Old English Syntax

The syntactic structure of a language is interrelated 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 to other words. It depends but little on its position in the sentence, and it may do without special function words. Thus, in the OE sentence Ohthere sǣde his hlāford e … the ending – e of hlāford e showed that the noun was in the dative case and that it fulfilled the function of indirect object. With the loss of inflections, the dependence on the word order grows. Much of difference between the OE and modern syntax is of that nature. In the ModE translation «Ohthere said to his lord…» the relations formerly expressed by the dative case ending are now denoted with the help of the preposition to.

The syntax of the sentence in OE was relatively simple and reflected mostly a spoken language.

The order of words in a sentence was comparatively free as contrasted with the rigid word order of ModE. It often depended on logical and stylistic factors rather than grammatical constraints.

The most widely used patterns of word order in declarative sentences were the following:

(1) Direct word order: the subject preceded the predicate, as in modern English, e.g.

Ōhthere sǣde his hlāforde… Ohthere said to his lord…

(2) Inverted word order: the predicate preceded the subject, as in modern Russian. Such word order took place when the sentence began with an adverbial modifier or object, e.g.

Þā fōr hē norþryhte… - then he travelled Northward

Fela spella him sǣdon þā Beormas … – The permians told him many stories …

(3) The so-called synthetic word order or the «the framing structure» (subject…predicate) mostly found in subordinate clauses, as in modern German. The subject came at the beginning of the clause, the predicate – at its end, all the secondary parts enclosed between them, e.g.

Ōhthere sǣde his hlāforde, Ælfrēde cyninʒe, þæt hē; ealra Norðmonna norþmest būde. – Ohthere said to his lord, King Alfred, that he had lived farther North than all Northmen.

In interrogative sentences the predicate preceded the subject, e.g.

hwæt sceal ic sinʒan? – What shall I sing?

The subject of a sentence or clause was frequently unexpressed in OE as the form of the predicate and the context showed the doer of the action, e.g.

Þā com hē…tō þæm tūn-ʒerefan…; sæʒde him, hwylce ʒife hē onfēnʒ - then he came to the town-sheriff, (he) said to him what gift he had received.

There were some types of impersonal sentences alien to ModE but close to the Russian мне хочется, меня знобит, e.g.

Him þūhte - it seemed to him (cf.methinks)

In OE a multiple negation was perfectly normal. The most common negative particle was ne placed before the verb. It was often accompanied by the negative words, mostly nāht or nōht (>not) or nā / nō (never), e.g. hit nā; būton ʒewinne næs (næs = ne wæs) - it was never without war.

Nān ne dorste nān þinʒ āscian – nobody dared ask anything (none)

Ne con īc nōht sinʒan – I cannot sing anything.

In verb word combinations grammatical government was of much greater importance in OE than in ModE. Some verbs required a dependant noun in the genitive case, others - in the dative (an indirect object), e.g.

bīdan windes (wait for the wind); hys mēder (to his mother).

Transitive verbs required a dependant noun in the accusative case (a direct object), e.g.

ēoð wyrcan (compose songs), andsware onfōn (receive an answer).

An object either followed or preceded the verb.

The comparative freedom of word order in OE is evident not only in the predicative word combinations but in attributive combinations of words too. It is by no means rare to find modifiers following their nouns instead of preceding them, especially in direct address, e.g.

wine mīn – my friend, Bēowulf lēofa – dear Beowulf.

A genitive attribute usually preceded the noun it modified but sometimes it followed it, e.g.

Norþmanna land – the Northmen’s land, sunu Beanstanes – Beanstan’s son.

Noun modifiers agreed with their head noun in gender, number and case, e.g. on þǣ m ōþru m þrī m daʒ um (dative, pl, masculine) in those three days

Prepositions (which usually preceded the nouns or pronouns they governed) often followed them, sometimes at a considerable distance, e.g.

þā stōd him sum man æt – then some man stood near him.

The OE interrogative pronouns hwæt (what), hwilc (which), hwa (who) etc. were not used as relative pronouns. Relative clauses were usually introduced by the invariable þe alone or with a demonstrative pronoun, e.g.

þā com hē…to þæm tūn-ʒerefan sē þe his ealdorman wæs – then he came to the town sheriff the one that was his alderman.

OE complex sentences often involved correlation. There were many sets of correlative elements among the commonest were þā… þā, þonne…þonne, swā… swā, e.g.

þā; hē ðā þās andsware onfēnʒ, þā; onʒan hē sōna sinʒan… – when he received this answer, (then) he soon began to sing,

þonne hē ʒeseah þā hearpan him nēalecan, þonne ārās hē for scome from þǣm symble...– when he saw the harp approach him, he rose for shame from the feast;

swā; feor swā; hē meahte -as far as he could.

The subjunctive mood was an additional means of indicating subordination in OE complex sentences. It was typical of clauses of condition, concession, cause, result, purpose, indirect questions. It was by no means rare in independent sentences or principal clauses, e.g.

Him wǣre betere þǣt hē nǣfre ʒeboren wǣre – It would have been better for him if he had never been born; þēah man swā nē wēne – although people do not think so; hē wolde…fandian hū lonʒe þæt land norþryhte lǣʒe – he wanted to find out how far that land stretched to the North.