An Introduction to Old English Edinburgh University Press

cann ‘know’, dearr ‘dare’, mæg
. ‘be able’, mo¯t ‘can, must’, sc.eal ‘must’,
†
earfan
‘need’, wile ‘want’, but note that the last of these is not a preterite-
present verb, although it shares many features with them. Note also that
I have used as the citation form for these verbs the 3rd sing. present
indicative rather than the infinitive. The reason for this is that two of
these verbs, mo¯t and sc
.
eal, do not appear to have had infinitive forms. The
others did, but where they did, the infinitive has been lost whenever
the verb is modal in present-day English. The absence of an infinitive is,
therefore, one of the incipient developments of the modal category.
Similarly, all these verbs, with the exception of wile, are without present
and past participle forms, and here too the comparison with present-day
English is instructive.
I give below, in a slightly summarised form, the paradigms of these
verbs, from which it will be clear that there they are all somewhat
irregular in comparison with most of the other verbs we have encoun-
tered. In these summaries I give only present tense singular and plural
and the past tense 1 sing., since the other forms are easily derivable from
those paradigms:
cann
dearr
mæg
.
mo¯t
1 Sing.
cann
dearr
mæg
.
mo¯t
2 Sing.
canst
dearst
meaht
mo¯st
3 Sing.
cann
dearr
mæg
.
mo¯t
Plural
cunnon
durron
magon
mo¯ton
Subj. Sing.
cunne
durre
mæg
.
e
mo¯te
Past
cu¯
e
e
dorste
meahte
mo¯ste
sc
.
eal
†
earf
wile
1 Sing.
sc
.
eal
t
earf
wille
2 Sing.
sc
.
ealt
t
earft
wilt
3 Sing.
sc
.
eal
t
earf
wile
Plural
sc
.
ulon
t
urfon
willa
e
Subj. Sing.
sc
.
yle
t
urfe
wille
Past
sc
.
eolde
t
orfte
wolde
Clearly there are some unexpected forms there, such as the presence
of i-mutation in the present subjunctive of, say, sc
.
yle, and its absence in
†
urfe, but in fact that is merely virtually free variation and exactly the
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opposite forms can also be found. Note also that many forms of mæg
.,
especially in the past tense, are found with i-mutated variants, e.g. mihte
alongside meahte. The infinitives, where they exist (see above), are as
follows: cunnan, durran, magan,
†
urfan, willan.
There still remains to discuss the few preterite-presents which do not
have any modal values. Perhaps the most frequent of these, although,
as a whole, most of the group are relatively frequent, is witan ‘know’ with
3rd singular wa¯t. The basics of its paradigm are as follows:
1 Sing.
wa¯t
2 Sing.
wa¯st
3 Sing.
wa¯t
Plural
witon
Subj. Sing.
wite
Past
wita
e
Unlike most of the modals it has both a present and a past participle,
namely witende and g
.
ewiten. The other preterite-presents have paradigms
similar to parallel modals. Hence unnan ‘grant’ is like cunnan; like 
†
urfan
is g
.
emunan ‘remember’; a¯gan ‘own’, which might be included as a semi-
modal, compare present-day English ought, and dugan ‘avail’ are parallel
to mo¯t.
Exercises
The exercises in this chapter do not contain any text to translate, but
instead I give two different exercises. The first of these is designed to
help you to become familiar with strong verbs, since these undoubtedly
form the most complex area of Old English morphology.
1. For each of the following verbs identify the strong verb class to which
they belong and give their four principal parts: helpan ‘help’; brecan
‘break’; bre¯otan ‘break’; lu¯can ‘lock’; lı¯
´
an ‘travel’, weor
´
an ‘become’;
sle¯an ‘slay’.
This chapter both marks the conclusion of detailed discussion of
morphology, for in Chapter 6 I shall turn the discussion towards syntax,
and it also marks the half-way point in the book. It is, therefore, a useful
time to review the progress made so far. The following exercises are
intended as one or two paragraph essays on the topics covered so far.
2. What are the principal features of Old English which distinguish it
from that used today?
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3. How many noun declensions were there in Old English? How many
of these still exist, even if only minimally?
4. What are the principal differences between the different weak verb
conjugations?
5. Examine in detail the variations possible within strong classes I–III.
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6
Noun phrases and
verb phrases
6.1 The elements of syntax
If you were to review some of the sample passages of Old English which
I have presented in most of the exercises at the end of each chapter, it
would, I think, become clear that Old English syntax presents a mixture
of the old and the new. That is to say, although quite often the syntax of
Old English sentences bears a close relationship to what is found today,
there is also a good deal which is wholly unfamiliar. This, of course, is
only to be expected, given that the two stages of the language are a thou-
sand years or more apart. In what follows I attempt to concentrate on the
‘old’ rather than the ‘new’, but I hope that this can be done without losing
sight of the latter.
Inevitably, given their concentration on morphology, the earlier
chapters brought to the fore a number of issues which are substantially
concerned with syntax. Examples of these include cases, adjective
declension, and tense and mood. It therefore makes sense to start this