Old English Syntax
The syntactic structure of a language is usually closely connected with its morphology. In a highly inflected language a word mostly carries with it indications of its class, of its function in the sentence, of its relations with other words. With the loss of inflections the dependence of the word grows. Much of the difference vetween the OE and the MnE syntax is of that nature. 1. The order of words in a sentence was comparatively free in OE as contrasted with the rigid WO of MnE. 2. In OE the inflections played a much greater role in the indication of syntactical relations between words in a sentence or group than in MnE. Thus, in the OE sentence Ohthere saede his … the ending –e of hlaforde showed that the noun was in the dative case and that it fulfilled the function of the inderect object. In the MnE translation “Ohthere said to his lord” the relations formely expressed by the dative case ending are indicated with the help of the preposition to. 3. The subject of a sentence or clause was frequentely unexpressed in OE. E.g. Bugon to bence = (They) bent to the bench. 4. In OE there were some types of ‘impersonal’ sentences not found in MnE, but close to the Russian мне хочется, меня знобит. 5. In OE multiple negation was perfectly normal. E.g. He ne mihte nan ping geseon ~ He could see nothing.
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