Grammar

1. When the stress (accent) falls on the first syllable of a word of more than one syllable, it is not marked; thus andswaru ‘answer’ has the stress on the same syllable as in Modern English. If the stress falls on any other than the first syllable, it is marked by (·) preceding the letter on which the stress begins; thus be·sęttan has the same stress as besetting. But we omit the (·) after the prefixes be- and ġe-, as they never take the stress: besęttan, ġehīeran (6) = ġe·hīeran.

2. The vowels are either short or long. The short vowels are left unmarked, the long vowels are marked with (¯).

Thus a has the sound of the first vowel in aha!, and ā has the sound of the second: ān mann ‘one man’, twā handa ‘two hands’.

æ has the sound of the English vowel in at, ǣ having, of course, the same sound long: æt hām ‘at home’, mǣre dǣda ‘famous deeds’.

e has the sound of close French é: fela manna ‘many men’, twēġen fēt ‘two feet’.

ę as in men: twēġen męnn ‘two men’.

i close, as in French fini: fīf fingras ‘five fingers’.

ie has the open sound of i in it: hīe wǣron iernende ‘they were running’.

o close, as in French beau: Godes word ‘God’s word’, ġōd wīn ‘good wine’.

u close, as in French sou: mīn sunu ‘my son’; twā hūs ‘two ‘houses’.

y as in French lu: se cyning ‘the king’, lȳtel hūs ‘a little house’. (Observe that the indefinite article is generally omitted.)

3. There are also diphthongs, which have the stress on the first element:—

ea = ·æa (æ in æt followed by the a in mann): heard siān ‘a hard stone’, hēah weall ‘a high wall’.

eo is pronounced as written, with two close vowels: fēower sweord ‘four swords’.

4. Double consonants must be pronounced really double or long. Thus, whilst n in sunu (2) is pronounced as in money, the nn in sēo sunne ‘the sun’ is pronounced as in pen-knife.

5. c has the sound of k: cēne cęmpa ‘a brave warrior’, lȳtel cnapa ‘a little boy’.

ċ is a k formed in that part of the mouth where we form the y in you: sēo ċiriċe ‘the church’, styċċemǣlum ‘piecemeal, bit by bit’.

6. g at the beginning of words and in the combination ng is pronounced as in go: þæt grēne gærs ‘the green grass’, þæt langsċip ‘the warship (long ship)’. Otherwise, that is after vowels and l, r, it has the sound of German g in sagen: twēġen dagas ‘two days’ miċel burg ‘a great city’, se hālga ‘the saint (the holy one)’.

ġ in the combination nġ has a sound analogous to that of ċ, something like the g in gem: męnġan ‘mingle, mix’. Also in cg, which is pronounced as if written ġġ: wǣpnes ęcg ‘the edge of a weapon’. Also at the beginning of words and syllables, as in ġeond middanġeard ‘throughout the world’, except that in unaccented syllables it had the sound of our y, as in ġehīeran ‘to hear’. Otherwise, that is after all vowels and all consonants except n, it had the sound of our y in you: hāliġe ęnġlas ‘holy angels’, ā·wierġed sċucca ‘an accursed sprite (demon)’.

7. h at the beginning of a syllable has the same sound as now: hē hæfþ hund ‘he has a dog’. Otherwise it has the sound of German ch: nēah ‘near’, sēo sulh ‘the plough’, beorht ‘bright’. hw, as in hwæt ‘what’, has the sound of our wh. hl, hn, hr differ from l, n, r respectively in the same way as hw differ from w, hl having the sound of Welsh ll: se hlāford ‘the lord’, hnītan ‘to collide’, hrædlīċe ‘quickly’.

8. þ may be pronounced as the ‘breath’ th in thin at the beginning and end of words, and after breath consonants such as c, p: sōþ þū sęġst ‘you speak the truth’, hē slǣpþ ‘he sleeps’. Otherwise, that is when followed by a vowel and preceded by a vowel or a ‘voice’ consonant such as r, it had the voice sound in then: on heofone and on eorþan ‘in heaven and on earth’.

9. f and s have the breath sounds f, s and the voice sounds v, z according to the same rules. Thus they have the breath sound in se fēond ‘the enemy’, se hlāf ‘the loaf, the bread’, swā wīs ‘so wise’, and when doubled, as in lǣssa ‘less’; the voice sound in heofon ‘heaven’, se wīsa lārēow ‘the wise teacher’, hē rǣsde on hine ‘he rushed on him’.

10. r and w must be pronounced clearly wherever they are written: hēr ‘here’, þæt word ‘the word’, se wręċċa ‘the exile’, þæt trēow ‘the tree’.

11. Every noun has one of three genders, which are most easily remembered by learning each noun with the definite article ‘the’ — masculine se, neuter þæt, feminine sēo. The gender is partly natural, partly grammatical. By the natural gender names of male beings, such as se fæder ‘the father’, se brōþor ‘the brother’, are masculine; those of female beings, such as seō mōdor ‘the mother’, sēo dohtor ‘the daughter’, are feminine; and those of young creatures, such as þæt ċild ‘the child’, are neuter. But þæt wīf ‘the woman, wife’ is also neuter.

12. By grammatical gender names of things are not only neuter — þæt hūs ‘the house’, þæt ēage ‘the eye’ — but also masculine and feminine: se stān (3), se fōt ‘the foot’; sēo hand (2), sēo dǣd (2). Note that all nouns ending in -a are masculine: se lȳtla cnapa (5), se nama ‘the name’, se mōna ‘the moon’.

13. Compound nouns follow the gender of their last element, as in se goldsmiþ ‘the goldsmith’, formed from þæt gold ‘the gold’ and se smiþ ‘the smith’, se wīfmann ‘woman’ from þæt wīf (11) and se mann (2).

14. The definite article has in the plural þā for all genders. Nouns have a variety of endings in the plural, which depend partly on their gender. Nouns in -a — which are all masculine (12) — take -an in the plural: þā naman (12), þā lȳtlan cnapan. All feminine nouns in -e, together with þæt ēage (12), have the same plural ending: twā (2) ċiriċan (5), twā ēagan.

Nouns that take -an in the plural are called weak. All other nouns are called strong.

15. The commonest plural-ending of strong masculine nouns is -as; thus se cyning (2), se ęnde ‘end’ have plurals cyningas, ęndas. se dæġ has plural dagas (6) with vowel-change.

16. Most strong neuters take -u in the plural, or else remain unchanged; thus þæt sċip ‘ship’, þæt rīċe ‘kingdom, rule, sovereignty’, þæt wǣpen ‘weapon’ (6) have plurals þā sċipu, þā rīċu, þā wǣpnu, while þæt folc ‘nation’, þæt hūs (2), þæt wīf (11) have plurals þā folc, þā hūs, þā wīf.

17. Most strong feminines take -a in the plural; thus sēo dǣd (2), sēo hand (2), sēo ċeaster ‘city’ have plurals þā dǣda, þā handa, þā ċeastra.

18. Some plurals are formed by vowel-change: se mann, þā męnn (2); se fōt (12), þā fēt (2); sēo bōc ‘the book’, þā bēċ; sēo burg ‘fortress, city’, þā byriġ. There are also other irregular plurals.

Case.

46. Nouns ending in a long vowel or diphthong contract their inflections. Thus sēo sǣ (35) has sǣ in the oblique cases of the singular: þǣre sǣ strand. So also sēo ēa ‘river’ has dative plural ēam. The weak noun ġefēa ‘joy’ has ġefēan in the oblique singular cases: mid (34) ġefēan.

47. The body of the word undergoes various changes in inflection. Thus se feorh ‘life’ has genitive fēores. In such a word as þæt feoh ‘money’ these changes necessarily result in contraction of the inflection (46): genitive þæs fēos, dative þǣm fēo: hē mē þæs fēos ġetiþode (44).

48. Adjectives have two kinds of inflection, strong and weak.

The weak inflections of adjectives are the same as those of weak nouns, except in the genitive plural, which has the strong adjective form.

Adjectives take weak inflections when preceded by the definite article or other defining words such as ‘this’:—

49. Otherwise adjectives have strong inflections, resembling partly those of strong nouns, but more generally those of the personal pronouns:—

50. Some take -u in the feminine singular nominative and neuter plural:—

51. The following are examples of the strong inflections of adjectives: ġeond (28) ealne (33) middanġeard | hē hæfþ (7) miċel (6) mōd | hē wunode þǣr lange tīd | gōdum (2) cyninge ġedafenaþ þæt hē sīe cystiġ | on ānre dīeġelre stōwe | mē is gōdes wǣpnes (16) þearf | þrēo pund gōdre buteran | se hunta (20) hæfþ swifte hundas | eall þā sċipu wǣron nīwu | eallum mannum cūþ | ealra witena ġemōt.

52. Strong adjectives have an instrumental case, but only in the masculine and neuter singular; it has the same form as the dative of nouns, that is -e. In the feminine and plural the dative — instrumental dative — is used instead, the dative -um being used instrumentally instead of -e in the masculine and neuter singular also. The instrumental and instrumental dative are used to express the instrument and manner of an action, and time when: sprec mildum wordum! | þā munucas gāþ tō (34) ċiriċan ǣlċe dæġe. The instrumental is often used with the preposition mid (34): mid miċle (51) nīþe.

53. The comparative is formed by adding -ra, and always has weak inflection. Thus from lēof ‘dear, beloved, pleasant’ is formed the comparative masculine lēofra ‘more dear’, neuter and feminine lēofre, plural lēofran: þæt (44) is mē lēofre.

54. The superlative is formed by adding -ost, and is inflected strong or weak in the same way as the positive: hē is mē ealra manna lēofost | se lēofosta mann.

55. Some adjectives have vowel-change in comparison, in which case the superlative ends in -est, as in eald ‘old’, ieldra, ieldest | lang (27), lęnġra, lęnġest.

56. The first two are inflected thus:—

Examples: twēġen męnn (2), twā hūs (2), twā handa (2), mid twǣm handum | þrīe męnn, þrēo pund (51), þrēora suna (19) fæder (11).

57. The others up to twenty are not inflected. The ty-numerals are sometimes uninflected, sometimes inflected like adjectives: þrītiġra (37) manna mæġen. When uninflected, the ty-numerals are regarded as nouns, and govern the genitive, not only in a partitive sense, as in hē of·slōg hira þritiġ, but in other constructions: se cyning hēold þæt rīċe (16) fīftiġ wintra. þæt hund ‘hundred’ and þæt þūsend ‘thousand’ are nouns: þūsend cēnra cęmpena.

58. The following are the inflections of the personal pronouns:—

Examples of the dual: se lārēow cwæþ (34) tō þǣm twǣm ġebrōþrum (30) ‘hwæt wille ġit þæt iċ inc (dat.) dō?’ þā twēġen ġebrōþru andswarodon (32) ‘wit willaþ þæt þū unc lǣre.’

59. In addition to the pronouns of the third person, the definite article is used in the sense of ‘this one, he, she’ etc., se becoming sē:—

Examples of sē: ān (35) cyning wæs on (35) Dęnum, sē wæs hāten Hrōþgar | iċ āsċode hine be þǣm. The sē in the first example may be translated ‘who’.

60. The possessive pronouns mīn (2), þīn (30), uncer, incer, ūre, ēower, which are the genitives of the personal pronouns, are inflected as strong adjectives: mid mīnum handum | wē sind ūrum hlāforde ġetrīewe (37) | on ēowerre ċeastre. The genitives of the third person, his, hire, hira, are used as indeclinable possessives, as in hīe sind on hira āgnum hūse compared with wē sind on ūrum āgnum hūse.

61. The interrogative pronoun hwā ‘who’ has inflections similar to those of se:—

62. The demonstrative þes ‘this’ also has inflections resembling those of se:—

Examples: þes ealda (55, 48) mann | hwanon cōmon ġē hider on þis land? | þēos eorþe is swīþe brād | sēo sunne iernþ (28) ymb þās eorþan | on niht sēo sunne is under (35) þisse eorþan | eall þās þing.

63. The relative pronoun is the indeclinable þe; þā þing þe iċ dyde. It is often combined with sē to form the inflected relative sē-þe: hū mæġ sē (59) bēon ġesāliġ sē-þe on þǣm ġesǣlþum þurh·wunian ne mōt?

64. The infinitive of verbs ends in -an, which, like other inflections (46), is shortened to -n after a vowel, as in gān ‘to go’ compared with cuman ‘to come': iċ ġeseah (25) þā sċipu tō lande (62) cuman | hwider wilt þū gān?

65. From the infinitive is formed the supine tō cumanne, tō gānne, in which the infinitive is put into the dative after the preposition tō (34). It is used to express necessity and purpose, and to define: þā þing þe (63) tō dōnne (58) sind (60) | hīe cōmon þæt land tō sċēawianne | fæġer on tō lōcianne.

66. The present participle ends in ende, -nde, as in iernende (2), dōnde ‘doing’: on horsum (30) rīdende. When present participles are made into nouns, they drop the final e, as in se fēond (42) ‘enemy’, literally ‘hating’.

67. The preterite participle generally takes the prefix ġe-, unless the verb already. has some such prefix. It is formed in two ways. In ‘strong’ verbs it ends in -en, -n. Thus the strong verbs cuman, becuman ‘come’, gān have preterite participles cumen, becumen, ġegān (compare Modern English go, go-ne). In ‘weak’ verbs it ends in -d, -t. Thus the weak verb ġehīeran (23) has preterite participle ġehīered.

68. The finite verb has three moods, indicative, subjunctive, and imperative — of which we are at present concerned only with the first, — and two tenses, present and preterite, together with two numbers, singular and plural, and three persons.

69. In the present (indicative) the first person ends in -(e): iċ cume, iċ ġehīere, iċ gā; the second in -st: þū ġehierst ‘thou hearest’; and the third in -þ: hē ġehierþ ‘he heareth’. The plural ends in -(a)þ: wē ġehieraþ, ġē cumaþ, hie gāþ.

70. The þ of the third singular is changed to t or lost after some consonants, as in hē forġiet-t from forġietan ‘forget’. After some consonants it modifies the preceding consonant, and is sometimes dropped itself, as in hē węnt from węndan ‘turn, go’, hē fētt from fēdan ‘feed’, hē sętt from sęttan ‘set’. The -st of the second person often causes similar changes in preceding consonants, as in þū fētst ‘thou feedest’.

71. Double consonants are always simplified before -st and -þ, cg (=ġġ 6) being made into ġ, as in hē ġefylþ from ġefyllan ‘fill’, þū sęġst from sęcgan ‘say’.

72. In the preterite the first and third person are always the same — iċ ġehierde, hē ġehierde — and the plural ends in -on in all three persons: wē ġehierdon, hie ġehierdon.

73. Strong verbs in addition to the above-described consonant-changes often modify their vowels before -st and -þ, as in hwæt itst þū? hē itt from etan ‘eat’, hē cymþ from cuman, hē gǣþ from gān.

74. The preterite of strong verbs is formed, not by adding anything, but by various vowel-changes: iċ cume ‘I come’, iċ cōm ‘I came’; iċ binde ‘I bind’, iċ band ‘I bound’; iċ cweþe (34), iċ cwæþ, iċ ā·rise ‘I arise’, iċ ā·rās ‘I arose’; iċ bebēode ‘I command’, iċ bebēad.

75. The preterite plural sometimes has the same vowel as the singular: hē cōm, hīe cōmon; hē hēold, hīe hēoldon from healdan (57). But generally the plural has a different vowel: hē band, hīe bundon; hē ā·rās, hīe ā·rison; hē bebēad, hīe bebudon. Sometimes there is consonant-change as well: hē cwæþ, hīe cwædon; hē hrēas, hīe hruron from hrēosan ‘fall’.

76. The second person singular of the preterite always has the same vowel and consonant as the preterite plural, from which it can be formed by changing -on into -e: hē wæs ‘he was’, hīe wǣron ‘they were’, þū wǣre ‘thou wer-t’. So also hē sþræc, þū sprǣce, hīe sprǣcon from sprecan (41).

77. The following are the inflections of the very frequent strong verb weorþan ‘become’, including the subjunctive (85):—

78. In weak verbs the second person singular of the preterite is formed by adding -st, as in ġehīerdest þū?

79. Some weak verbs have infinitive -an, some -tan. The latter are inflected in two different ways:—

80. Those with infinitive -an are inflected thus:—

81. Some weak verbs omit the e in the preterite participle, as in ġelǣdd from lǣdan ‘lead, bring, carry’, the d itself being lost in such participles as ā·sęnd (67) from ā·sęndan ‘send’.

82. After some consonants the -de of the preterite is changed to -te, generally with loss or change of the preceding consonant, as in sętte from sęttan ‘set’, tǣhte from tǣċan ‘show’. The preterite participle has the same changes: ġesętt, ġetǣht.

83. Some of these verbs have vowel-change in the preterite and preterite participle, as in sæġde from sęcgan (71), sealde from sęllian (30, 31), worhte from wyrcan ‘work, make, do’, sohte from sēċan ‘seek’, þohte from þęnċan ‘think’, preterite participles ġesæġd, ġeseald, ġeworht, ġesoht, ġeþoht.

84. These have for their presents old strong preterites, from which new weak preterites are formed, generally with considerable irregularities. Thus wāt ‘I know, he knows’ has plural wē witon like ā·rās, ā·rison (75), preterite wiste, plural wiston, the infinitive being witan. The second person singular present generally ends in -t or -st: þū wāst, þū canst ‘thou knowest’ from cann ‘knows’, plural hīe cunnon, preterite hē cūþe. Most of them have no infinitive, and they are often otherwise defective.

85. The subjunctive mood (compare 77) makes no distinction of persons. In the present singular it has the ending of the first person of the indicative, which is of course dropped after a vowel: þæt iċ cume ‘that I may come’, þæt þū gā (indic. þū gǣst 73), þæt hē ġehīere. The plural ending in the present is -(e)n: þæt wē cumen, þæt wē gān.

The subjunctive present of the verb ‘be’ is sīe (51), plural sīen.

86. The preterite subjunctive is formed from the preterite indicative in the same way: þæt iċ ġehīerde, þæt þū ġehīerde (indic. ġehīerdest), þæt hē ġehīerde, þæt wē ġehīerden. In strong verbs the preterite subjunctive has the form of the second person of the indicative: þæt iċ wære, þæt þū wǣre, þæt hē wære; plural þæt wē wǣren. So also bindan (74) has subjunctive preterite bunde, plural bunden. In the preterite-present verbs the subjunctive present has the form of a strong subjunctive preterite: þæt iċ wite, þæt wē witen, þæt hē cunne.

87. The subjunctive states something not as a fact, but merely as something thought of.

88. In independent sentences it expresses what is wished or commanded: ġehealde ēow se ælmihtiga!

Otherwise it is used chiefly in dependent sentences.

89. Thus it is used in indirect narration to show that the speaker is stating something merely as an idea suggested to him by some one else: hīe cwǣdon (75) þæt hē wǣre gōd cyning. If the truth of the statement is so self-evident that it could be expressed by direct narration without any change of meaning, then the indicative may be used, as in nū wē willaþ (58) sęcgan (83) þæt wē fūse sind (65) ūrne eard tō sēċanne, which means exactly the same as nū wē sind fūse …, so that the subjunctive would here be too emphatic: þæt wē fūse sīen would imply that the speakers wished to say that their statement was false.

90. So also in indirect question and similar constructions: hē āsċode (59) hwæt hīe wǣren | hīe ne mihton ā·þęnċan hū (63) hīe hira fēondum (66) wiþ·standan mihten.

91. In the following examples the subjunctive evidently expresses something as an idea, not as an accomplished fact:

hē bæd hine þæt hē him tō fultume cōme | þā menn belifon þǣr (27) bæftan þæt hīe þæt sċip hēolden (88) | cyninge ġedafenaþ þæt hē sie cystiġ (51) | hē ūþe him (them) þæt hīe mōsten inn cuman | miċel pleoh biþ (32) þæt man hwæl ġefō. In swā hwelċ swā þū sīe, begā þīnne cræft (26)! the subjunctive gives the meaning of indefiniteness, implying ‘I do not know who you are’.

92. In some cases the subjunctive implies that the statement is not merely hypothetical, but unreal or impossible, as in hypothetical comparison; thus hē riċsode swelċe hē cyning wǣre implies hē næs nā cyning.

93. So also in clauses of rejected condition, where the unreality is further shown by putting the verb in the preterite, as in ġif þū swā unforht wǣre swā þū self sęġst, which implies neart þū swā unforht swā þū self sėġst.

94. Hence the indicative is often used in clauses of ‘open condition’, to show that the condition is not rejected, although we should otherwise expect the subjunctive: iċ þē sęlle hafoc, ġif þū mē selst hund (30).

95. There is a tendency to use the subjunctive in clauses dependent on a negative sentence, as in neom iċ swā spēdiġ þæt iċ mæġe (90) mē (33) wīn bycgan, because the statement iċ mæġ mē wīn bycgan is false. Without the negation the indicative would be used: iċ eom swā spēdiġ þæt iċ mæġ mē wīn bycgan. So also after ‘than’, as in þū spriċst (41, 73) dēoplicor þonne ūre ieldo (19) ā·beran mæġe, because the statement ūre ieldo hit ā·beran mæġ is false.

96. The subjunctive sometimes used illogically in statements of facts.

97. It is so used after such conjunctions as ǣr ‘before’, oþ-þæt ‘until’: Bēowuf spræc (76) ġielpword ǣr hē on będd stige. Here Beowulf’s going to bed, though a fact, is expressed with the subjunctive because at the time indicated by the principal clause it was not yet an accomplished fact.

98. Also with þēah, þēah-þe ‘although’: þēah-þe hit wundorliċ þynċe, niht (62) nis nān-þing būtan þǣre eorþan sċeado. Here the statement of the fact that it seems wonderful is put in the subjunctive to show that what is referred to ought not to seem wonderful because it is true.

99. The imperative singular of verbs with infinitive -(a)n can generally be formed by throwing off the infinitive ending, as in heald!, sēċ!, bēo! from healdan ‘hold’, sēċan ‘seek’, bēon ‘be’. In those with infinitive -ian it can be formed by throwing off the þ of the third singular, as in fęre! ‘carry!’ from fęrian, hē fęreþ, ne sorga þū! ‘do not grieve!’ from sorgian, hē sorgaþ.

100. But several verbs in -an preceded by double consonants have imperative in -e preceded by a single consonant, as in sęle! from sęllan, sęġe from sęcgan. So also some otherwise strong verbs, such as sittan ‘sit’, preterite sæt, imperative site!

101. The imperative plural is the same as the indicative present: healdaþ, bēoþ, fęriaþ, wuniaþ, sęllaþ!

Anomalous Verbs.

106. The future is often expressed by the present, as in iċ ēow wīsiġe ‘I will show you the way’, sometimes by ‘will’ and ‘shall’ as in Modern English. Of the two verbs ‘to be’ bēon is often used to express futurity, as in iċ bēo sōna ġearo (27) compared with iċ eom ġearo, or else continuity or repetition, as in slǣp biþ dēaþe ġelīcost (32).

107. The preterite has also the meaning of our perfect and pluperfect, which are however also expressed by periphrastic forms as in Modern English: hīe habbaþ hine of·slæġen ‘they have killed him’, hīe hæfdon hine of·slæġen ‘they had killed him’. With intransitive verbs these tenses are generally formed with ‘be’, and the participle is then inflected so as to agree with the subject: wē sind cumene, hīe wǣron cumene.

108. The passive is sometimes formed with ‘be’, as in Modern English, in which case it generally implies a condition or state rather than an action, as in þā wyrhtan wǣron ġesamnode. When an action is implied weorþan (77) is used: sēo wund ne wierþ (106) nāfre ġehǣled | miċel dęmm wearþ ġedōn | maniġe męnn wurdon of slæġene fram þǣm sǣmannum. In the passive the participle agrees in gender and number with the subject.

109. The negative particle is ne, which drops its vowel in many combinations, such as n-ān ‘none’, n-ǣfre (108), neom (95) ‘am not’, neart (93) ‘art not’, nis (98) ‘is not’, often with contractions and changes, as in hē næs ‘was not’, hīe nǣron ‘were not’, iċ nyle ‘I will not’, hē nolde ‘would not’, hē nyste ‘knew not’ compared with wæs, wǣron, wile, wolde, wiste.

110. ne is prefixed to the finite verb in a sentence and to all the other words in the sentence which admit of the contracted forms: nān mann nyste nān þing | sēo wund ne wearþ nǣfre ġehǣled (108). If there are no such words in the sentence, the ne is often strengthened by some such negative word as nā (92) ‘not’, naht ‘nothing, not’: þæt hūs ne fēoll nā.