gave Jamie a drink"....
, and instrumental
Instrumental case
The instrumental case is a grammatical case used to indicate that a noun is the instrument or means by or with which the subject achieves or accomplishes an action...
), two grammatical number
Grammatical number
In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
s (singular
Singular
A grammatical number denoting a unit quantity Singular may also refer to:* Gravitational singularity, a location where the quantities that are used to measure the gravitational field become infinite...
and plural
Plural
In linguistics, plurality or [a] plural is a concept of quantity representing a value of more-than-one. Typically applied to nouns, a plural word or marker is used to distinguish a value other than the default quantity of a noun, which is typically one...
) and three grammatical gender
Grammatical gender
Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
s (masculine
Masculine
Masculine or masculinity, normally refer to qualities positively associated with men.Masculine may also refer to:*Masculine , a grammatical gender*Masculine cadence, a final chord occurring on a strong beat in music...
, feminine
Feminine
Feminine, or femininity, normally refers to qualities positively associated with women.Feminine may also refer to:*Feminine , a grammatical gender*Feminine cadence, a final chord falling in a metrically weak position...
, and neuter
Neuter
Neuter is a Latin adjective meaning "neither", and can refer to:* Neutering, the sterilization of an animal* The neuter grammatical gender-See also:*Trap-Neuter-Return , an alternative to euthanasia for managing feral cat and dog populations...
). First and second person personal pronoun
Personal pronoun
Personal pronouns are pronouns used as substitutes for proper or common nouns. All known languages contain personal pronouns.- English personal pronouns :English in common use today has seven personal pronouns:*first-person singular...
s also had dual forms
Dual (grammatical number)
Dual is a grammatical number that some languages use in addition to singular and plural. When a noun or pronoun appears in dual form, it is interpreted as referring to precisely two of the entities identified by the noun or pronoun...
for referring to groups of two people, in addition to the usual singular and plural forms.
The instrumental case was somewhat rare and occurred only in the masculine and neuter singular; it could typically be replaced by the dative. Adjectives, pronouns and (sometimes) participles agreed with their antecedent nouns in case, number and gender. Finite verbs agreed with their subject in person and number.
Noun
Noun
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
s came in numerous declension
Declension
In linguistics, declension is the inflection of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and articles to indicate number , case , and gender...
s (with deep parallels in Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
, Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
and Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
). Verb
Verb
A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
s came in nine main conjugation
Conjugation
Conjugation or conjugate may refer to:* Conjugation , the modification of a verb from its basic form* Conjugate , used to rationalize the denominator of a fraction...
s (seven strong and two weak), each with numerous subtypes, as well as a few additional smaller conjugations and a handful of irregular verbs. The main difference from other ancient Indo-European languages, such as Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
, is that verbs can be conjugated in only two tenses (vs. the six "tenses" – really tense/aspect combinations – of Latin), and have no synthetic passive voice (although it did still exist in Gothic
Gothic language
Gothic is an extinct Germanic language that was spoken by the Goths. It is known primarily from the Codex Argenteus, a 6th-century copy of a 4th-century Bible translation, and is the only East Germanic language with a sizable Text corpus...
).
Note that gender in noun
Noun
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
s was grammatical
Grammatical gender
Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
, as opposed to the natural gender that prevails in modern English. That is, the grammatical gender of a given noun did not necessarily correspond its natural gender, even for nouns referring to people. For example, sēo sunne (the Sun
Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...
) was feminine, se mōna (the Moon
Moon
The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...
) was masculine, and þæt wīf "the woman/wife" was neuter. (Compare modern German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
die Sonne, der Mond, das Weib.) Pronominal usage could reflect either natural or grammatical gender, when it conflicted.
Verbs
Verbs in Old English are divided into strongStrong inflection
A strong inflection is a system of verb conjugation or noun/adjective declension which can be contrasted with an alternative system in the same language, which is then known as a weak inflection. The term strong was coined with reference to the Germanic verb, but has since been used of other...
or weak
Weak inflection
In grammar, the term weak is used in opposition to the term strong to designate a conjugation or declension when a language has two parallel systems...
verbs. Strong verbs indicate tense by a change in the quality of a vowel
Vowel
In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
, while weak verbs indicate tense by the addition of an ending.
Strong verbs
Strong verbs use the Germanic form of conjugationGrammatical conjugation
In linguistics, conjugation is the creation of derived forms of a verb from its principal parts by inflection . Conjugation may be affected by person, number, gender, tense, aspect, mood, voice, or other grammatical categories...
known as ablaut
Indo-European ablaut
In linguistics, ablaut is a system of apophony in Proto-Indo-European and its far-reaching consequences in all of the modern Indo-European languages...
. In this form of conjugation, the stem of the word changes to indicate the tense. Verbs like this persist in modern English, for example sing, sang, sung is a strong verb, as are swim, swam, swum and choose, chose, chosen. The root portion of the word changes rather than its ending. In Old English, there were seven major classes of strong verb; each class has its own pattern of stem changes. Learning these is often a challenge for students of the language, though English speakers may see connections between the old verb classes and their modern forms.
The classes had the following distinguishing features to their infinitive stems:
- ī + 1 consonant.
- ēo or ū + 1 consonant.
- Originally e + 2 consonants. By the time of written Old English, many had changed. If we use C to represent any consonant, verbs in this class usually had short e + lC; short eo + rC; short i + nC/mC; or (g̣ +) short ie + lC.
- e + 1 consonant (usually l or r, plus the verb brecan 'to break').
- e + 1 consonant (usually a stop or a fricative).
- a + 1 consonant.
- Other than the above. Always a heavy root syllable (either a long vowel or short + 2 consonants), almost always a non-umlauted vowel – e.g. ō, ā, ēa, a (+ nC), ea (+ lC/rC), occ. ǣ (the latter with past in ē instead of normal ēo). Infinitive distinguishable from class 1 weak verbs by non-umlauted root vowel; from class 2 weak verbs by lack of suffix -ian. First and second preterite have identical stems, usually in ēo (occ. ē), and the infinitive and the past participle also have the same stem.
| Stem Changes in Strong Verbs | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Class | Root Weight | Infinitive | First Preterite | Second Preterite | Past Participle |
| I | heavy | ī | ā | i | i |
| II | heavy | ēo or ū | ēa | u | o |
| III | heavy | see table below | |||
| IV | light | e(+r/l) | æ | o | |
| V | light | e(+other) | æ | e | |
| VI | light | a | ō | ō | a |
| VII | heavy | ō, ā, ēa, a(+nC), ea(+rC/lC), occ. ǣ | ē or ēo | same as infinitive | |
The first preterite stem is used in the preterite
Preterite
The preterite is the grammatical tense expressing actions that took place or were completed in the past...
, for the first
Grammatical person
Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...
and third persons singular
Grammatical number
In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
. The second preterite stem is used for second person singular, and all persons in the plural
Plural
In linguistics, plurality or [a] plural is a concept of quantity representing a value of more-than-one. Typically applied to nouns, a plural word or marker is used to distinguish a value other than the default quantity of a noun, which is typically one...
(as well as the preterite subjunctive
Subjunctive mood
In grammar, the subjunctive mood is a verb mood typically used in subordinate clauses to express various states of irreality such as wish, emotion, possibility, judgment, opinion, necessity, or action that has not yet occurred....
). Strong verbs also exhibit i-mutation of the stem in the second and third persons singular in the present tense
Present tense
The present tense is a grammatical tense that locates a situation or event in present time. This linguistic definition refers to a concept that indicates a feature of the meaning of a verb...
.
The third class went through so many sound changes that it was barely recognisable as a single class. The first was a process called 'breaking'. Before
The second sound-change to affect it was the influence of palatal sounds
The third sound change turned
Altogether, this split the third class into five sub-classes:
- e + two consonants (apart from clusters beginning with l).
- eo + r or h + another consonant.
- e + l + another consonant.
- g, c, or sc + ie + two consonants.
- i + nasal + another consonant.
| Stem Changes in Class III | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sub-class | Infinitive | First Preterite | Second Preterite | Past Participle |
| a | e | æ | u | o |
| b | eo | ea | u | o |
| c | e | ea | u | o |
| d | ie | ea | u | o |
| e | i | a | u | u |
Regular strong verbs were all conjugated roughly the same, with the main differences being in the stem vowel. Thus stelan 'to steal' represents the strong verb conjugation paradigm.
| Conjugation | Pronoun | 'steal' |
|---|---|---|
| Infinitive Infinitive In grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages. In the usual description of English, the infinitive of a verb is its basic form with or without the particle to: therefore, do and to do, be and to be, and so on are infinitives... s |
stelan | |
| tō stelanne | ||
| Present Indicative | ||
| ic | stele | |
| þū | stilst | |
| hē/hit/hēo | stilð | |
| wē/gē/hīe | stelaþ | |
| Past Indicative | ic | stæl |
| þū | stǣle | |
| hē/hit/hēo | stæl | |
| wē/gē/hīe | stǣlon | |
| Present Subjunctive | ic/þū/hē/hit/hēo | stele |
| wē/gē/hīe | stelen | |
| Past Subjunctive | ic/þū/hē/hit/hēo | |
| wē/gē/hīe | ||
| Imperative Imperative mood The imperative mood expresses commands or requests as a grammatical mood. These commands or requests urge the audience to act a certain way. It also may signal a prohibition, permission, or any other kind of exhortation.- Morphology :... |
Singular | stel |
| Plural | stelaþ | |
| Present Participle | stelende | |
| Past Participle | (ge)stolen | |
Weak verbs
Weak verbs are formed by adding alveolar (t or d) endings to the stem for the past and past-participle tenses. Some examples are love, loved or look, looked.Originally, the weak ending was used to form the preterite of informal, noun-derived verbs such as often emerge in conversation and which have no established system of stem-change. By nature, these verbs were almost always transitive, and even today, most weak verbs are transitive verbs formed in the same way. However, as English came into contact with non-Germanic languages, it invariably borrowed useful verbs which lacked established stem-change patterns. Rather than invent and standardize new classes or learn foreign conjugations, English speakers simply applied the weak ending to the foreign bases.
The linguistic trends of borrowing foreign verbs and verbalizing nouns have greatly increased the number of weak verbs over the last 1,200 years. Some verbs that were originally strong (for example help, holp, holpen) have become weak by analogy; most foreign verbs are adopted as weak verbs; and when verbs are made from nouns (for example "to scroll" or "to water") the resulting verb is weak. Additionally, conjugation of weak verbs is easier to teach, since there are fewer classes of variation. In combination, these factors have drastically increased the number of weak verbs, so that in modern English weak verbs are the most numerous and productive form (although occasionally a weak verb may turn into a strong verb through the process of analogy, such as sneak (originally only a noun), where snuck is an analogical formation rather than a survival from Old English).
There are three major classes of weak verbs in Old English. The first class displays i-mutation in the root, and the second class none. There is also a third class explained below.
Class-one verbs with short roots exhibit gemination
West Germanic Gemination
West Germanic gemination is a sound change that took place in all West Germanic languages, around 300 AD. All single consonants except were geminated before . The second element of the diphthongs iu and au was still underlyingly at this time and therefore was still considered a consonant, so...
of the final stem consonant in certain forms. With verbs in
Epenthesis
In phonology, epenthesis is the addition of one or more sounds to a word, especially to the interior of a word. Epenthesis may be divided into two types: excrescence, for the addition of a consonant, and anaptyxis for the addition of a vowel....
vowel before endings beginning in a consonant.
Where class-one verbs have gemination, class-two verbs have <i> or
In the following table, three verbs are conjugated. Swebban 'to put to sleep' is a class one verb exhibiting gemination and an epenthetic vowel. 'to heal' is a class-one verb exhibiting neither gemination nor an epenthetic vowel. Sīðian 'to journey' is a class-two verb.
| Conjugation | Pronoun | 'put to sleep' | 'heal' | 'journey' |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Infinitive Infinitive In grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages. In the usual description of English, the infinitive of a verb is its basic form with or without the particle to: therefore, do and to do, be and to be, and so on are infinitives... s |
swebban | sīðian | ||
| tō swebbanne | tō | tō sīðianne | ||
| Present Indicative | ||||
| ic | swebbe | sīðie | ||
| þū | swefest | sīðast | ||
| hē/hit/hēo | swefeþ | sīðað | ||
| wē/gē/hīe | swebbaþ | sīðiað | ||
| Past Indicative | ic | swefede | sīðode | |
| þū | swefedest | sīðodest | ||
| hē/hit/hēo | swefede | sīðode | ||
| wē/gē/hīe | swefedon | sīðodon | ||
| Present Subjunctive | ic/þū/hē/hit/hēo | swebbe | sīðie | |
| wē/gē/hīe | swebben | sīðien | ||
| Past Subjunctive | ic/þū/hē/hit/hēo | swefede | sīðode | |
| wē/gē/hīe | swefeden | sīðoden | ||
| Imperative Imperative mood The imperative mood expresses commands or requests as a grammatical mood. These commands or requests urge the audience to act a certain way. It also may signal a prohibition, permission, or any other kind of exhortation.- Morphology :... |
Singular | swefe | sīða | |
| Plural | swebbaþ | sīðiað | ||
| Present Participle | swefende | sīðiende | ||
| Past Participle | swefed | sīðod | ||
During the Old English period the third class was significantly reduced; only four verbs belonged to this group: habban 'have', libban 'live', secgan 'say', and hycgan 'think'. Each of these verbs is distinctly irregular, though they share some commonalities.
| Conjugation | Pronoun | 'have' | 'live' | 'say' | 'think' |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Infinitive Infinitive In grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages. In the usual description of English, the infinitive of a verb is its basic form with or without the particle to: therefore, do and to do, be and to be, and so on are infinitives... |
habban | libban, lifgan | secgan | hycgan | |
| Present Indicative | |||||
| ic | hæbbe | libbe, lifge | secge | hycge | |
| þū | hæfst, hafast | lifast, leofast | segst, sagast | hygst, hogast | |
| hē/hit/hēo | hæfð, hafað | lifað, leofað | segð, sagað | hyg(e)d, hogað | |
| wē/gē/hīe | habbaþ | libbað | secgaþ | hycgað | |
| Past Indicative | (all persons) | hæfde | lifde, leofode | sægde | hog(o)de, hygde |
| Present Subjunctive | (all persons) | hæbbe | libbe, lifge | secge | hycge |
| Past Subjunctive | (all persons) | hæfde | lifde, leofode | sægde | hog(o)de, hygde |
| Imperative Imperative mood The imperative mood expresses commands or requests as a grammatical mood. These commands or requests urge the audience to act a certain way. It also may signal a prohibition, permission, or any other kind of exhortation.- Morphology :... |
Singular | hafa | leofa | sæge, saga | hyge, hoga |
| Plural | habbaþ | libbaþ, lifgaþ | secgaþ | hycgaþ | |
| Present Participle | hæbbende | libbende, lifgende | secgende | hycgende | |
| Past Participle | gehæfd | gelifd | gesægd | gehogod | |
Preterite-present verbs
The preterite-present verbs are a class of verbs which have a present tense in the form of a strong preterite and a past tense like the past of a weak verb. These verbs derive from the subjunctive or optative use of preterite forms to refer to present or future time. For example, witan, "to know" comes from a verb which originally meant "to have seen" (cf. OE wise "manner, mode, appearance"; Latin videre "to see" from the same root). The present singular is formed from the original singular preterite stem and the present plural from the original plural preterite stem. As a result of this history, the first-person singular and third-person singular are the same in the present.Few preterite present appear in the Old English corpus, and some are not attested in all forms.
Note that the Old English meanings of many of the verbs are significantly different than that of the modern descendants; in fact, the verbs "can, may, must" appear to have chain shift
Chain shift
In phonology, a chain shift is a phenomenon in which several sounds move stepwise along a phonetic scale. The sounds involved in a chain shift can be ordered into a "chain" in such a way that, after the change is complete, each phoneme ends up sounding like what the phoneme before it in the chain...
ed in meaning.
| Conjugation | Pronoun | 'know, know how to' | 'be able to, can' | 'be obliged to, must' | 'know' | 'own' | 'avail' | 'dare' | 'remember' | 'need' | 'be allowed to, may' | 'grant, allow, wish' | 'have use of, enjoy' |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Modern Descendant | 'can' | 'may' | 'shall' | 'wit (obsolescent)' | 'owe' | 'dow (archaic)' | 'dare' | -- | -- | 'mote (archaic), must’ | -- | -- | |
| Infinitive Infinitive In grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages. In the usual description of English, the infinitive of a verb is its basic form with or without the particle to: therefore, do and to do, be and to be, and so on are infinitives... s |
cunnan | magan | sculan | witan | āgan | dugan | *durran | munan | þurfan | *mōtan | unnan | *ge-/ *benugan | |
| Present Indicative | |||||||||||||
| ic | cann | mæg | sceal | wāt | āh | deah | dearr | man | þearf | mōt | ann | geneah | |
| þū | canst | meaht | scealt | wāst | āhst | dearst | manst | þearft | mōst | ||||
| hē/hit/hēo | cann | mæg | sceal | wāt | āh | deah | dearr | man | þearf | mōt | ann | geneah | |
| wē/gē/hīe | cunnon | magon | sculon | witon | āgon | dugon | durron | munon | þurfon | mōton | unnon | genugan | |
| Past Indicative | |||||||||||||
| ic | cūðe | meahte | sceolde | wisse, wiste | āhte | dohte | dorst | munde | þorfte | mōste | uðe | benohte | |
| þū | cūðest | meahtest | sceoldest | wissest, wistest | āhte | dohte | dorst | munde | þorfte | mōste | uðe | benohte | |
| hē/hit/hēo | cūðe | meahte | sceolde | wisse, wiste | āhte | dohte | dorst | munde | þorfte | mōste | ūðe | benohte | |
| wē/gē/hīe | cūðon | meahton | sceoldon | wisson, wiston | uþon | ||||||||
| Present Subjunctive | |||||||||||||
| ic/þū/hē/hit/hēo | cunne | mæge | scyle, scule | wite | āge | dyge, duge | dyrre, durre | myne, mune | þyrfe, þurfe | mōte | unne | ||
| wē/gē/hīe | cunnen | mægen | sculen | witaþ | |||||||||
| Past Subjunctive | |||||||||||||
| ic/þū/hē/hit/hēo | cūðe | meahte | sceolde | wisse, wiste | |||||||||
| wē/gē/hīe | cūðen | meahten | sceolden | ||||||||||
[Forms above with asterisk (*) unattested.]
Anomalous verbs
Additionally there is a further group of four verbs which are anomalous, the verbs "want" (modern "will"), "do", "go" and "be". These four have their own conjugation schemes which differ significantly from all the other classes of verb. This is not especially unusual: "want", "do", "go", and "be" are the most commonly used verbs in the language, and are very important to the meaning of the sentences in which they are used. Idiosyncratic patterns of inflection are much more common with important items of vocabulary than with rarely-used ones.Dōn 'to do' and gān 'to go' are conjugated alike; willan 'to want' is similar outside of the present tense.
| Conjugation | Pronoun | 'do' | 'go' | 'will' |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Infinitive Infinitive In grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages. In the usual description of English, the infinitive of a verb is its basic form with or without the particle to: therefore, do and to do, be and to be, and so on are infinitives... |
– | dōn | gān | willan |
| Present Indicative | ||||
| ic | dō | gā | wille | |
| þū | dēst | wilt | ||
| hē/hit/hēo | dēð | wile | ||
| wē/gē/hīe | dōð | gāð | willað | |
| Past Indicative | ||||
| ic/hē/hit/hēo | dyde | ēode | wolde | |
| þū | dydest | ēodest | woldest | |
| wē/gē/hīe | dydon | ēodon | woldon | |
| Present Subjunctive | (all persons) | dō | gā | wille |
| Past Subjunctive | (all persons) | dyde | ēode | wolde |
| Present Participle | dōnde | – | willende | |
| Past Participle | gedōn | gegān | – | |
The verb 'to be' is actually composed of three different stems:
| Conjugation | Pronoun | sindon | bēon | wesan |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Infinitive Infinitive In grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages. In the usual description of English, the infinitive of a verb is its basic form with or without the particle to: therefore, do and to do, be and to be, and so on are infinitives... |
– | sindon | bēon | wesan |
| Present Indicative | ||||
| ic | eom | bēo | wese | |
| þū | eart | bist | wesst | |
| hē/hit/hēo | is | bið | wes(t) | |
| wē/gē/hīe | sind(on) | bēoð | wesað | |
| Past Indicative | ||||
| ic | – | – | wæs | |
| þū | – | – | ||
| hē/hit/hēo | – | – | wæs | |
| wē/gē/hīe | – | – | ||
| Present Subjunctive | ||||
| ic/þū/hē/hit/hēo | sīe | bēo | wese | |
| wē/gē/hīe | sīen | bēon | wesen | |
| Past Subjunctive | ||||
| ic/þū/hē/hit/hēo | – | – | ||
| wē/gē/hīe | – | – | ||
| Imperative Imperative mood The imperative mood expresses commands or requests as a grammatical mood. These commands or requests urge the audience to act a certain way. It also may signal a prohibition, permission, or any other kind of exhortation.- Morphology :... |
||||
| (singular) | – | bēo | wes | |
| (plural) | – | bēoð | wesað | |
| Present Participle | – | bēonde | wesende | |
| Past Participle | – | gebēon | – | |
The present forms of wesan are almost never used. Therefore, wesan is used as the past, imperative, and present participle versions of sindon, and does not have a separate meaning. The bēon forms are usually used in reference to future actions. Only the present forms of bēon contrast with the present forms of sindon/wesan in that bēon tends to be used to refer to eternal or permanent truths, while sindon/wesan is used more commonly to refer to temporary or subjective facts. This semantic distinction was lost as Old English developed into modern English, so that the modern verb 'to be' is a single verb which takes its present indicative forms from sindon, its past indicative forms from wesan, its present subjunctive forms from bēon, its past subjunctive forms from wesan, and its imperative and participle forms from bēon.
Nouns
Old English is an inflectedInflection
In grammar, inflection or inflexion is the modification of a word to express different grammatical categories such as tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, aspect, person, number, gender and case...
language, and as such its noun
Noun
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
s, pronoun
Pronoun
In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun , such as, in English, the words it and he...
s, adjective
Adjective
In grammar, an adjective is a 'describing' word; the main syntactic role of which is to qualify a noun or noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified....
s and determiners must be declined
Declension
In linguistics, declension is the inflection of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and articles to indicate number , case , and gender...
in order to serve a grammatical function. A set of declined forms of the same word pattern is called a declension. As in several other ancient Germanic languages
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...
, there are five major cases
Grammatical case
In grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun is an inflectional form that indicates its grammatical function in a phrase, clause, or sentence. For example, a pronoun may play the role of subject , of direct object , or of possessor...
: nominative, accusative, dative, genitive and instrumental
Instrumental case
The instrumental case is a grammatical case used to indicate that a noun is the instrument or means by or with which the subject achieves or accomplishes an action...
.
- The nominative case indicated the subject of the sentence, for example se cyning means 'the king'. It was also used for direct address. Adjectives in the predicate (qualifying a noun on the other side of 'to be') were also in the nominative.
- The accusative case indicated the direct object of the sentence, for example Æþelbald lufode þone cyning means "Æþelbald loved the king", where Æþelbald is the subject and the king is the object. Already the accusative had begun to merge with the nominative; it was never distinguished in the plural, or in a neuter noun.
- The genitive case indicated possession, for example the þæs cyninges scip is "the ship of the king" or "the king's ship". It also indicated partitivePartitiveIn linguistics, the partitive is a word, phrase, or case that divides something into parts. For example, in the English sentence I'll have some coffee, some is a partitive determiner because it makes the noun phrase some coffee refer to a subset of all coffee...
nouns. - The dative case indicated the indirect object of the sentence, for example hringas þæm cyninge means "rings for the king" or "rings to the king". There were also several verbs that took direct objects in the dative.
- The instrumental case indicated an instrument used to achieve something, for example, lifde sweorde, "he lived by the sword", where sweorde is the instrumental form of sweord. During the Old English period, the instrumental was falling out of use, having largely merged with the dative. Only pronouns and strong adjectives retained separate forms for the instrumental.
The small body of evidence we have for Runic
Runic alphabet
The runic alphabets are a set of related alphabets using letters known as runes to write various Germanic languages before the adoption of the Latin alphabet and for specialized purposes thereafter...
texts suggests that there may also have a been a separate locative case in early or Northumbrian forms of the language (e.g., on rodi "on the Cross").
In addition to inflection for case, nouns take different endings depending on whether the noun was in the singular (for example, 'one ring') or plural (for example, 'many rings'). Also, some nouns pluralize by way of Umlaut
Germanic umlaut
In linguistics, umlaut is a process whereby a vowel is pronounced more like a following vowel or semivowel. The term umlaut was originally coined and is used principally in connection with the study of the Germanic languages...
, and some undergo no pluralizing change in certain cases.
Nouns are also categorised by grammatical gender
Grammatical gender
Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
– masculine, feminine, or neuter. In general, masculine and neuter words share their endings. Feminine words have their own subset of endings. The plural of some declension types distinguishes between genders, e.g., a-stem masculine nominative plural "stones" vs. neuter nominative plural "ships" and "words"; or i-stem masculine nominative plural "victories" vs. neuter nominative plural "sieves" and "hilts".
Furthermore, Old English nouns are divided as either strong or weak. Weak nouns have their own endings. In general, weak nouns are easier than strong nouns, since they had begun to lose their declensional system. However, there is a great deal of overlap between the various classes of noun: they are not totally distinct from one another.
Old English language grammars often follow the common NOM-ACC-GEN-DAT-INST order used for the Germanic languages.
Strong nouns
Here are the strong declensional endings and examples for each gender:| The Strong Noun Declension | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Case | Masculine | Neuter | Feminine | |||
| Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | |
| Nominative | – | -as | – | -u/– | -u/– | -a |
| Accusative | – | -as | – | -u/– | -e | -a, -e |
| Genitive | -es | -a | -es | -a | -e | -a |
| Dative | -e | -um | -e | -um | -e | -um |
For the '-u/–' forms above, the '-u' is used with a root consisting of a single short syllable or ending in a long syllable followed by a short syllable, while roots ending in a long syllable or two short syllables are not inflected. (A long syllable contains a long vowel or is followed by two consonants. Note also that there are some exceptions; for example, feminine nouns ending in -þu such as strengþu 'strength'.)
| Example of the Strong Noun Declension for each Gender | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Case | Masculine engel 'angel' |
Neuter scip 'ship' |
Feminine sorg 'sorrow' |
|||
| Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | |
| Nominative | engel | englas | scip | scipu | sorg | sorga |
| Accusative | engel | englas | scip | scipu | sorge | sorga/sorge |
| Genitive | engles | engla | scipes | scipa | sorge | sorga |
| Dative | engle | englum | scipe | scipum | sorge | sorgum |
Note the syncope of the second e in engel when an ending follows. This syncope of the vowel in the second syllable occurs with two-syllable strong nouns, which have a long vowel in the first syllable and a second syllable consisting of a short vowel and single consonant (for example, engel, wuldor 'glory', and hēafod 'head'). However, this syncope is not always present, so forms such as engelas may be seen.
Weak nouns
Here are the weak declensional endings and examples for each gender:| The Weak Noun Declension | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Case | Masculine | Neuter | Feminine | |||
| Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | |
| Nominative | -a | -an | -e | -an | -e | -an |
| Accusative | -an | -an | -e | -an | -an | -an |
| Genitive | -an | -ena | -an | -ena | -an | -ena |
| Dative | -an | -um | -an | -um | -an | -um |
| Example of the Weak Noun Declension for each Gender | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Case | Masculine nama 'name' |
Neuter ēage 'eye' |
Feminine tunge 'tongue' |
|||
| Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | |
| Nominative | nama | naman | ēage | ēagan | tunge | tungan |
| Accusative | naman | naman | ēage | ēagan | tungan | tungan |
| Genitive | naman | namena | ēagan | ēagena | tungan | tungena |
| Dative | naman | namum | ēagan | ēagum | tungan | tungum |
Irregular strong nouns
In addition, masculine and neuter nouns whose main vowel is short 'æ' and end with a single consonant change the vowel to 'a' in the plural (a result of the phonological phenomenon known as Anglo-Frisian brightening):| Dæg 'day' m. | ||
| Case | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | dæg | dagas |
| Accusative | dæg | dagas |
| Genitive | dæges | daga |
| Dative | dæge | dagum |
Some masculine and neuter nouns end in -e in their base form. These drop the -e and add normal endings. Note that neuter nouns in -e always have -u in the plural, even with a long vowel:
| Example of the Strong Noun Declensions ending in -e | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Case | Masculine ende 'end' |
Neuter 'steel' |
||
| Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | |
| Nominative | ende | endas | ||
| Accusative | ende | endas | ||
| Genitive | endes | enda | ||
| Dative | ende | endum | ||
Nouns ending in -h lose this when an ending is added, and lengthen the vowel in compensation (this can result in compression of the ending as well):
| Example of the Strong Noun Declensions ending in -h | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Case | Masculine mearh 'horse' |
Neuter feorh 'life' |
Masculine scōh 'shoe' |
|||
| Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | |
| Nominative | mearh | mēaras | feorh | feorh | scōh | scōs |
| Accusative | mearh | mēaras | feorh | feorh | scōh | scōs |
| Genitive | mēares | mēara | fēores | fēora | scōs | scōna |
| Dative | mēare | mēarum | fēore | fēorum | scō | scōm |
Nouns whose stem ends in -w change this to -u or drop it in the nominative singular. (Note that this '-u/–' distinction depends on syllable weight
Syllable weight
In linguistics, syllable weight is the concept that syllables pattern together according to the number and/or duration of segments in the rime. In classical poetry, both Greek and Latin, distinctions of syllable weight were fundamental to the meter of the line....
, as for strong nouns, above.)
| Example of the Strong Noun Declensions ending in -w | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Case | Neuter smeoru 'grease' |
Feminine sinu 'sinew' |
Feminine 'pasture' |
|||
| Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | |
| Nominative | smeoru | smeoru | sinu | sinwa | ||
| Accusative | smeoru | smeoru | sinwe | sinwa, -e | -e | |
| Genitive | smeorwes | smeorwa | sinwe | sinwa | ||
| Dative | smeorwe | smeorwum | sinwe | sinwum | ||
A few nouns follow the -u declension, with an entirely different set of endings. The following examples are both masculine, although feminines also exist, with the same endings (for example duru 'door' and hand 'hand'). Note that the '-u/–' distinction in the singular depends on syllable weight, as for strong nouns, above.
| Example of the -u Declension | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Case | Masculine sunu 'son' |
Masculine feld 'field' |
||
| Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | |
| Nominative | sunu | suna | feld | felda |
| Accusative | sunu | suna | feld | felda |
| Genitive | suna | suna | felda | felda |
| Dative | suna | sunum | felda | feldum |
Mutating strong nouns
There are also some nouns of the consonant declension, which show i-umlaut in some forms.| Example of the Strong Noun Declensions with i-shift | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Case | Masculine fōt 'foot' |
Feminine hnutu 'nut' |
Feminine bōc 'book' |
|||
| Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | |
| Nominative | fōt | fēt | hnutu | hnyte | bōc | bēc |
| Accusative | fōt | fēt | hnutu | hnyte | bōc | bēc |
| Genitive | fōtes | fōta | hnyte, hnute | hnuta | bēc, bōce | bōca |
| Dative | fēt, fōte | fōtum | hnyte, hnute | hnutum | bēc, bōc | bōcum |
Other such nouns include (with singular and plural nominative forms given):
Masculine: tōþ, tēþ 'tooth'; mann, menn 'man'; frēond, frīend 'friend'; fēond, fīend 'enemy' (cf. 'fiend')
Feminine: studu, styde 'post' (cf. 'stud'); hnitu, hnite 'nit'; āc, 'oak'; gāt, 'goat'; brōc, brēc 'leg covering' (cf. 'breeches'); gōs, gēs 'goose'; burg, byrg 'city' (cf. 'borough', '-bury' and German cities in -burg); dung, dyng 'prison' (cf. 'dungeon' by way of French and Frankish); turf, tyrf 'turf'; grūt, 'meal' (cf. 'grout'); lūs, 'louse'; mūs, 'mouse'; neaht, niht 'night'
Feminine with loss of -h in some forms: furh, fyrh 'furrow' or 'fir'; sulh, sylh 'plough'; þrūh, 'trough'; wlōh, wlēh 'fringe'.
Feminine with compression of endings: cū, 'cow' (cf. dialectal plural 'kine')
Neuter: In addition, scrūd 'clothing, garment' has the umlauted dative-singular form scrȳd.
Nouns of relationship
| Nouns of Relationship | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Case | Masculine fæder 'father' |
Masculine brōðor 'brother' |
Feminine mōdor 'mother' |
Feminine sweostor 'sister' |
Feminine dohtor 'daughter' |
|||||
| Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | |
| Nominative | fæder | fæd(e)ras | brōðor | (ge)brōðor | mōdor | mōdra/mōdru | sweostor | (ge)sweostor, -tru, -tra | dohtor | dohtor |
| Accusative | fæder | fæd(e)ras | brōðor | (ge)brōðor | mōdor | mōdra/mōdru | sweostor | (ge)sweostor, -tru, -tra | dohtor | dohtor |
| Genitive | fæder | fæd(e)ra | brōðor | (ge)brōðra | mōdor | mōdra | sweostor | (ge)sweostra | dohtor | dohtra |
| Dative | fæder | fæderum | brēðer | (ge)brōðrum | mēder | mōdrum | sweostor | (ge)sweostrum | dehter | dohtrum |
Neuter nouns with -r- in the plural
| Lamb 'lamb' n. | ||
| Case | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | lamb | lambru |
| Accusative | lamb | lambru |
| Genitive | lambes | lambra |
| Dative | lambe | lambrum |
Other such nouns: , 'egg' (ancestor of the archaic/dialectical form 'ey', plural 'eyren'; the form 'egg' is a borrowing from Old Norse); bread, breadru 'crumb'; cealf, cealfru 'calf'; cild 'child' has either the normal plural cild or cildru (cf. 'children', with -en from the weak nouns); hǣmed, hǣmedru 'cohabitation'; speld, speldru 'torch'.
Adjectives
Adjectives in Old English are declined using the same categories as nouns: five cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, and instrumental), three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter), and two numbers (singular, plural). In addition, they can be declined either strong or weak. The weak forms are used in the presence of a definite or possessive determiner, while the strong ones are used in other situations. The weak forms are identical to those for nouns, while the strong forms use a combination of noun and pronoun endings:| The Strong Adjective Declension | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Case | Masculine | Neuter | Feminine | |||
| Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | |
| Nominative | – | -e | – | -u/– | -u/– | -e, -a |
| Accusative | -ne | -e | – | -u/– | -e | -e, -a |
| Genitive | -es | -ra | -es | -ra | -re | -ra |
| Dative | -um | -um | -um | -um | -re | -um |
| Instrumental | -e | -um | -e | -um | -re | -um |
For the '-u/–' forms above, the distinction is the same as for strong nouns.
| Example of the Strong Adjective Declension: gōd 'good' | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Case | Masculine | Neuter | Feminine | |||
| Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | |
| Nominative | gōd | gōde | gōd | gōd | gōd | gōde, -a |
| Accusative | gōdne | gōde | gōd | gōd | gōde | gōde, -a |
| Genitive | gōdes | gōdra | gōdes | gōdra | gōdre | gōdra |
| Dative | gōdum | gōdum | gōdum | gōdum | gōdre | gōdum |
| Instrumental | gōde | gōdum | gōde | gōdum | gōdre | gōdum |
| Example of the Weak Adjective Declension: gōd 'good' | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Case | Masculine | Neuter | Feminine | |||
| Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | |
| Nominative | gōda | gōdan | gōde | gōdan | gōde | gōdan |
| Accusative | gōdan | gōdan | gōde | gōdan | gōdan | gōdan |
| Genitive | gōdan | gōdena | gōdan | gōdena | gōdan | gōdena |
| Dative | gōdan | gōdum | gōdan | gōdum | gōdan | gōdum |
| Instrumental | gōdan | gōdum | gōdan | gōdum | gōdan | gōdum |
Note that the same variants described above for nouns also exist for adjectives. The following example shows both the æ/a variation and the -u forms in the feminine singular and neuter plural:
| Example of the Strong Adjective Declension: glæd 'glad' | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Case | Masculine | Neuter | Feminine | |||
| Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | |
| Nominative | glæd | glade | glæd | gladu | gladu | glade |
| Accusative | glædne | glade | glæd | gladu | glade | glade |
| Genitive | glades | glædra | glades | glædra | glædre | glædra |
| Dative | gladum | gladum | gladum | gladum | glædre | gladum |
| Instrumental | glade | gladum | glade | gladum | glædre | gladum |
The following shows an example of an adjective ending with -h:
| Example of the Strong Adjective Declension: hēah 'high' | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Case | Masculine | Neuter | Feminine | |||
| Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | |
| Nominative | hēah | hēa | hēah | hēa | hēa | hēa |
| Accusative | hēane | hēa | hēah | hēa | hēa | hēa |
| Genitive | hēas | hēara | hēas | hēara | hēare | hēara |
| Dative | hēam | hēam | hēam | hēam | hēare | hēam |
| Instrumental | hēa | hēam | hēa | hēam | hēare | hēam |
The following shows an example of an adjective ending with -w:
| Example of the Strong Adjective Declension: gearu 'ready' | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Case | Masculine | Neuter | Feminine | |||
| Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | |
| Nominative | gearu | gearwe | gearu | gearu | gearu | gearwe |
| Accusative | gearone | gearwe | gearu | gearu | gearwe | gearwe |
| Genitive | gearwes | gearora | gearwes | gearora | gearore | gearora |
| Dative | gearwum | gearwum | gearwum | gearwum | gearore | gearwum |
| Instrumental | gearwe | gearwum | gearwe | gearwum | gearore | gearwum |
Determiners
Old English had two main determiners: se, which could function as both 'the' or 'that', and þes for 'this'.| the/that | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Case | Masculine | Neuter | Feminine | Plural |
| Nominative | se | þæt | sēo | þā |
| Accusative | þone | þæt | þā | þā |
| Genitive | þæs | þæs | þāra, | |
| Dative | þām | |||
| Instrumental | þon | þon | – | – |
Modern English 'that' descends from the neuter nominative/accusative form, and 'the' from the masculine nominative form, with 's' replaced analogously by the 'th' of the other forms. The feminine nominative form was probably the source of Modern English 'she.'
| this | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Case | Masculine | Neuter | Feminine | Plural |
| Nominative | þes | þis | þēos | þās |
| Accusative | þisne | þis | þās | þās |
| Genitive | þisses | þisses | þisse, þisre | þisra |
| Dative | þissum | þissum | þisse, þisre | þissum |
| Instrumental | – | – |
Pronouns
Most pronouns are declined by number, case and gender; in the plural form most pronouns have only one form for all genders. Additionally, Old English pronouns reserve the dual formDual (grammatical number)
Dual is a grammatical number that some languages use in addition to singular and plural. When a noun or pronoun appears in dual form, it is interpreted as referring to precisely two of the entities identified by the noun or pronoun...
(which is specifically for talking about groups of two things, for example "we two" or "you two" or "they two"). These were uncommon even then, but remained in use throughout the period.
| First Person | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Case | Singular | Plural | Dual |
| Nominative | ic, īc | wē | wit |
| Accusative | mec, mē | ūsic, ūs | uncit, unc |
| Genitive | mīn | ūre | uncer |
| Dative | mē | ūs | unc |
| Second Person | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Case | Singular | Plural | Dual |
| Nominative | þū | gē | git |
| Accusative | þēc, þē | ēowic, ēow | incit, inc |
| Genitive | þīn | ēower | incer |
| Dative | þē | ēow | inc |
| Third Person | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Case | Singular | Plural | ||
| Masc. | Neut. | Fem. | ||
| Nominative | hē | hit | hēo | hiē m., hēo f. |
| Accusative | hine | hit | hīe | hiē m., hīo f. |
| Genitive | his | his | hire | hiera m., heora f. |
| Dative | him | him | hire | him |
Many of the forms above bear strong resemblances to their contemporary English language equivalents: for instance in the genitive case ēower became "your", ūre became "our", mīn became "mine".
Prepositions
Prepositions (like Modern English words by, for, and with) often follow the word which they govern, in which case they are called postpositions. Also, so that the object of a preposition was marked in the dative case, a preposition may conceivably be located anywhere in the sentence, even appended to the verb. e.g. "Scyld Scefing sceathena threatum meodo setla of teoh" means "Scyld took mead settles of (from) enemy threats." The infinitive is not declined.The following is a list of prepositions in the Old English language
Old English language
Old English or Anglo-Saxon is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts of what are now England and southeastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century...
. Many of them, particularly
those marked "etc.", are found in other variant spellings. Prepositions may govern the
accusative
Accusative case
The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions...
, genitive
Genitive case
In grammar, genitive is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun...
, dative
Dative case
The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given, as in "George gave Jamie a drink"....
or instrumental
Instrumental case
The instrumental case is a grammatical case used to indicate that a noun is the instrument or means by or with which the subject achieves or accomplishes an action...
cases
Declension
In linguistics, declension is the inflection of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and articles to indicate number , case , and gender...
- the question of which is beyond the scope of this article.
| Prepositions | ||
|---|---|---|
| Old English | Definition | | Notes |
| æfter | after; along, through, during; according to, by means of; about. | Ancestor of modern after Related to Dutch Dutch language Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second... achter = behind, after |
| ǣr | before | Related to modern German German language German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union.... eher and Dutch Dutch language Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second... eer, ancestor of modern ere |
| æt | at, to, before, next, with, in, for, against; unto, as far as. | Ancestor of modern at |
| and | against, before, on. | | |
| andlang | along | Ancestor of modern along |
| bæftan | after, behind; without. | | |
| be, bī | by, near to, to, at, in, on, upon, about, with; of, from, about, touching, concerning; for, because of, after, by, through, according to; beside, out of. | Related to modern German bei, ancestor of modern by |
| befōran | before. | Ancestor of modern before |
| begeondan | beyond. | Ancestor of modern beyond |
| behindan | behind. | Ancestor of modern behind |
| beinnan | in, within. | | |
| beneoðan | beneath. | Ancestor of modern beneath |
| betweonum, betweox, etc. | betwixt, between, among, amid, in the midst. | Ancestors of modern between and betwixt respectively |
| bīrihte | near. | | |
| būfan | above. | Ancestor of modern above through compound form onbúfan |
| būtan | out of, against; without, except. | | |
| eāc | with, in addition to, besides. | Related to modern German auch |
| for | for, on account of, because of, with, by; according to; instead of. | Ancestor of modern for |
| fōr, fōre | before. | |
| fram | from; concerning, about, of. | Ancestor of modern from |
| gemang | among | Ancestor of modern among |
| geond | through, throughout, over, as far as, among, in, after, beyond. | Ancestor of modern yonder through comparative form geondra |
| in | in, on; into, to. | Ancestor of modern in |
| innan | in, into, within, from within. | |
| intō | into | Ancestor of modern into |
| mid | with, against | Ancestor of modern amid through related form onmiddan |
| neāh | near | Ancestor of modern nigh |
| nefne | except | |
| of | of, from, out of, off. | Ancestor of modern of and off |
| ofer | above, over; upon, on; throughout; beyond, more than | Ancestor of modern over |
| on | on; in, at; | Ancestor of modern on |
| onbūtan | about | Ancestor of modern about |
| ongeagn, etc. | opposite, against; towards; in reply to. | Ancestor of modern again |
| onuppan | upon, on. | |
| oþ | to, unto, up to, as far as. | |
| samod | with, at. | |
| tō | to, at. | Ancestor of modern to |
| tōeācan | in addition to, besides. | |
| tōforan | before. | |
| tōgeagnes | towards, against. | |
| tōmiddes | in the midst of, amidst. | |
| tōweard | toward. | Ancestor of modern toward |
| þurh | through | Related to modern German durch, ancestor of modern through |
| ufenan | above, besides. | |
| under | under. | Ancestor of modern under |
| underneoþan | underneath. | Ancestor of modern underneath |
| uppan | upon, on. | Not the ancestor of modern upon, which came from "up on". |
| ūtan | without, outside of | Related to modern German außen, außer and Swedish utan |
| wið | towards, to; with, against; opposite to; by, near. | Ancestor of modern with |
| wiðæftan | behind. | |
| wiðer | against. | Related to modern German wider |
| wiðinnan | within. | Ancestor of modern within |
| wiðforan | before. | |
| wiðoutan | without, outside of. | Ancestor of modern without |
| ymb | about, by. | Related to German um and Latin ambi |
| ymbūtan | about, around; concerning. |
Syntax
Old English syntax was similar in many ways to that of modern English. However, there were some important differences. Some were simply consequences of the greater level of nominal and verbal inflection – e.g., word order was generally freer. But there are also differences in the default word order, and in the construction of negation, questions, relative clauses and subordinate clauses.In addition:
- The default word orderWord orderIn linguistics, word order typology refers to the study of the order of the syntactic constituents of a language, and how different languages can employ different orders. Correlations between orders found in different syntactic subdomains are also of interest...
was verb-second and more like modern GermanGerman languageGerman is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
than modern English. - There was no do-supportDo-supportIn English grammar do-support or do-insertion refers to the use of the auxiliary verb do in negative or interrogative clauses that do not contain other auxiliaries....
in questions and negatives. - Multiple negatives could stack up in a sentence, and intensified each other (negative concord).
- Sentences with subordinate clauses of the type "When X, Y" did not use a wh-type word for the conjunction, but instead used interrogative pronouns asa word related to "when", but instead a th-type correlative conjunction (e.g. þā X, þā Y in place of "When X, Y").
Word order
There was some flexibility in word order of Old English, since the heavily inflected nature of nouns, adjectives and verbs often indicated the relationships among clause arguments. Scrambling of constituentConstituent (linguistics)
In syntactic analysis, a constituent is a word or a group of words that functions as a single unit within a hierarchical structure. The analysis of constituent structure is associated mainly with phrase structure grammars, although dependency grammars also allow sentence structure to be broken down...
s was common, and even sometimes scrambling within a constituent occurred, as in Beowulf
Beowulf
Beowulf , but modern scholars agree in naming it after the hero whose life is its subject." of an Old English heroic epic poem consisting of 3182 alliterative long lines, set in Scandinavia, commonly cited as one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature.It survives in a single...
line 708 wrāþum on andan:
| wrāþum | on | andan |
| hostile.DAT.SG | on/with | malice.DAT.SG |
| "with hostile malice" | ||
Something similar occurs in line 713 in sele þām hēan "in the high hall" (lit. "in hall the high").
Extraposition of constituents out of larger constituents is common even in prose, as in the well-known tale of Cynewulf and Cyneheard, which begins
- Hēr Cynewulf benam Sigebryht his rīces ond Westseaxna wiotan for unryhtum dǣdum, būton Hamtūnscīre; ... "Here Cynewulf deprived Sigebryht of his kingdom and West Saxons' counselors for unright deeds, except Hampshire" "Here Cynewulf and the West Saxon counselors deprived Sigebryht of his kingdom, other than Hampshire, for unjust actions"
Note how the words ond Westseaxna wiotan "and the West Saxon counselors" (lit. "and (the) counselors of (the) West Saxons") have been extraposed from (moved out of) the compound subject they belong in, in a way that would be totally impossible in modern English. Case marking helps somewhat: wiotan "counselors" can be nominative or accusative but definitely not genitive, which is the case of rīces "kingdom" and the case governed by benam "deprived"; hence, Cynewulf can't possibly have deprived Sigebryht of the West Saxon counselors, as the order suggests.
Main clauses in Old English tend to have a verb-second (V2) order, where the verb is the second constituent in a sentence, regardless of what comes first. There are echoes of this in modern English, e.g. "Hardly did he arrive when ...", "Never can it be said that ...", "Over went the boat", "Ever onward marched the weary soldiers ...", "Then came a loud sound from the sky above". In Old English, however, it was much more extensive, much as in modern German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
. Note that if the subject appears first, this yields an SVO order; but it can also yield orders such as OVS, CVSO, etc.
In subordinate clauses, however, the word order is completely different, with verb-final constructions the norm – again as in modern German. Furthermore, in poetry, all these rules were frequently broken. In Beowulf, for example, main clauses frequently have verb-initial or verb-final order, and subordinate clauses often have verb-second order. (However, in clauses introduced by þā, which can mean either "when" or "then" and where word order is crucial for telling the difference, the normal word order is nearly always followed.)
Those linguists who work within the Chomskyan transformational grammar
Transformational grammar
In linguistics, a transformational grammar or transformational-generative grammar is a generative grammar, especially of a natural language, that has been developed in the Chomskyan tradition of phrase structure grammars...
paradigm often believe that it is more accurate to describe Old English (and other Germanic languages
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...
with the same word-order patterns, e.g. modern German) as having underlying subject-object-verb (SOV) ordering. According to this theory, all sentences are initially generated using this order, but then in main clauses the verb is moved back to the V2 position (technically, the verb undergoes V-to-T raising). This is said to explain the fact that Old English allows inversion of subject and verb as a general strategy for forming questions, while modern English only uses this strategy with auxiliary verb
Auxiliary verb
In linguistics, an auxiliary verb is a verb that gives further semantic or syntactic information about a main or full verb. In English, the extra meaning provided by an auxiliary verb alters the basic meaning of the main verb to make it have one or more of the following functions: passive voice,...
s and main-verb "to be" (and occasionally main-verb "to have", especially in British English
British English
British English, or English , is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere...
), requiring do-support
Do-support
In English grammar do-support or do-insertion refers to the use of the auxiliary verb do in negative or interrogative clauses that do not contain other auxiliaries....
in other cases.
Questions
Because of its similarity with Old Norse, it is believed that most of the time the word order of Old English changed when asking a question, from SVO to VSO; i.e. swapping the verb and the subject. While many purport that Old English had free word order, this is not quite true and there were conventions for the positioning of subject, object and verb in the clause.- "I am..." becomes "Am I..."
- "Ic eom..." becomes "Eom ic..."
Relative, subordinate clauses
Old English did not use forms equivalent to "who, when, where" in relative clauses (as in "The man who I saw") or subordinate clauses ("When I got home, I went to sleep").Instead, relative clause
Relative clause
A relative clause is a subordinate clause that modifies a noun phrase, most commonly a noun. For example, the phrase "the man who wasn't there" contains the noun man, which is modified by the relative clause who wasn't there...
s used one of the following:
- An invariable complementizer þe
- The demonstrative pronoun se, sēo, þat
- The combination of the two, as in se þe
Preposition-fronting ("The man with whom I spoke") did not normally occur.
Subordinate clauses tended to use correlative conjunctions, e.g.
- Þā ic hām ēode, þā slēp ic. "Then I home went, then slept I." "When I went home, I slept."
The word order usually distinguished the subordinate clause (with verb-final order) from the main clause (with verb-second word order).
The equivalents of "who, when, where" were used only as interrogative pronouns and indefinite pronoun
Indefinite pronoun
An indefinite pronoun is a pronoun that refers to one or more unspecified beings, objects, or places.-List of English indefinite pronouns:Note that many of these words can function as other parts of speech too, depending on context...
s, as in Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
and Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
.
Besides þā ... þā ..., other correlative conjunctions occurred, often in pairs of identical words, e.g.:
- þǣr X, þǣr Y: "Where X, Y"
- þanon X, þanon Y: "Whence (from where) X, Y"
- þider X, þider Y: "Whither (to where) X, Y"
- þēah (þe) X, þēah Y: "Although X, Y"
- þenden X, þenden Y: "While X, Y"
- þonne X, þonne Y: "Whenever X, Y"
- þæs X, þæs Y: "As/after/since X, Y"
- þȳ X, þȳ Y: "The more X, the more Y"
Phonology
The phonologyPhonology
Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
of Old English is necessarily somewhat speculative, since it is preserved purely as a written language
Written language
A written language is the representation of a language by means of a writing system. Written language is an invention in that it must be taught to children, who will instinctively learn or create spoken or gestural languages....
. Nevertheless, there is a very large corpus
Text corpus
In linguistics, a corpus or text corpus is a large and structured set of texts...
of Old English, and the written language apparently indicates phonological alternations
Alternation (linguistics)
In linguistics, an alternation is the phenomenon of a phoneme or morpheme exhibiting variation in its phonological realization. Each of the various realizations is called an alternant...
quite faithfully, so it is not difficult to draw certain conclusions about the nature of Old English phonology
Old English phonology
The phonology of Old English is necessarily somewhat speculative, since it is preserved purely as a written language. Nevertheless, there is a very large corpus of Old English, and the written language apparently indicates phonological alternations quite faithfully, so it is not difficult to draw...
.
Further reading
- Brunner, Karl (1965). Altenglische Grammatik (nach der angelsächsischen Grammatik von Eduard Sievers neubearbeitet) (3rd ed.). Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.
- Campbell, A. (1959). Old English Grammar. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
- Mitchell, Bruce & Robinson, Fred (2001) A Guide to Old English; 6th ed. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing ISBN 0-631-22636-2
- Quirk, Randolph; & Wrenn, C. L. (1957). An Old English Grammar (2nd ed.) London: Methuen.