Old English Internal StructureOld English Internal Structure

The Grammar of Old English

I. Synthetic LanguageI. Synthetic Language

OE is a synthetic rather than an analytic language. Languages that make extensive use of prepositions

and auxiliary verbs and depend upon word order to show grammatical relationships are analytic.

Languages that use inflections to indicate grammatical relationships are synthetic.

OE like Modern German (and unlike Modern English) is synthetic. In terms of grammar, Old English resembles Modern German more than it does Modern English.

HOWEVER, OE is less synthetic in its structure than other I-E languages such as Latin.

II. Inflections in Old EnglishII. Inflections in Old English

OE nouns, pronouns, and adjectives had four inflectional cases, used according to the word's function in a sentence.

Case is a grammatical category associated with nouns, pronouns and adjectives that indicates their grammatical relationships with other elements in a sentence.

II. Inflectional EndingsII. Inflectional Endings

The four inflectional cases are as follows: Nominative Case (Subject)-- The tree is big. Accusative Case (Direct object)-- He hit the

ball. Genitive Case (Possessive)-- This is John's

house. Dative Case (Indirect Object)-- I gave the

paper to Mary.

III. NounsIII. Nouns

The inflection of OE nouns indicates:Distinctions of number or persons

(singular and plural); and case (the four listed above).Consequently, OE nouns are less

complex than other Germanic and I-E languages like Latin or Sanskrit.

III. NounsIII. Nouns

Present Day English (PDE) has further reduced these inflections to only two:

1. No inflectional ending (eg. “Girl”)-- Signifies the singular. Can be applied to subjects and direct/indirect objects.

We distinguish between subjects and objects through word order and auxiliary phrases.

III. NounsIII. Nouns

2. Plural inflectional endings (usually -s or –es, but others like –en and –ren remain from earlier OE noun forms)

Also used to indicated possession (genitive case) as in boy's and boys'.

All are pronounced the same, so word order (again) is very important.

The use of the contraction is a more recent (early modern) convention.

III. OE Noun Patterns or ParadigmsIII. OE Noun Patterns or Paradigms

There are a large number of patterns for declining nouns in OE. This is why we get some of the variant plural endings in words like oxen and children

We’ll look at two of the most common ones that survived into PDE (the rest have essentially disappeared). Note: vowel declensions are strong; consonant declensions are weak.

III. OE Noun Patterns or ParadigmsIII. OE Noun Patterns or Paradigms

1. Masculine a- stem (see handout). Declension of the noun stone.

Over half of the nouns you will encounter in OE come from this category.

Our modern day possessive singular case (stone's) and general plural case (stones) come from this stem.

III. OE Noun Patterns or ParadigmsIII. OE Noun Patterns or Paradigms

2. Weak masculine or n- stem For a long time, this ending rivaled the -s

ending (above) as the typical plural in English. A standard Middle English speaker would say: eyen, treen, housen, and shoen. As a result of analogy, all of these have changed over time to conform to the dominant s- stem paradigm. Only one remains: oxen.

III. Nouns: Grammatical GenderIII. Nouns: Grammatical Gender

Like most other I-E languages, the gender of OE nouns was defined in grammatical terms (by the inflectional endings). For example:

Stan (stone) = masculine mona (moon) = masculine sunna (sun) = feminine (Note: this is the exact opposite of French!) Words like wif (wife) and cild (child) are

neuter. PDE has natural gender.

IV. AdjectivesIV. Adjectives

1. OE inflected adjectives for number, gender and case to agree with the noun.

For example there 10 different forms (42 combinations in all) of the adjective good in OE (see Handout).

2. This elaborate inflectional system is strikingly different from PDE where inflections of the adjective are virtually absent except for the comparative and superlative forms (eg., great / greater / greatest).

Why do all of these inflections disappear?

V. Definite ArticlesV. Definite Articles

Like German, OE possessed a fully inflected definite article (see Handout).

5 cases / 3 genders in the singular.4 cases for all genders in plural.What forms survive into PDE? the (definite article) that (demonstrative).

VII. VerbsVII. Verbs

Like the other Germanic languages, inflections of verbs were much simpler in OE than in other I-E languages but much more complex than PDE forms.

Like all other Germanic languages, OE has 2 major verb categories which we retain to this day:

VII. VerbsVII. Verbs

A. Germanic Weak or Regular Verbs: This group adds a dental suffix [d / t] in the past tense (walk / walked). What causes this development in the Germanic languages is not clear, but it does over time become the dominant past tense inflection in PDE.

Over time many other verb forms conform to this weak paradigm.

All new verbs entering into the language today take this form (grammatical rule).

VII. VerbsVII. Verbs

In OE there were three major classes of weak verbs:

--ede (fremman / fremede = "to perform")

--ode (lufian / lufode = "to love")--de (libban / lifde = "to live")

VII. VerbsVII. Verbs

B. I-E Strong or Irregular Verbs:Derived mainly from Proto I-E, these

verbs are inflected through a modification of an internal vowel sound (eg., sing / sang / sung).

There are very few of these in OE (around 300). T

There were seven classes of OE strong verbs (see Handout).

VII. VerbsVII. Verbs

For example, there are 24 conjugations of the verb drifan (to drive) in OE,

These include 12 distinct forms. In PDE, there are usually only four or

five (drive / drives / drove / driven / driving).

VIII. Personal PronounsVIII. Personal Pronouns

1. PDE personal pronouns contain more of their earlier inflectional complexity than any other part of speech (see handout).

2. OE has distinctive forms for all genders (masculine, feminine and neuter), persons (singular, plural and dual) and four cases.

3. Notice that OE has a distinct number and case for the second person pronoun. In PDE, we only have one (you). Why do these other forms disappear?

IX. Lexical (Words)IX. Lexical (Words)

Absence of most of the words from French and Latin that make up a large part of our modern English vocabulary but which did not enter the language until the Middle English and Early Modern (Renaissance) era.

IX. Lexical (Words)IX. Lexical (Words)

OE word stock is almost purely Germanic.

A majority of this earlier word stock has disappeared. 85% no longer in use.

But the words that remain, make up the most basic elements of the language we speak today.

IX. Lexical (Words): SemanticsIX. Lexical (Words): Semantics

Semantic Degradation in words like LUST, WENCH, and VULGAR.

Semantic Elevation in words like KNIGHT, CHIVALROUS, and EARL.

Semantic Reduction in words like DEER, HOUND, MEAT, STARVE, WORM, and GIRL.

Semantic Expansion in words like DOG, BIRD, MILL or MEAL, and BARN.

X. Orthography (Writing) X. Orthography (Writing)

Different Letters that are no longer used: thorn, eth, ash, wynn.

OE [sc] > PDE [sh] (sceap > sheep or sceotan > shoot)

OE [c] becomes PDE [k] and [ch] (cynn kin; nacod > naked; spraec > speech)

Loss of initial g [y] in words like gelamp. J and Q not used. Enter via French. V and K rarely used.