The history of the English language falls naturally into three periods; but these periods blend into one another so gradually that too much significance must not be attached to the exact dates which scholars, chiefly for convenience of treatment, have assigned as their limits. Our language, it is true, has undergone many and great changes; but its continuity has never been broken, and its individuality has never been lost.

The first of these periods is that of Old English, or Anglo-Saxon,1 commonly known as the period of full 2 inflections. E.g. stān-as, stones; car-u, care; will-a, will; bind-an, to bind; help-að (= ath), they help.

It extends from the arrival of the English in Great Britain to about one hundred years after the Norman Conquest,—from A.D. 449 to 1150; but there are no literary remains of the earlier centuries of this period. There were four2 distinct dialects spoken at this time. These were the Northumbrian, spoken north of the river Humber; the Mercian, spoken in the midland region between the Humber and the Thames; the West Saxon, spoken south and west of the Thames; and the Kentish, spoken in the neighborhood of Canterbury. Of these dialects, Modern English is most nearly akin to the Mercian; but the best known of them is the West Saxon. It was in the West Saxon dialect that King Alfred (849-901) wrote and spoke. His writings belong to the period of Early West Saxon as distinguished from the period of Late West Saxon, the latter being best represented in the writings of Abbot Ælfric (955?-1025?).

The second period is that of Middle English, or the period of leveled inflections, the dominant vowel of the inflections being e. E.g. ston-es, car-e, will-e, bind-en (or bind-e), help-eth, each being, as in the earlier period, a dissyllable.

The Middle English period extends from A.D. 1150 to 1500. Its greatest representatives are Chaucer (1340-1400) in poetry and Wiclif (1324-1384) in prose. There were three prominent dialects during this period: the Northern, corresponding to the older Northumbrian; the Midland 3 (divided into East Midland and West Midland), corresponding to the Mercian; and the Southern, corresponding to the West Saxon and Kentish. London, situated in East Midland territory, had become the dominant speech center; and it was this East Midland dialect that both Chaucer and Wiclif employed.

Note.—It is a great mistake to think that Chaucer shaped our language from crude materials. His influence was conservative, not plastic. The popularity of his works tended to crystalize and thus to perpetuate the forms of the East Midland dialect, but that dialect was ready to his hand before he began to write. The speech of London was, in Chaucer’s time, a mixture of Southern and Midland forms, but the Southern forms (survivals of the West Saxon dialect) had already begun to fall away; and this they continued to do, so that “Chaucer’s language,” as Dr. Murray says, “is more Southern than standard English eventually became.” See also Morsbach, Ueber den Ursprung der neuenglischen Schriftsprache (1888).

The last period is that of Modern English, or the period of lost inflections. E.g. stones, care, will, bind, help, each being a monosyllable. Modern English extends from A.D. 1500 to the present time. It has witnessed comparatively few grammatical changes, but the vocabulary of our language has been vastly increased by additions from the classical languages. Vowels, too, have shifted their values.

It is the object of this book to give an elementary knowledge of Early West Saxon, that is, the language of King Alfred. With this knowledge, it will not be difficult for the student to read Late West Saxon, or any other dialect of the Old English period. Such knowledge will also serve as the best introduction to the structure both of Middle English and of Modern English, besides laying a secure foundation for the scientific study of any other Germanic tongue.

Note.—The Germanic, or Teutonic, languages constitute a branch of the great Aryan, or Indo-Germanic (known also as the Indo-European) group. They are subdivided as follows:

The long vowels and diphthongs will in this book be designated by the macron (–). Vowel length should in every case be associated by the student with each word learned: quantity alone sometimes distinguishes words meaning wholly different things: fōr, he went, for, for; gōd, good, God, God; mān, crime, man, man.

Long vowels and diphthongs:

The diphthongs, long and short, have the stress upon the first vowel. The second vowel is obscured, and represents approximately the sound of er in sooner, faster (= soon-uh, fast-uh). The long diphthongs (ǣ is not a diphthong proper) are ēo, īe, and ēa. The sound of ēo is approximately reproduced in mayor (= mā-uh); that of īe in the dissyllabic pronunciation of fear (= fē-uh). But ēa = ǣ-uh. This diphthong is hardly to be distinguished from ea in pear, bear, etc., as pronounced in the southern section of the United States (= bæ-uh, pæ-uh).

The short sounds are nothing more than the long vowels and diphthongs shortened; but the student must at once rid himself of the idea that Modern English red, for example, is the shortened form of reed, or that mat is the shortened form of mate. Pronounce these long sounds with increasing rapidity, and reed will approach rid, while mate will approach met. The Old English short vowel sounds are:

Note.—The symbol ę is known as umlaut-e (§ 58). It stands for Germanic a, while e (without the cedilla) represents Germanic e. The symbol ǫ is employed only before m and n. It, too, represents Germanic a. But Alfred writes manig or monig, many; lamb or lomb, lamb; hand or hond, hand, etc. The cedilla is an etymological sign added by modern grammarians.

The letters ę and ǫ were printed as shown in this e-text. The diacritic is not a cedilla (open to the left) but an ogonek (open to the right).

There is little difference between the values of Old English consonants and those of Modern English. The following distinctions, however, require notice:

The digraph th is represented in Old English texts by ð and þ, no consistent distinction being made between them. In the works of Alfred, ð (capital, Ð) is the more common: ðās, those; ðæt, that; bindeð, he binds.

The consonant c had the hard sound of k, the latter symbol being rare in West Saxon: cyning, king; cwēn, queen; cūð, known. When followed by a palatal vowel sound,—e, i, æ, ea, eo, long or short,—a vanishing y sound was doubtless interposed (cf. dialectic k^yind for kind). In Modern English the combination has passed into ch: cealc, chalk; cīdan, to chide; lǣce, leech; cild, child; cēowan, to chew. This change (c > ch) is known as Palatalization. The letter g, pronounced as in Modern English gun, has also a palatal value before the palatal vowels (cf. dialectic g^yirl for girl).

The combination cg, which frequently stands for gg, had probably the sound of dge in Modern English edge: ęcg, edge; sęcgan, to say; brycg, bridge. 7 Initial h is sounded as in Modern English: habban, to have; hālga, saint. When closing a syllable it has the sound of German ch: slōh, he slew; hēah, high; ðurh, through.

An important distinction is that between voiced (or sonant) and voiceless (or surd) consonants.2 In Old English they are as follows:

It is evident, therefore, that ð (þ), f, and s have double values in Old English. If voiced, they are equivalent to th (in though), v, and z. Otherwise, they are pronounced as th (in thin), f (in fin), and s (in sin). The syllabic environment will usually compel the student to give these letters their proper values. When occurring between vowels, they are always voiced: ōðer, other; ofer, over; rīsan, to rise.

Note.—The general rule in Old English, as in Modern English, is, that voiced consonants have a special affinity for other voiced consonants, and voiceless for voiceless. This is the law of Assimilation. Thus when de is added to form the preterit of a verb whose stem 8 ends in a voiceless consonant, the d is unvoiced, or assimilated, to t: sęttan, to set, sętte (but tręddan, to tread, has trędde); slǣpan, to sleep, slǣpte; dręncan, to drench, dręncte; cyssan, to kiss, cyste. See § 126, Note 1.

A syllable is usually a vowel, either alone or in combination with consonants, uttered with a single impulse of stress; but certain consonants may form syllables: oven (= ov-n), battle (= bæt-l); (cf. also the vulgar pronunciation of elm).

A syllable may be (1) weak or strong, (2) open or closed, (3) long or short.

(1) A weak syllable receives a light stress. Its vowel sound is often different from that of the corresponding strong, or stressed, syllable. Cf. weak and strong my in “I want my lárge hat” and “I want mý hat.”

(2) An open syllable ends in a vowel or diphthong: dē-man, to deem; ðū, thou; sca-can, to shake; dæ-ges, by day. A closed syllable ends in one or more consonants: ðing, thing; gōd, good; glæd, glad.

(3) A syllable is long (a) if it contains a long vowel or a long diphthong: drī-fan, to drive; lū-can, to lock; slǣ-pan, to sleep; cēo-san, to choose; (b) if its vowel or diphthong is followed by more than one consonant:3 cræft, strength; heard, hard; lib-ban, to live; feal-lan, 9 to fall. Otherwise, the syllable is short: ðe, which; be-ran, to bear; ðæt, that; gie-fan, to give.

Note 1.—A single consonant belongs to the following syllable: hā-lig, holy (not hāl-ig); wrī-tan, to write; fæ-der, father.

Note 2.—The student will notice that the syllable may be long and the vowel short; but the vowel cannot be long and the syllable short.

Note 3.—Old English short vowels, occurring in open syllables, have regularly become long in Modern English: we-fan, to weave; e-tan, to eat; ma-cian, to make; na-cod, naked; a-can, to ache; o-fer, over. And Old English long vowels, preceding two or more consonants, have generally been shortened: brēost, breast; hǣlð, health; slǣpte, slept; lǣdde, led.

The accent in Old English falls usually on the radical syllable, never on the inflectional ending: bríngan, to bring; stā́nas, stones; bérende, bearing; ī́delnes, idleness; frḗondscipe, friendship.

But in the case of compound nouns, adjectives, and adverbs the first member of the compound (unless it be ge- or be-) receives the stronger stress: héofon-rīce, heaven-kingdom; ǫ́nd-giet, intelligence; sṓð-fæst, truthful; gód-cund, divine; éall-unga, entirely; blī́ðe-līce, blithely. But be-hā́t, promise; ge-béd, prayer; ge-fḗalīc, joyous; be-sǫ́ne, immediately.

Compound verbs, however, have the stress on the radical syllable: for-gíefan, to forgive; of-línnan, to cease; ā-cnā́wan, to know; wið-stǫ́ndan, to withstand; on-sácan, to resist.

Note.—The tendency of nouns to take the stress on the prefix, while verbs retain it on the root, is exemplified in many Modern English words: préference, prefér; cóntract (noun), contráct (verb); ábstinence, abstaín; pérfume (noun), perfúme (verb).

There are five cases in Old English: the nominative, the genitive, the dative, the accusative, and the instrumental.1 Each of them, except the nominative, may be governed by prepositions. When used without prepositions, they have, in general, the following functions:

(a) The nominative, as in Modern English, is the case of the subject of a finite verb.

(b) The genitive (the possessive case of Modern English) is the case of the possessor or source. It may be called the of case.

(c) The dative is the case of the indirect object. It may be called the to or for case.

(d) The accusative (the objective case of Modern English) is the case of the direct object.

(e) The instrumental, which rarely differs from the dative in form, is the case of the means or the method. It may be called the with or by case.

The following paradigm of mūð, the mouth, illustrates the several cases (the article being, for the present, gratuitously added in the Modern English equivalents):

The gender of Old English nouns, unlike that of Modern English, depends partly on meaning and partly on form, or ending. Thus mūð, mouth, is masculine; tunge, tongue, feminine; ēage, eye, neuter.

No very comprehensive rules, therefore, can be given; but the gender of every noun should be learned with its meaning. Gender will be indicated in the vocabularies by the different gender forms of the definite article, sē for the masculine, sēo for the feminine, and ðæt for the neuter: sē mūð, sēo tunge, ðæt ēage = the mouth, the tongue, the eye.

All nouns ending in -dōm, -hād, -scipe, or -ere are masculine (cf. Modern English wisdom, childhood, friendship, worker). Masculine, also, are nouns ending in -a.

Those ending in -nes or -ung are feminine (cf. Modern 12 English goodness, and gerundial forms in -ing: seeing is believing).

Thus sē wīsdōm, wisdom; sē cildhād, childhood; sē frēondscipe, friendship; sē fiscere, fisher(man); sē hunta, hunter; sēo gelīcnes, likeness; sēo leornung, learning.

There are two great systems of declension in Old English, the Vowel Declension and the Consonant Declension. A noun is said to belong to the Vowel Declension when the final letter of its stem is a vowel, this vowel being then known as the stem-characteristic; but if the stem-characteristic is a consonant, the noun belongs to the Consonant Declension. There might have been, therefore, as many subdivisions of the Vowel Declension in Old English as there were vowels, and as many subdivisions of the Consonant Declension as there were consonants. All Old English nouns, however, belonging to the Vowel Declension, ended their stems originally in a, ō, i, or u. Hence there are but four subdivisions of the Vowel Declension: a-stems, ō-stems, i-stems, and u-stems.

The Vowel Declension is commonly called the Strong Declension, and its nouns Strong Nouns.

Note.—The terms Strong and Weak were first used by Jacob Grimm (1785-1863) in the terminology of verbs, and thence transferred to nouns and adjectives. By a Strong Verb, Grimm meant one that could form its preterit out of its own resources; that is, without calling in the aid of an additional syllable: Modern English run, ran; find, found; but verbs of the Weak Conjugation had to borrow, as it were, an inflectional syllable: gain, gained; help, helped.

The stems of nouns belonging to the Consonant Declension ended, with but few exceptions, in the letter n (cf. Latin homin-em, ration-em, Greek ποιμέν-α). They are called, therefore, n-stems, the Declension itself being known as the n-Declension, or the Weak Declension. The nouns, also, are called Weak Nouns.

If every Old English noun had preserved the original Germanic stem-characteristic (or final letter of the stem), there would be no difficulty in deciding at once whether any given noun is an a-stem, ō-stem, i-stem, u-stem, or n-stem; but these final letters had, for the most part, either been dropped, or fused with the case-endings, long before the period of historic Old English. It is only, therefore, by a rigid comparison of the Germanic languages with one another, and with the other Aryan languages, that scholars are able to reconstruct a single Germanic language, in which the original stem-characteristics may be seen far better than in any one historic branch of the Germanic group (§ 5, Note).

This hypothetical language, which bears the same ancestral relation to the historic Germanic dialects that Latin bears to the Romance tongues, is known simply as Germanic (Gmc.), or as Primitive Germanic. Ability to reconstruct Germanic forms is not expected of the students of this book, but the following table should be examined as illustrating the basis of distinction among the several Old English declensions (O.E. = Old English, Mn.E. = Modern English):

Note.—“It will be seen that if Old English ēage, eye, is said to be an n-stem, what is meant is this, that at some former period the kernel of the word ended in -n, while, as far as the Old English language proper is concerned, all that is implied is that the word is inflected in a certain manner.” (Jespersen, Progress in Language, § 109).

This is true of all Old English stems, whether Vowel or Consonant. The division, therefore, into a-stems, ō-stems, etc., is made in the interests of grammar as well as of philology.

There are, likewise, two systems of conjugation in Old English: the Strong or Old Conjugation, and the Weak or New Conjugation.

The verbs of the Strong Conjugation (the so-called Irregular Verbs of Modern English) number about three hundred, of which not one hundred remain in Modern English (§ 101, Note). They form their preterit and frequently their past participle by changing the radical vowel of the present stem. This vowel change or modification is called ablaut (pronounced áhp-lowt): Modern English sing, sang, sung; rise, rose, risen. As the radical vowel of the preterit plural is often different from that of the preterit singular, there are four principal parts or tense stems in an Old English strong verb, instead of the three of Modern English. The four principal parts in the conjugation of a strong verb are (1) the present indicative, (2) the preterit indicative singular, (3) the preterit indicative plural, and (4) the past participle.

Strong verbs fall into seven groups, illustrated in the following table:

The verbs of the Weak Conjugation (the so-called Regular Verbs of Modern English) form their preterit 17 and past participle by adding to the present stem a suffix6 with d or t: Modern English love, loved; sleep, slept.

The stem of the preterit plural is never different from the stem of the preterit singular; hence these verbs have only three distinctive tense-stems, or principal parts: viz., (1) the present indicative, (2) the preterit indicative, and (3) the past participle.

Weak verbs fall into three groups, illustrated in the following table:

There remain a few verbs (chiefly the Auxiliary Verbs of Modern English) that do not belong entirely to either of the two conjugations mentioned. The most important of them are, Ic mæg I may, Ic mihte I might; Ic cǫn I can, Ic cūðe I could; Ic mōt I must, Ic mōste I 18 must; Ic sceal I shall, Ic sceolde I should; Ic eom I am, Ic wæs I was; Ic wille I will, Ic wolde I would; Ic dō I do, Ic dyde I did; Ic gā I go, Ic ēode I went.

All but the last four of these are known as Preterit-Present Verbs. The present tense of each of them is in origin a preterit, in function a present. Cf. Modern English ought (= owed).

The order of words in Old English is more like that of Modern German than of Modern English. Yet it is only the Transposed order that the student will feel to be at all un-English; and the Transposed order, even before the period of the Norman Conquest, was fast yielding place to the Normal order.

The three divisions of order are (1) Normal, (2) Inverted, and (3) Transposed.

(1) Normal order = subject + predicate. In Old English, the Normal order is found chiefly in independent clauses. The predicate is followed by its modifiers: Sē hwæl bið micle lǣssa þonne ōðre hwalas, That whale is much smaller than other whales; Ǫnd hē geseah twā scipu, And he saw two ships.

(2) Inverted order = predicate + subject. This order occurs also in independent clauses, and is employed (a) when some modifier of the predicate precedes the predicate, the subject being thrown behind. The 19 words most frequently causing Inversion in Old English prose are þā then, þonne then, and þǣr there: Ðā fōr hē, Then went he; Ðonne ærnað hȳ ealle tōweard þǣm fēo, Then gallop they all toward the property; ac þǣr bið medo genōh, but there is mead enough.

Inversion is employed (b) in interrogative sentences: Lufast ðū mē? Lovest thou me? and (c) in imperative sentences: Cume ðīn rīce, Thy kingdom come.

(3) Transposed order = subject ... predicate. That is, the predicate comes last in the sentence, being preceded by its modifiers. This is the order observed in dependent clauses:1 Ðonne cymeð sē man sē þæt swiftoste hors hafað, Then comes the man that has the swiftest horse (literally, that the swiftest horse has); Ne mētte hē ǣr nān gebūn land, siþþan hē frǫm his āgnum hām fōr, Nor did he before find any cultivated land, after he went from his own home (literally, after he from his own home went).

Two other peculiarities in the order of words require a brief notice.

(1) Pronominal datives and accusatives usually precede the predicate: Hē hine oferwann, He overcame him (literally, He him overcame); Dryhten him andwyrde, The Lord answered him. But substantival datives and accusatives, as in Modern English, follow the predicate. 20 The following sentence illustrates both orders: Hȳ genāmon Ioseph, ǫnd hine gesealdon cīpemǫnnum, ǫnd hȳ hine gesealdon in Ēgypta lǫnd, They took Joseph, and sold him to merchants, and they sold him into Egypt (literally, They took Joseph, and him sold to merchants, and they him sold into Egyptians’ land).

Note.—The same order prevails in the case of pronominal nominatives used as predicate nouns: Ic hit eom, It is I (literally, I it am); Ðū hit eart, It is thou (literally, Thou it art).

(2) The attributive genitive, whatever relationship it expresses, usually precedes the noun which it qualifies: Breoton is gārsecges īgland, Britain is an island of the ocean (literally, ocean’s island); Swilce hit is ēac berende on węcga ōrum, Likewise it is also rich in ores of metals (literally, metals’ ores); Cyninga cyning, King of kings (literally, Kings’ king); Gē witon Godes rīces gerȳne, Ye know the mystery of the kingdom of God (literally, Ye know God’s kingdom’s mystery).

A preposition governing the word modified by the genitive, precedes the genitive:2 On ealdra manna sægenum, In old men’s sayings; Æt ðǣra strǣta ęndum, At the ends of the streets (literally, At the streets’ ends); For ealra ðīnra hālgena lufan, For all thy saints’ love. See, also, § 94, (5).

In the study of Old English, the student must remember that he is dealing not with a foreign or isolated language but with the earlier forms of his own mother tongue. The study will prove profitable and stimulating in proportion as close and constant comparison is made of the old with the new. The guiding principles in such a comparison are reducible chiefly to two. These are (1) the regular operation of phonetic laws, resulting especially in certain Vowel Shiftings, and (2) the alterations in form and syntax that are produced by Analogy.

(1) “The former of these is of physiological or natural origin, and is perfectly and inflexibly regular throughout the same period of the same language; and even though different languages show different phonetic habits and predilections, there is a strong general resemblance between the changes induced in one language and in another; many of the particular laws are true for many languages.

(2) “The other principle is psychical, or mental, or artificial, introducing various more or less capricious changes that are supposed to be emendations; and its operation is, to some extent, uncertain and fitful.”1

It will prove an aid to the student in acquiring the inflections and vocabulary of Old English to note carefully the following shiftings that have taken place in the gradual growth of the Old English vowel system into that of Modern English.

(1) As stated in § 3, the Old English inflectional vowels, which were all short and unaccented, weakened in early Middle English to e. This e in Modern English is frequently dropped:

(2) The Old English long vowels have shifted their phonetic values with such uniform regularity that it is possible in almost every case to infer the Modern English sound; but our spelling is so chaotic that while the student may infer the modern sound, he cannot always infer the modern symbol representing the sound.

But more important than vowel shifting is the great law of Analogy, for Analogy shapes not only words but constructions. It belongs, therefore, to 24 Etymology and to Syntax, since it influences both form and function. By this law, minorities tend to pass over to the side of the majorities. “The greater mass of cases exerts an assimilative influence upon the smaller.”3 The effect of Analogy is to simplify and to regularize. “The main factor in getting rid of irregularities is group-influence, or Analogy—the influence exercised by the members of an association-group on one another.... Irregularity consists in partial isolation from an association-group through some formal difference.”4

Under the influence of Analogy, entire declensions and conjugations have been swept away, leaving in Modern English not a trace of their former existence. There are in Old English, for example, five plural endings for nouns, -as, -a, -e, -u, and -an. No one could well have predicted5 that -as (Middle English -es) would soon take the lead, and become the norm to which the other endings would eventually conform, for there were more an-plurals than as-plurals; but the as-plurals were doubtless more often employed in everyday speech. Oxen (Old English oxan) is the sole pure survival of the hundreds of Old English an-plurals. 25 No group of feminine nouns in Old English had -es as the genitive singular ending; but by the close of the Middle English period all feminines formed their genitive singular in -es (or -s, Modern English ’s) after the analogy of the Old English masculine and neuter nouns with es-genitives. The weak preterits in -ode have all been leveled under the ed-forms, and of the three hundred strong verbs in Old English more than two hundred have become weak.

These are not cases of derivation (as are the shifted vowels): Modern English -s in sons, for example, could not possibly be derived from Old English -a in suna, or Middle English -e in sune (§ 23, (1)). They are cases of replacement by Analogy.

A few minor examples will quicken the student’s appreciation of the nature of the influence exercised by Analogy:

(a) The intrusive l in could (Chaucer always wrote coud or coude) is due to association with would and should, in each of which l belongs by etymological right.

(b) He need not (for He needs not) is due to the assimilative influence of the auxiliaries may, can, etc., which have never added -s for their third person singular (§ 137).

(c) I am friends with him, in which friends is a crystalized form for on good terms, may be traced to the influence of such expressions as He and I are friends, They are friends, etc.

(d) Such errors as are seen in runned, seed, gooses, badder, hisself, says I (usually coupled with says he) 26 are all analogical formations. Though not sanctioned by good usage, it is hardly right to call these forms the products of “false analogy.” The grammar involved is false, because unsupported by literary usages and traditions; but the analogy on which these forms are built is no more false than the law of gravitation is false when it makes a dress sit unconventionally.

[O.E., M.E., and Mn.E. will henceforth be used for Old English, Middle English, and Modern English. Other abbreviations employed are self-explaining.]

The a-Declension, corresponding to the Second or o-Declension of Latin and Greek, contains only (a) masculine and (b) neuter nouns. To this declension belong most of the O.E. masculine and neuter nouns of the Strong Declension. At a very early period, many of the nouns belonging properly to the i- and u-Declensions began to pass over to the a-Declension. This declension may therefore be considered the normal declension for all masculine and neuter nouns belonging to the Strong Declension.

Paradigms of sē mūð, mouth; sē fiscere, fisherman; sē hwæl, whale; sē mearh, horse; sē finger, finger:

Note.—For meanings of the cases, see § 12. The dative and instrumental are alike in all nouns.

The student will observe (1) that nouns whose nominative ends in -e (fiscere) drop this letter before adding the case endings; (2) that æ before a consonant (hwæl) changes to a in the plural;1 (3) that h, preceded by r (mearh) or l (seolh, seal), is dropped before an inflectional vowel, the stem diphthong being then lengthened by way of compensation; (4) that dissyllables (finger) having the first syllable long, usually syncopate the vowel of the second syllable before adding the case endings.2

Paradigm of the Definite Article3 sē, sēo, ðæt = the:

Vocabulary.4

Exercises.

I. 1. Ðāra wulfa mūðas. 2. Ðæs fisceres fingras. 3. Ðāra Wēala cyninge. 4. Ðǣm ęnglum ǫnd ðǣm hierdum. 5. Ðāra 30 daga ęnde. 6. Ðǣm bōcerum ǫnd ðǣm sęcgum ðæs cyninges. 7. Ðǣm sēole ǫnd ðǣm fuglum. 8. Ðā stānas ǫnd ðā gāras. 9. Hwala ǫnd mēara. 10. Ðāra ęngla wīsdōm. 11. Ðæs cyninges bōceres frēodōm. 12. Ðāra hierda fuglum. 13. Ðȳ stāne. 14. Ðǣm wealle.

II. 1. For the horses and the seals. 2. For the Welshmen’s freedom. 3. Of the king’s birds. 4. By the wisdom of men and angels. 5. With the spear and the stone. 6. The herdsman’s seal and the warriors’ spears. 7. To the king of heaven. 8. By means of the scribe’s wisdom. 9. The whale’s mouth and the foreigner’s spear. 10. For the bird belonging to (= of) the king’s scribe. 11. Of that finger.

The neuter nouns of the a-Declension differ from the masculines only in the N.A. plural.

Paradigms of ðæt hof, court, dwelling; ðaet bearn, child; ðæt bān, bone; ðæt rīce, kingdom; ðæt spere, spear; ðæt werod, band of men; ðæt tungol, star:

The paradigms show (1) that monosyllables with short stems (hof) take -u in the N.A. plural; (2) that 31 monosyllables with long stems (bearn, bān) do not distinguish the N.A. plural from the N.A. singular;1 (3) that dissyllables in -e, whether the stem be long or short (rīce, spere), have -u in the N.A. plural; (4) that dissyllables ending in a consonant and having the first syllable short2 (werod) do not usually distinguish the N.A. plural from the N.A. singular; (5) that dissyllables ending in a consonant and having the first syllable long (tungol) more frequently take -u in the N.A. plural.

Note.—Syncopation occurs as in the masculine a-stems. See § 27, (4).

Present and Preterit Indicative of habban, to have:

Note.—The negative ne, not, which always precedes its verb, contracts with all the forms of habban. The negative loses its e, habban its h. Ne + habban = nabban; Ic ne hæbbe = Ic næbbe; Ic ne hæfde = Ic næfde, etc. The negative forms may be got, therefore, by simply substituting in each case n for h.

Vocabulary.

Exercises.

I. 1. Hē hafað ðæs cyninges bearn. 2. Ðā Wēalas habbað ðā speru. 3. Ðā wīf habbað ðāra sęcga wǣpnu. 4. Ðū hæfst ðone fugol ǫnd ðæt hūs ðæs hierdes. 5. Hæfð5 hēo ðā fatu6? 6. Hæfde hē ðæs wīfes līc on ðǣm hofe? 7. Hē næfde ðæs wīfes līc; hē hæfde ðæs dēores hēafod. 8. Hæfð sē cyning gesetu on ðǣm dæle? 9. Sē bōcere hæfð ðā sēolas on ðǣm hūse. 10. Gē habbað frēodōm.

II. 1. They have yokes and spears. 2. We have not the vessels in the house. 3. He had fire in the vessel. 4. Did the woman have (= Had the woman) the children? 5. The animal has the body of the woman’s child. 6. I shall have 33 the heads of the wolves. 7. He and she have the king’s houses. 8. Have not (= Nabbað) the children the warrior’s weapons?

The ō-Declension, corresponding to the First or ā-Declension of Latin and Greek, contains only feminine nouns. Many feminine i-stems and u-stems soon passed over to this Declension. The ō-Declension may, therefore, be considered the normal declension for all strong feminine nouns.

Paradigms of sēo giefu, gift; sēo wund, wound; sēo rōd, cross; sēo leornung, learning; sēo sāwol, soul:

Note (1) that monosyllables with short stems (giefu) take u in the nominative singular; (2) that monosyllables with long stems (wund, rōd) present the unchanged stem in the nominative singular; (3) that dissyllables are declined as monosyllables, except that abstract nouns in -ung prefer a to e in the singular.

Note.—Syncopation occurs as in masculine and neuter a-stems. See § 27, (4).

Present and Preterit Indicative of bēon (wesan) to be:

Note 1.—The forms bēom, bist, etc. are used chiefly as future tenses in O.E. They survive to-day only in dialects and in poetry. Farmer Dobson, for example, in Tennyson’s Promise of May, uses be for all persons of the present indicative, both singular and plural; and there be is frequent in Shakespeare for there are. The Northern dialect employed aron as well as sindon and sind for the present plural; hence Mn.E. are.

Note 2.—Fusion with ne gives neom, neart, nis for the present; næs, nǣre, nǣron for the preterit.

Note 3.—The verb to be is followed by the nominative case, as in Mn.E.; but when the predicate noun is plural, and the subject a neuter pronoun in the singular, the verb agrees in number with the predicate noun. The neuter singular ðæt is frequently employed in this construction: Ðaet wǣron eall Finnas, They were all Fins; Ðæt sind ęnglas, They are angels; Ðǣt wǣron ęngla gāstas, They were angels’ spirits.

Notice, too, that O.E. writers do not say It is I, It is thou, but I it am, Thou it art: Ic hit eom, ðū hit eart. See § 21, (1), Note 1.

Vocabulary.

Exercises.

I. 1. Hwǣr is ðǣre brycge ęnde? 2. Hēr sind ðāra rīca mearca. 3. Hwā hæfð þā glōfa? 4. Ðǣr bið ðǣm cyninge frōfre ðearf. 5. Sēo wund is on ðǣre wylfe hēafde. 6. Wē habbað costnunga. 7. Hīe nǣron on ðǣre healle. 8. Ic hit neom. 9. Ðæt wǣron Wēalas. 10. Ðæt sind ðæs wīfes bearn.

II. 1. We shall have the women’s gloves. 2. Where is the place? 3. He will be in the hall. 4. Those (Ðæt) were not the boundaries of the kingdom. 5. It was not I. 6. Ye are not the king’s scribes. 7. The shepherd’s words are full (full + gen.) of wisdom and comfort. 8. Where are the bodies of the children? 9. The gifts are not here. 10. Who has the seals and the birds?

The i-Declension, corresponding to the group of i-stems in the classical Third Declension, contains chiefly (a) masculine and (b) feminine nouns. The N.A. plural of these nouns ended originally in -e (from older i).

These stems have almost completely gone over to the a-Declension, so that -as is more common than -e as the N.A. plural ending, whether the stem is long or short. The short stems all have -e in the N.A. singular.

Paradigms of sē wyrm, worm; sē wine, friend.

The only i-stems that regularly retain -e of the N.A. plural are certain names of tribes or peoples used only in the plural.

Paradigms of ðā Ęngle, Angles; ðā Norðymbre, Northumbrians; ðā lēode, people:

The short stems (fręm-u) conform entirely to the declension of short ō-stems; long stems (cwēn, wyrt) differ from long ō-stems in having no ending for the A. singular. They show, also, a preference for -e rather than -a in the N.A. plural.

Paradigms of sēo fręm-u, benefit; sēo cwēn, woman, queen [quean]; sēo wyrt, root [wort]:

The u-Declension, corresponding to the group of u-stems in the classical Third Declension, contains no neuters, and but few (a) masculines and (b) feminines. The short-stemmed nouns of both genders (sun-u, dur-u) retain the final u of the N.A. singular, while the long stems (feld, hǫnd) drop it. The influence of the masculine a-stems is most clearly seen in the long-stemmed masculines of the u-Declension (feld, feld-es, etc.).

Note.—Note the general aversion of all O.E. long stems to final -u: cf. N.A. plural hof-u, but bearn, bān; N. singular gief-u, but wund, rōd; N. singular fręm-u, but cwēn, wyrt; N.A. singular sun-u, dur-u, but feld, hǫnd.

Paradigms of sē sun-u, son; sē feld, field:

Paradigms of sēo dur-u, door; sēo hǫnd, hand:

Paradigm of the Third Personal Pronoun, hē, hēo, hit = he, she, it:

Vocabulary.

Note.—The numerous masculine nouns ending in -hād,—cildhād (childhood), wīfhād (womanhood),—belong to the u-stems historically; but they have all passed over to the a-Declension.

Exercises.

I. 1. Ðā Seaxe habbað ðæs dēores hȳd on ðǣm wuda. 2. Hwā hæfð ðā giefa? 3. Ðā Mierce hīe1 habbað. 4. Hwǣr is ðæs Wēales fugol? 5. Ðā Dęne hiene habbað. 6. Hwǣr sindon hiera winas? 7. Hīe sindon on ðæs cyninges wuda. 8. Ðā Rōmware ǫnd ðā Seaxe hæfdon ðā gāras ǫnd ðā geocu. 9. Hēo is on ðǣm hūse on wintra, ǫnd on ðǣm feldum on sumera. 10. Hwǣr is ðæs hofes duru? 11. Hēo2 (= sēo duru) nis hēr.

II. 1. His friends have the bones of the seals and the bodies of the Danes. 2. Art thou the king’s son? 3. Has she her3 gifts in her3 hands? 4. Here are the fields of the natives. 5. Who had the bird? 6. I had it.2 7. The child had the worm in his3 fingers. 8. The Mercians were here during (the) summer (on + dat.).

The unchanged stem of the present indicative may always be found by dropping -an of the infinitive: feall-an, to fall; cēos-an, to choose; bīd-an, to abide.

The personal endings are:

The 2d and 3d singular endings were originally not -est and -eð, but -is and -ið; and the i of these older endings has left its traces upon almost every page of Early West Saxon literature. This i, though unaccented and soon displaced, exerted a powerful back influence upon the vowel of the preceding accented syllable. This influence, a form of regressive assimilation, is known as i-umlaut (pronounced oóm-lowt). The vowel i or j (= y), being itself a palatal, succeeded in palatalizing every guttural vowel that preceded it, and in imposing still more of the i-quality upon diphthongs that were already palatal.1 The changes produced were these:

In the Northumbrian and Mercian dialects, as well as in the dialect of Late West Saxon, the 2d and 3d singular endings were usually joined to the present 41 stem without modification either of the stem itself or of the personal endings. The complete absence of umlauted forms in the present indicative of Mn.E. is thus accounted for.

In Early West Saxon, however, such forms as the following are comparatively rare in the 2d and 3d singular:

The 2d and 3d persons singular are distinguished from the other forms of the present indicative in Early West Saxon by (1) i-umlaut of the vowel of the stem, (2) syncope of the vowel of the ending, giving -st and -ð for -est and -eð, and (3) contraction of -st and -ð with the final consonant or consonants of the stem.

The changes produced by i-umlaut have been already discussed. By these changes, therefore, the stems of the 2d and 3d singular indicative of such verbs as (1) stǫndan (= standan), to stand, (2) cuman, to come, (3) grōwan, to grow, (4) brūcan, to enjoy, (5) blāwan, to blow, (6) feallan, to fall, (7) hēawan, to hew, (8) weorpan, to throw, and (9) cēosan, to choose, 42 become respectively (1) stęnd-,2 (2) cym-, (3) grēw-, (4) brȳc-, (5) blǣw-, (6) fiell-, (7) hīew-, (8) wierp-, and (9) cīes-.

If the unchanged stem contains the vowel e, this is changed in the 2d and 3d singular to i (ie): cweðan to say, stem cwið-; beran to bear, stem bier-. But this mutation3 had taken place long before the period of O.E., and belongs to the Germanic languages in general. It is best, however, to class the change of e to i or ie with the changes due to umlaut, since it occurs consistently in the 2d and 3d singular stems of Early West Saxon, and outlasted almost all of the umlaut forms proper.

If, now, the syncopated endings -st and -ð are added directly to the umlauted stem, there will frequently result such a massing of consonants as almost to defy pronunciation: cwið-st, thou sayest; stęnd-st, thou standest, etc. Some sort of contraction, therefore, is demanded for the sake of euphony. The ear and eye will, by a little practice, become a sure guide in these contractions. The following rules, however, must be observed. They apply only to the 2d and 3d singular of the present indicative:

(1) If the stem ends in a double consonant, one of the consonants is dropped:

(2) If the stem ends in -ð, this is dropped:

(3) If the stem ends in -d, this is changed to -t. The -ð of the ending is then also changed to -t, and usually absorbed. Thus the stem of the 2d singular serves as stem and ending for the 3d singular:

(4) If the stem ends already in -t, the endings are added as in (3), -ð being again changed to -t and absorbed:

(5) If the stem ends in -s, this is dropped before -st (to avoid -sst), but is retained before -ð, the latter being changed to -t. Thus the 2d and 3d singulars are identical:4

Exercises.

I. 1. Sē cyning fielð. 2. Ðā wīf cēosað ðā giefa. 3. Ðū stęntst on ðǣm hūse. 4. Hē wierpð ðæt wǣpen. 5. Sē sęcg hīewð ðā līc. 6. Ðæt sǣd grēwð ǫnd wiexð (Mark iv. 27). 7. Ic stǫnde hēr, ǫnd ðū stęntst ðǣr. 8. “Ic hit eom,” cwið hē. 9. Hīe berað ðæs wulfes bān. 10. Hē hīe bint, ǫnd ic hine binde. 11. Ne rītst ðū?

II. 1. We shall bind him. 2. Who chooses the child’s gifts? 3. “He was not here,” says she. 4. Wilt thou remain in the hall? 5. The wolves are biting (= bite) the fishermen. 6. He enjoys5 the love of his children. 7. Do you enjoy (= Enjoyest thou) the consolation and friendship of the scribe? 8. Will he come? 9. I shall throw the spear, and thou wilt bear the weapons. 10. The king’s son will become king. 11. The army (werod) is breaking the doors and walls of the house.

The n-Declension contains almost all of the O.E. nouns belonging to the Consonant Declensions. The stem characteristic n has been preserved in the oblique 45 cases, so that there is no difficulty in distinguishing n-stems from the preceding vowel stems.

The n-Declension includes (a) masculines, (b) feminines, and (c) neuters. The masculines far outnumber the feminines, and the neuters contain only ēage, eye and ēare, ear. The masculines end in -a, the feminines and neuters in -e.

Paradigms of (a) sē hunta, hunter; (b) sēo tunge, tongue; (c) ðæt ēage, eye:

Vocabulary.