Development of the syntactic system

(OE – ME – NE)

OUTLINE

1. Old English Syntax

2. Middle English Syntax

3. Early New English Syntax

4. Modern English Syntax

 

 

1. OLD ENGLISH SYNTAX

The most significant change between Old and New English is the shift from many to a few endings and the introduction of prepositions. As mentioned, Old English can be described as synthetic, whereas New English is analytic.

Word order

The word order in OE is relatively free. There are a few rules. Usually pronouns occur near the beginning of the sentence:

1) he Ǣlfrede cyninʒe aðas swor and ʒislas sealde.

2) þæt ðec dryhtʒuma deaþ oferswiþeþ.

The verb often occurs at the end, especially in subordinate or embedded sentences. Note that (1) contains two sentences and two verbs (swor and sealde). The verb can also occur in second position, as in (3). This occurs mostly in main clauses:

3) þy ilcan ʒeare for se here ofer sa

and the same year went the army over sea

The way to calculate what is called verb-second is to ignore the initial ‘and’, and not to count actual words but the constituents or phrases. In (3), þ y ilcan ʒeare ‘in the same year’ forms a unit and is therefore counted as one position. Once one takes that into account, the verb for is in second position. Old English is, in this respect, very similar to German and Dutch.

 

Questions

There are two kinds of questions: yes/no and wh-questions. Respective examples are given in (4) with the verb first and in (5) with the verb following the question-word:

4) ʒehyrest þu Eadwacer

hear you Eadwacer – ‘Do you hear, Eadwacer?’

5) hwat ʒehyrest þu

what hear you – ‘What do you hear?’

 

Subject pronouns are somewhat more optional in Old than in New English. Examples are provided in (6) and (7). Examples of left-out subjects continue to appear up to the Early Middle English period:

6) þeah ðe hordwelan heolde lanʒe

though that treasure held long – ‘though he held the treasure long’

7) swylc her r ær beforan sæde

which here previously before said – ‘which he had said here before’

 

Grammatical Subjects

Pleonastic (or dummy or grammatical) subjects, such as there and it, are frequent in New English but do not occur in Old English. There is also a construction that is called impersonal since there need not be a nominative subject. This is shown in (8):

8) Hu lomp eow on lade, leofa Biowulf

how happened you on trip, dear Beowulf – ‘How was your trip, dear Beowulf’?

 

Auxiliary verbs

As you can see from (4) and (5), the auxiliary verb do is not used in questions (or with negation). The auxiliaries be and have occur but are infrequent. (9) provides an example where New English would have an auxiliary have (note also the lack of the preposition of):

9) we... þrym ʒefrunon

we... glory heard – ‘We have heard of the glory’

Past action is indicated through affixes, such as the -on suffix for the past plural, and also through the (aspectual) prefix ʒ e-, as in (9). This ʒ e- prefix still occurs in languages such as Dutch and German, but disappears gradually throughout the Middle English period (going from ʒ e- to i/y to nothing).

 

Ways of Joining Sentenses

Sentences can be connected in a number of ways. Old English often uses no connection or coordination with and. Modern English might use subordination in such sentences instead: ‘when he was killed, she took the throne’.

Adverbs in Old English, as in present-day English, can be used to express the mood of the speaker and are then considered discourse markers. Examples of such discourse markers, also known as mood particles, are provided in (10) and (11):

10) ac hi þah ledað to deðe on ende

but they though lead to death in end – ‘but they lead to death, however, in the end’

11) Swa eac nu mæg ealc mon deofel ofercumen

So also now may every man devil overcome – ‘This way everyone can overcome the devil’

These are often hard to translate into New English since some are replaced by forms such as well, however, and fortunately placed at the beginning or the end of the sentence (and receive ‘comma intonation’).

Negation

Another point about Old English grammar is that the negative adverb often immediately precedes the verb, as in (12), and is sometimes weakened to a prefix. In addition, multiple negatives occur, as in (13), from King Alfred’s Pastoral Care. Note that nan wuht means ‘no creature/thing’ and grammaticalizes to not in later periods:

12) hleoþre ne miþe

sound not conceal – ‘I don’t conceal sound’

13) forþæmþe hie hiora nan wuht onʒietan ne meahton

because they of-them no thing understand not could – ‘because they couldn’t understand anything of them’

General Characteristics of OE Syntax:

– omission of subject pronoun, prepositions, and articles

– relatively free word order (even though the verb and pronoun have more fixed positions)

– limited use of auxiliaries: He ar com ‘He had come before’

– adverbs with -e or -lic endings

– frequent use of coordination

– negation before the verb: Ic ne dyde ‘I did not’; or multiple negative words

 

2. MIDDLE ENGLISH SYNTAX

 

 

Word Order

The word order in Middle English is still relatively free, compared to New English. However, with the grammaticalization of prepositions, demonstratives, and some verbs – which become indicators of case, definiteness, and tense – a stricter order is established. For instance, articles can only occur before nouns and auxiliaries before verbs. Here are a few sentences that are technically from Late Old English, but their syntax really makes them Early Middle English. Both are taken from the Peterborough Chronicle:

1) þis ʒare for þe king Stephne ofer sæ to Normandi

        this year went the king Stephen over sea to Normandy – ‘In this year King Stephen went over the sea to Normandy’

    2) Hi hadden him manred maked and athes sworen

 they had him homage made and oaths sworn – ‘They had done homage to him and sworn oaths’

In (1), the verb for ‘went’ comes after the adverbial þis ʒare and before the subject þ e king Stephne. This means that the finite verb is in second position, as it generally was in Old English; in Modern English that order is reversed and the subject has to precede the verb. In (2), the finite verb hadden occurs in second position, but the objects him, manred ‘homage’, and athes ‘oaths’ precede the non-finite verbs maked and sworen. This OV order combined with having the verb in second position remains possible until Late Middle English.

There are a few other points to note about these sentences. Since (1) and (2) are from Late Old/Early Middle English, there are no articles before sæ (even though there is an ‘extra’ one before king). The third person plural is still hi in (2), rather than they, but the plural ending on the noun athes is already -es, rather than the Old English –as. The past participles in (2) lack the prefix ʒ e-.

The word order in the noun phrase might indicate French influence. French often places the adjective after the noun and marks it for number. This order is shown in (3):

3) in othere places delitables

‘in other delightful places’

Questions

The word order in wh-questions is very similar to that of Old English and differs from Modern English only in that full (finite) verbs can be fronted, as in (4):

4) Who looketh lightly now but palamoun?

 

Yes/no questions are occasionally introduced by whether, reduced to wher in (5), a remnant of Old English. Most of the time, the word order is like New English except that the main verb can be in sentence-initial position, as in (6), rather than just the auxiliary:

5) Wher is nat this the sone of a smyth, or carpenter?

‘Is this not the son of a smith or carpenter?’

6) Wostow nat wel the olde clerkes sawe

‘Know-you nat well the old scholar’s saying?’

 

In Early Middle English, subject pronouns are not yet obligatory, as (7) shows:

7) þeos meiden lette lutel of þ he seide. ant smirkinde smeðeliche

‘This maiden thought little of what he said and smiling smoothly’

ʒef him þullich onswere. al ich iseo þine sahen sottliche isette.

‘gave him a smooth answer. I see all your savings are foolishly put out’

cleopest þeo þing godes þe nowder sturien ne mahen

‘Call [you] those things good that neither stir nor have power.’

 

Later, probably a little after 1250, they became obligatory.

Grammatical Subjects

Pleonastic subjects become more common as well, as in (8) from Chaucer. This shows the language is in a more analytic stage. There is grammaticalizing from a locative adverb to a placeholder for the subject:

8) With hym ther was his sone, a yong squire.

In Early Middle English, the pleonastic subject is still optional, however, as in (9). The New English gloss would include the pleonastic ‘there’:

9) An preost wes on leoden; Laʒamon wes ihoten

A priest was among people, Layamon was named – ‘There was a priest around, whose name was Layamon’