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

Possible word order in OE

Answer 2

1. Adverbial-Verb-Subject
2. S-V-A
3. S-O-V
4. V-S-V
   = Synthetic language

Question 3

Word order in ME

Answer 3

1. S-V-O
   = Analytic Language

Question 4

Analytic language

Answer 4

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

Question 5

Synthetic language

Answer 5

• 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 6

Inflection

Answer 6

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

Question 7

Inflection on nouns in OE
- grammatical categories

Answer 7

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

Question 8

Declension

Answer 8

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

Question 9

Declension classes (nouns in OE)

Answer 9

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

Question 10

Declension of nouns, a-stem

Answer 10

• a-stem (masculine or neuter) = most frequent declension class

Question 11

n-stem declension

Answer 11

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

Question 12

Inflections of adjectives in Old English

Answer 12

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

Question 13

2 sets of inflections on adjectives

Answer 13

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

Question 14

Syncretism

Answer 14

reduction, system that claims to be distinctive but is not

Question 15

Verbal inflection

Answer 15

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

Question 16

Strong verbs
- 4 (basic) verb forms

Answer 16

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 17

Strong verbs
- classes

Answer 17

Question 18

1. Is old English a synthetic or an analytical language?

Answer 18

• synthetic language

Question 19

2. Is pone dolan cyning an example for a weak or a strong adjective declension?

Answer 19

weak declension
- needs an article, here pone

Question 20

3. Which two groups of Old English verbs are differentiated when considering the formation of the past tense?

Answer 20

• strong verbs (vowel gradation)
• weak verbs (adding a dental suffix, -ed or -t)

Question 21

4. Does Modern English have strong and weak verbs?

Answer 21

No, but there are regular and irregular verbs. There are less irregular than regular verbs.

Question 22

5. Give the order of the clause elements in Modern English. How could they be ordered in OE?

Answer 22

In Modern English
1. S-V-O
= Analytic Language

In Old English
1. Adverbial-Verb-Subject
2. S-V-A
3. S-O-V
4. V-S-V
= Synthetic language