Old English: Grammar

Question 1

Main characteristics of Old English Grammar

Answer 1

• Synthetic language
  -relatively free word order
• many inflections express grammatical relation
• nouns, adjectives, pronouns and verbs were inflected
• Strong and weak inflection/declension of adjectives
• Strong and weak inflection/conjugation of verbs

Question 2

Analytic language

Answer 2

• few inflections/affixes, grammatical relationships expressed through word order - extensive use of auxiliaries & propositions
  > Modern English

Question 3

Synthetic language

Answer 3

• many inflections carrying information on grammatical relationships - relations of words in a sentence largely indicated by inflections (rather free word order; nouns, adjectives, verbs and pronouns all inflected)
  > Old English, German, Latin

Question 4

Inflection

Answer 4

• process
• works via affixes (prefix, suffix)
  > grammatical bound morphemes denoting grammatical information)

Question 5

Inflection on nouns in OE
- grammatical categories

Answer 5

• number: singular, (dual), plural
• case: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental
• gender: not overtly marked but correlated strongly with declensional class

Question 6

Declension

Answer 6

• form of a word is changed to show its syntactic function in a sentence

Question 7

Declension classes (nouns in OE)

Answer 7

• a-stem declension (most frequent, only mask & neuter)
• n-stem declension (ox - oxan)
• root/ consonant declension (stem itself changes)

Question 8

n-stem declension

Answer 8

plural
e.g.: day, king, foot ox
> irregularities in Modern English often go back to Old English inflectional forms

Question 9

Inflections of adjectives in Old English

Answer 9

Grammatical categories
- Number: Singular, Plural, Dual
-Case: Nominative, Genitivem Dative, Accusative, Instrumental
- Comparison: Positive, Comparative, Superlative

Question 10

2 sets of inflections on adjectives

Answer 10

• Weak Declension (with article): der dumme König (se dola cyning)
• Strong Declension (without article): dummer König (dol cyning)

Question 11

Syncretism

Answer 11

reduction, system that claims to be distinctive but is not

Question 12

Verbal inflection

Answer 12

• weak verbs: adding dental suffix (ed, t)
• strong verbs: change of the stem vowel/ vowel gradation (Ablaut)

Question 13

Strong verbs
- 4 (basic) verb forms

Answer 13

1. Infinitive
2. Past tense 1st + 3rd person singular
3. Past tense 2nd person singular and all persons plural
4. past participle

• change in the stem vowel, gradation of the stem vowel

Question 14

Strong verbs
- classes

Answer 14

7