Medieval English Syntax: Studies in Honor of Michiko Ogura 3631868952, 9783631868959, 9783631866900

Table of contents :
Series Information
Copyright Information
Contents
Abbreviations
Introduction: Michiko Ogura’s Friends (M. J. Toswell, Taro Ishiguro)
Professor Michiko Ogura in “A Fair Field Full of Folk” (Liliana Sikorska)
Noun Phrase Modification in Medieval Cooking Instructions – Revisited (Magdalena Bator)
Periphrastic Verb Constructions in Old English Verse and Lawman’s "Brut" (Daniel Donoghue)
The Verbal Syntax of '(ge)hȳran' and its Relation to Meaning (Antonette diPaolo Healey)
The English of the Cloister (Joyce Hill)
'Habban' + Past Participle of an Intransitive Verb in Old English (Michio Hosaka, Tomofumi Akiha)
Guthlac 'wende þæt he hi æfre gebetan ne mihte': Text Emendation and Expletive Negation (Taro Ishiguro)
Revisiting EVERY and EACH from Old English to Early Modern English (Leena Kahlas-​Tarkka)
Sentence-Initial Modals in Old English: Speaker’s Intention and Adhortative Power (Kousuke Kaita)
The Encroachment of the Inflection '-est' on the Past Subjunctive 2nd Person Singular Forms 'wolde' and 'sceolde' of Old English 'willan' and '*sculan': Syntactic, Morphological and Semantic Variation (Matti Kilpiö)
Word Order in Old English Interlinear Glosses: A Case Study on the Position of Inserted Pronominal Subjects (Tadashi Kotake)
On the So-called Genitive Object in Old English (Yoshitaka Kozuka)
The Pluperfect Forms in the Different Manuscripts of "Cursor Mundi" (Rafał Molencki)
Syntax, Meter, Early Medieval: An Intersectional Approach to Old English Verse (Haruko Momma)
Hrothwulf’s Time with Hrothgar: 'siþþan' in "Widsith", Lines 45–49 (Richard North)
Syntax and Style in Old English Verse: Binomials and "Beowulf" (Andy Orchard)
Some Problems of Categorization in Early Middle English (Jane Roberts)
Syntax and Beyond: Binomials in the Apollonius Story as Told by Gower (Hans Sauer)
The Hebrews with Braided Locks: A Note on 'Wundenlocc' ("Judith" 325) (Jun Terasawa)
Old English Syntax, Especially Verbs, in Early Nineteenth Century Primers, Especially Joseph Gwilt (M. J. Toswell)
Syntactic and Narrative Significance of the Three Instances of 'þæt wæs god cyning' in "Beowulf" Reconsidered
A Bibliography of Writings by Michiko Ogura
Contributors
Name Index
Series index

Citation preview

Medieval English Syntax

STUDIES IN ENGLISH MEDIEVAL LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE Edited by Magdalena Bator

Advisory Board: John Anderson (Methoni, Greece), Ulrich Busse (Halle, Germany), Isabel de la Cruz-Cabanillas (Alcala, Spain) Olga Fischer (Amsterdam, the Netherlands), Marcin Krygier (Poznań, Poland), Peter Lucas (Cambridge, England), Donka Minkova (Los Angeles, USA), Akio Oizumi (Kyoto, Japan), Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe (UC Berkeley, USA), Hans Sauer (Munich, Germany), Liliana Sikorska (Poznań, Poland), Jeremy Smith (Glasgow, Scotland), Jerzy Wełna (Warsaw, Poland)

Volume 61

M. J. Toswell / Taro Ishiguro (eds.)

Medieval English Syntax Studies in Honor of Michiko Ogura

Bibliographic Information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available in the internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. This publication was supported financially by the University of Western Ontario Internal SSHRC Exchange program through the office of the Vice-President, Research.

ISSN 1436-7521 ISBN 978-3-631-86895-9 (Print) E-ISBN 978-3-631-86690-0 (E-PDF) E-ISBN 978-3-631-87541-4 (EPUB) DOI 10.3726/b19563 © Peter Lang GmbH Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften Berlin 2022 All rights reserved. Peter Lang Edition is an Imprint of Peter Lang GmbH. Peter Lang – Berlin ∙ Bern ∙ Bruxelles ∙ New York ∙ Oxford ∙ Warszawa ∙ Wien All parts of this publication are protected by copyright. Any utilisation outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without the permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to prosecution. This applies in particular to reproductions, translations, microfilming, and storage and processing in electronic retrieval systems. This publication has been peer reviewed. www.peterlang.com

Taro Ishiguro and Jane Toswell are delighted, on behalf of all the contributors and many other philologists and historical linguists around the world, to offer this volume to their mentor and friend, Professor Michiko Ogura.

Michiko Ogura at Keio University, September 2012 (after SHELL conference) at teashop Yama-moto-yama, Nihonbashi, Tokyo.

Contents Abbreviations ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  11 M. J. Toswell and Taro Ishiguro Introduction: Michiko Ogura’s Friends ����������������������������������������������������������������  13 Liliana Sikorska Professor Michiko Ogura in “A Fair Field Full of Folk” �������������������������������������  21 Magdalena Bator Noun Phrase Modification in Medieval Cooking Instructions –​Revisited ����  29 Daniel Donoghue Periphrastic Verb Constructions in Old English Verse and Lawman’s Brut ����  45 Antonette diPaolo Healey The Verbal Syntax of (ge)hȳran and its Relation to Meaning ����������������������������  67 Joyce Hill The English of the Cloister �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  85 Michio Hosaka and Tomofumi Akiha Habban +​Past Participle of an Intransitive Verb in Old English ����������������������  99 Taro Ishiguro Guthlac wende þæt he hi æfre gebetan ne mihte: Text Emendation and Expletive Negation ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  121 Leena Kahlas-​Tarkka Revisiting EVERY and EACH from Old English to Early Modern English ��  133 Kousuke Kaita Sentence-​Initial Modals in Old English: Speaker’s Intention and Adhortative Power ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  153

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Matti Kilpiö The Encroachment of the Inflection -​est on the Past Subjunctive 2nd Person Singular Forms wolde and sceolde of Old English willan and *sculan: Syntactic, Morphological and Semantic Variation ���������������������  169 Tadashi Kotake Word Order in Old English Interlinear Glosses: A Case Study on the Position of Inserted Pronominal Subjects ����������������������������������������������������������  191 Yoshitaka Kozuka On the So-​called Genitive Object in Old English ���������������������������������������������  205 Rafał Molencki The Pluperfect Forms in the Different Manuscripts of Cursor Mundi �����������  221 Haruko Momma Syntax, Meter, Early Medieval: An Intersectional Approach to Old English Verse ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  235 Richard North Hrothwulf ’s Time with Hrothgar: siþþan in Widsith, Lines 45–​49 ����������������  251 Andy Orchard Syntax and Style in Old English Verse: Binomials and Beowulf ����������������������  265 Jane Roberts Some Problems of Categorization in Early Middle English ����������������������������  285 Hans Sauer Syntax and Beyond: Binomials in the Apollonius Story as Told by Gower ���  303 Jun Terasawa The Hebrews with Braided Locks: A Note on Wundenlocc (Judith 325) ��������  321 M. J. Toswell Old English Syntax, Especially Verbs, in Early Nineteenth Century Primers, Especially Joseph Gwilt �������������������������������������������������������������������������  333

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Hideki Watanabe Syntactic and Narrative Significance of the Three Instances of þæt wæs god cyning in Beowulf Reconsidered ��������������������������������������������������������������������������  347

A Bibliography of Writings by Michiko Ogura ���������������������������������  365 Contributors ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  377 Name Index ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  379

Abbreviations Dictionaries and Corpora

BT

A  n Anglo-​Saxon Dictionary, by Joseph Bosworth and T. Northcote Toller. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1898. BTS A  n Anglo-​Saxon Dictionary: Supplement, by T. Northcote Toller. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1921. DOE D  ictionary of Old English: A to I Online, edited by Angus Cameron, Ashley Crandell Amos, Antonette diPaolo Healey et al. Toronto: Dictionary of Old English Project, 2018. https://​www.doe.utoronto.ca DOEC D  ictionary of Old English Web Corpus, compiled by Antonette diPaolo Healey with John Price Wilkin and Xin Xiang. Toronto: Dictionary of Old English Project, 2009. https://​www.doe.utoronto.ca HC Th  e Helsinki Corpus TEI XML edition. 2011. First edition. Designed by Alpo Honkapohja, Samuli Kaislaniemi, Henri Kauhanen, Matti Kilpiö, Ville Marttila, Terttu Nevalainen, Arja Nurmi, Matti Rissanen, and Jukka Tyrkkö. Implemented by Henri Kauhanen and Jukka Tyrkkö. Based on the Helsinki Corpus of English Texts (1991). Helsinki: The Research Unit for Variation, Contacts and Change in English (VARIENG), University of Helsinki. http://​www.helsinki.fi/​varieng/​CoRD/​corpora/​HelsinkiCorpus/​ index.html LexMA Lexikon des Mittelalter. Munich and Zurich: Artemis, 1980. MED M  iddle English Dictionary, edited by Hans Kurath et al. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1952–​2001. https://​quod.lib.umich.edu/​m/​middle-​english-​dictionary/​dictionary OED Th  e Oxford English Dictionary. https://​www.oed.com YCOE Th  e York–​Toronto–​Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Prose. 2003. Prepared by Ann Taylor, Anthony Warner, Susan Pintzuk, and Frank Beths. York: Department of Language and Linguistic Science, University of York. http://​www-​users.york.ac.uk/​~lang22/​YCOE/​YcoeHome.htm

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Abbreviations

Other Abbreviations

ASPR

BL DOML EETS es IMC L ME ModE NRSV OE ON os PP SHELL ss vi.

Krapp, George Philip, and Elliott Van Kirk Dobbie, eds. 1931–​53. The Anglo-​Saxon Poetic Records. 6 vols. New York: Columbia University Press. British Library Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library Early English Text Society extra series International Medieval Congress Latin Middle English Modern English New Revised Standard Version =​The New Oxford Annotated Bible, edited by Bruce M. Metzger and Roland E. Murphy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Old English Old Norse original series past participle The Society of Historical English Language and Linguistics supplementary series intransitive verb

M. J. Toswell and Taro Ishiguro

Introduction: Michiko Ogura’s Friends In May 2018, only a few months before he died, E. G. Stanley told me that he had not needed to buy himself a tie in over twenty years. On her frequent visits to Oxford, Michiko Ogura had been bringing him silk ties that were, as he gleefully pointed out, nicer than anything he would have bought for himself. Eric, as Professor Emeritus of Anglo-​Saxon at Pembroke College in the University of Oxford, was always impeccably dressed in a suit; he knew quality and was grateful for it. His ties were elegant, discreet, and quite beautiful –​and all quite different from each other. He also enjoyed Michiko’s visits to Oxford because she always came with ideas to discuss, and interesting projects under way, and he enjoyed talking syntax with her. He also enjoyed organizing dinner parties for her to attend, and going out for meals with her –​while wearing her ties. Michiko Ogura was a valued friend. At the Dictionary of Old English located in Robarts Research Library towering over the University of Toronto, Antonette diPaolo Healey also treasured Michiko’s visits because she could be persuaded to take on and help with some of the knotty syntactical problems that so frequently stymie lexicographical enterprises like historical dictionaries. In Toronto, where she is known as “Micky,” she has written the entries for three important verbs and associated lexemes. There are similar stories from Leeds, where Michiko Ogura organized a splendid series of sessions on medieval English syntax in 2017, following on from many previous successful visits to that conference; and from colleagues and friends at the International Association of University Professors of English, where she leads at least one section, and also from colleagues at the International Conference on English Historical Linguistics. She has also been a frequent visitor to various universities in Poland and Germany, and is often to be consulted at the International Society for Studies in Early Medieval England (formerly: the International Society of Anglo-​Saxonists) as well. In addition to her remarkable international engagement, involving the publication of two books with Boydell and Brewer, two more with Peter Lang, and one each with Mouton de Gruyter, and Rosenkilde and Bagger (and dozens of articles or book chapters in European and North American journals and collections), Michiko Ogura has been a stalwart figure in Japanese medieval studies, creating and advancing various societies in the field of linguistics, historical linguistics, and language study more generally. She has served on the boards of fully twenty

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societies, while teaching and researching in the field of medieval English syntax. For the first twenty years of her professional career, she moved about among five universities, but in 1991 she settled into a position at Chiba University, where she remained for twenty years. In 2011, she moved to Keio University for four years, and in 2015 to Tokyo Woman’s Christian University until 2020, where she still today remains a very active researcher. She is a professor emerita of Chiba University, and also holds a DLitt, earned in 2008 from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poland, specifically in Poznań where her friends Jacek Fisiak and Liliana Sikorska were to be found. As her list of publications at the end of this volume attests, she has produced five books on medieval English verbs, from verbs of speech to impersonal verbs to verbs of motion to variations of verbal usage in prose and in verse to the reflexivity of verbs. In her more recent books, she casts a wider net, investigating expressions of emotion, periphrases and periphrastic expressions, and (in Japanese) a full study of the diachronic changes in English. She also edits and co-​edits collections of articles, often conference proceedings from the Society of Historical English Language and Linguistics, for the Medieval Symposium and main sessions of the biannual meetings of the International Association of University Professors of English, and for other, smaller, groups. Unfortunately, we are unable to provide details of all of these collections. One might well conclude that eight major books on medieval English syntax, the mentoring of countless junior scholars in the field of medieval English language and literature in Japan and internationally, and the remarkable service to the profession performed by Professor Ogura in the organization of conferences, collections of papers, and many international and national societies would be enough. However, it is not. Perhaps the greatest contribution to scholarship here is Professor Ogura’s remarkable output in articles and book chapters. By the time this collection publishes, Professor Ogura will have published nearly one hundred and thirty major scholarly contributions to the field of English historical linguistics in journals and book chapters. Like her books, her articles are meticulously researched, and exquisitely structured to demonstrate the point she wants to make carefully and elegantly. A few hallmarks distinguish Professor Ogura’s scholarship: first, she deeply comprehends the way syntax and lexicon interact with each other, so that she can write about words in their syntactic context with remarkable precision and care. Second, her generosity of soul comes through in her scholarship, in which she provides references with both deep scholarly knowledge and also careful acknowledgment of the contributions of others to her own thinking. Bruce Mitchell, after Michiko Ogura spent some time in the 1980s working with him at St Edmund Hall, used to say that she knew

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more about Old English verbs than he did, and mean it absolutely. She, however, carefully acknowledges his work, and the work of his many predecessors, scrupulously. Third, she tackles the difficult sources of evidence, the texts that require specialized knowledge to interpret correctly and to explain clearly. Thus, she frequently looks at glossed texts for her evidence, working from the earliest Old English glosses through to late Middle English ones. This requires complex balancing of evidence, notably biblical materials since so much glossing in early English involves the psalters and the gospels; Michiko Ogura is that rare syntactician who looks at gloss materials for their applicability to the questions she is investigating, and as a result often teases out very important details of usage and form that others would never find. Her many articles sometimes foreshadow her books, sometimes appearing long before her final thoughts on the particularly knotty problems of Old and Middle English verbs that she resolves. Recently she has added a focus on word order to the panoply of other issues she addresses. The list of publications which, as previously noted, appears at the end of this volume is a truly remarkable record of accomplishments, reflecting many long hours spent in archives and research collections around the world (but particularly in Europe) and a profound knowledge of English syntax from reading and studying the relevant corpora and, it seems, every single article previously published on these questions. Professor Ogura’s scholarship is impeccable. This is hardly a surprise to anyone who has met her at a conference. If you lose a program or need a quick reference or are experiencing stage fright, Michiko is the person to approach. She has her program at her fingertips, always has references ready for the asking, and offers a gentle but pragmatic push in the door as needed. She does all this while always being neat as a pin, ready for any vagary of the weather, calm and unflappable. A good sense of Professor Ogura is provided here by the opening reminiscence of her prepared by her longtime friend Liliana Sikorska. Professor Sikorska works through a series of snapshots of Michiko Ogura over the years, from the first conference where they met to the most recent meeting of the International Association of University Professors in Poznań, Poland. Using Susan Sontag’s deliberations on the ephemerality of images, she describes photographs which delineate her interactions with Professor Ogura, demonstrating the deepening of their friendship and connection as the years went by. We are particularly grateful to Professor Sikorska, not only for contributing this lovely reminiscence to start off the volume, but for being willing to contribute to a volume focused on medieval syntax. Her willingness to appear in our company is testimony to her great friendship with Professor Ogura. Our other contributors all work on aspects of medieval English syntax, with perhaps

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a slight lean in the direction of OE questions, although many tackle diachronic studies of particular features. We have a range of genres, beginning with a paper on culinary recipes but continuing through Lawman’s (Laȝamon’s) Brut to the OE verb gehyran across all genres, to Latin loanwords in Benedictine Reform texts, and onward. The contributors include a significant number of Professor Ogura’s colleagues in Japan, including one of the co-​editors, and an equally significant number of her global colleagues, ranging from various points in England to Finland and Germany and Poland to the United States and Canada. They also range in age from contemporaries of Professor Ogura to much younger scholars that she has mentored and helped in recent years. We are delighted that every scholar we approached agreed enthusiastically to submit to the volume, and we are also delighted to have such a range of papers on medieval syntax to offer to Professor Ogura. Magdalena Bator investigates the structure of noun phrases in culinary recipes from the end of the fourteenth century to the end of the fifteenth; she finds that the positions of both nouns and adjectives as modifiers shift over time as the recipes move farther away from their French and Anglo-​Norman forebears. She has developed a large corpus, and is continuing to expand it to examine the vernacular developments of these texts. In the next paper Daniel Donoghue also investigates a syntactic shift through time, but in this case he considers OE verse and its use of periphrastic verbal constructions –​specifically the bracketing pattern and the verbal-​auxiliary half-​line –​as compared to the same two kinds of periphrastic verbal constructions in Lawman’s Brut. As in some of his earlier work, Donoghue is particularly interested in the role of verbal auxiliaries in these constructions, and the size of his corpus (like that of Bator) allows him to draw significant conclusions about the way the highly integrated OE structure of meter and syntax changed in some respects in early ME, but also maintained the middle role of the auxiliary verb, not normally stressed but available to be promoted to a stressed element at need. Antonette diPaolo Healey in one way narrows the focus further to a single word, hyran (and gehyran), but in other ways broadens the analysis significantly, reminding us what it is “to hear” and to acknowledge our sonic environment, both in today’s world with “to hear” being one of the sixty-​five universal primes or basic concepts in the world of languages, a “mental predicate,” and in the OE world. Healey reconceptualizes the cognates and the entry structure for the verb in the DOE, comparing it to the OED and elucidating the entry structure and its use of particular cases. The study is a fascinating exposition of a lexicographer at work, sorting and philosophizing, but also being pragmatic and straightforward. In the next paper, Joyce Hill takes a similarly pragmatic approach to the use of

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Latin loanwords in the various texts of the Benedictine Reform, discussing first the general social and historical context in order to establish the background for the linguistic sensitivity in the cloister (as she terms it) that led monks and nuns to use Latin loanwords in different ways for various of the central texts of the Reform. Michio Hosaka and Tomofumi Akiha work together on an article that reflects one of Professor Ogura’s principal concerns in her published work, the use of an auxiliary with past participles in OE syntax. Specifically they consider the verb habban, one of the most complicated entries in Professor Healey’s beloved DOE. Here the focus is habban in combination with past participles of intransitive verbs, using the York-​Toronto-​Helsinki Corpus (HC) to investigate the early symptoms of the expansion of the have-​perfect. Hosaka and Akiha might be the first in the volume to use this corpus, but it is a frequent contributor to the papers here, offering an important diachronic perspective that nicely meshes with the many arguments here that focus (as Hill and Healey do) on the Corpus available through the DOE. The paper ranges widely, using a cross-​linguistic perspective to start, but then comparing have to be constructions in order to highlight the growing agency of have. Their joint article signals many more to come from both scholars. Taro Ishiguro offers what on the face of it is a more specific study of a crux in the two copies of the vernacular translation of Felix’s Life of St Guthlac but really is a consideration of the little-​discussed phenomenon of expletive negation in OE and ME more generally. Leena Kahlas-​Tarkka tackles the complex diachronic issue of the comparative changes in use of “each” and “every,” described by some as indefinite pronouns or adjectives, by others as determiners, or as indefinite universal pronouns, or as expressions of universal quantification. Kahlas-​Tarkka also uses the Helsinki Corpus to provide detailed examples over time, after a comprehensive discussion of past scholarship, etymology, and a full list and discussion of the forms in which these terms are to be found in texts moving gradually forward from OE to early ModE, and analysis of dialectal trends as well. Kousuke Kaita turns the analysis back to verbs, addressing sentence-​initial models, the inverted order in which the verb comes before the subject in OE. These constructions open the possibility of an adhortative construction such as “let us,” and the paper uses the Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus to investigate these modal verbs in sentence-​initial position in declarative sentences and adhortative statements. Matti Kilpiö uses both the DOEC and the HC to address another aspect of verbs in OE, the variation between -​e and -​est as the endings for the past subjunctive second person singular. He engages in the first detailed study of this question, analyzing the relevant model verbs (reflecting Kaita’s paper) with a special focus

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on wolde/​woldest and sceolde/​sceoldest, and then considering a group of verbs referring to mental activity which refer to the future in the past. Tadashi Kotake returns to questions of word order, focusing on a set of texts particularly beloved by Professor Ogura, and considers the inserted pronominal subjects that scribes and compilers put in OE interlinear glosses. The paper investigates these pronominal subjects, absent in the Latin, for their placement in the vernacular, often to make syntactic sense in OE, in such texts as the glossed psalters, the Rushworth Gospels, the Liber scintillarum, and the OE gloss to the Benedictine Rule. Many of these are earlier OE texts, contrasting to the approach by Yoshitaka Kozuka, who addresses an issue of case in late OE, in which the genitive functions as an object. The paper considers the genitive as an elliptical or absolute genitive, investigating a variety of examples from a range of verbs and texts in order to discover the degrees of transitivity that encode the use of the genitive in particular situations. Rafał Molencki shifts the focus even later, into five manuscripts of the fourteenth-​century Cursor Mundi, and the varying use of the pluperfect in these texts. Like many other contributions to this volume, the paper deals with an insufficiently-​studied but important text, one that merits attention not just for its syntactic variation but for how the different manuscripts demonstrate a changing language and changing thought patterns. The notion of sequence of tenses was developing here, and this paper demonstrates how thoroughly grammaticalized this periphrastic tense form was in the fourteenth century. Haruko Momma broadens our perspective with a thoughtful investigation of how syntax and meter intersect in OE verse, beginning with an example from Beowulf of the poetic syntax of OE and its rules, then bringing in the implications of the available metrical diversity and using Wulf and Eadwacer as a final example. The paper offers a philosophical encapsulation of the issues scholars and poets find most perplexing and most important in OE poetry, and hints at some ways forward. Richard North continues the focus on OE verse; like Ishiguro and other contributors to this volume, he focuses on a crux worth syntactic investigation. Widsith at lines 45–​49 offers an opportunity to consider the role of siþþan-​clauses, and also to cast a look at two characters, Hrothwulf and Hrothgar, who also appear in Beowulf. The issue is one of temporality, and the interpretation of siþþan as conjunction or adverb gives North room to comment on various similar situations in Beowulf. Andy Orchard is also interested in OE poetry, and particularly in Beowulf, and even more particularly in binomials. His paper draws from his much larger project of editing all OE and Anglo-​Latin poetry, and considers the 171 whole-​verse binomials in Beowulf in the context of other OE poems, investigating the syntactic structure of these binomials, their

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distribution in the poem, some particularly interesting poetic effects and striking contexts for binomials in the poem, and especially the repetition patterns of binomials –​all to create particular echoing and patterning for the audience of the poem. Jane Roberts, like Donoghue, focuses on early ME with particular interest in the Brut, notably the Caligula text. Her concern is the shift from synthetic towards analytic structuring of syntax, and she considers several kinds of syntactic situations to demonstrate this shift. These include the loss of the possessive dative of the mannum to helpe “as a help to humans” variety in favor of the inflected infinitive after to, the growth of the to +​infinitive pattern, and many other situations with to and verbs or verbals. The result is significant difficulty in grammatical categorization with respect to the poem, as it navigates a complex intersection of syntax and meter in the post-​OE period. Like Orchard, Hans Sauer takes us also to binomials, in this case specifically in John Gower’s version of the Apollonius legend in his Confessio Amantis. His analysis is capacious, identifying all the relevant factors affecting the use of binomials in this text, their structure and metrical patterning, their semantic fields and kinds of usage. Unusually, he is able to conclude that most binomials were involved metrically, but in rhyme –​not the alliteration considered in many other papers here. Jun Terasawa returns us to the world of alliteration, with a study of a crux in the OE poem Judith, specifically the occurrence of wundenlocc at line 325. He studies words for women’s hairstyles in OE, including also bundenheord, and their occurrences in various poems, notably riddles. He then ranges into a broader analysis which results in a new interpretation of this word because of syntactic structure of this section of the poem. Jane Toswell takes on one of the earliest grammars of OE, that of Joseph Gwilt in 1829, and considers his various attempts at presenting OE verbs in that volume. Hideki Watanabe concludes the volume with a detailed consideration of one of the most well-​known syntactic constructions in Beowulf, the oft-​repeated praise formula þæt wæs god cyning. Watanabe shakes out three instances of this eulogy in the poem, considering their current presentation in various editions and analyses (as did Terasawa for his analysis) as both formula and exclamation, and then turning to the use of this formula on some sixty occasions in OE poems. The formula is often an end-​ point, a concluding remark, but ambiguity continues to swirl about the phrase, although Watanabe notes in conclusion that the phrase often seems to have the valence of reported speech, or possibly reported speech as merged into the poet’s own assessment. The contributors to this volume range throughout the world of medieval English syntax, some considering one construction, some considering one poem

newgenprepdf

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or even one syntactic issue in one poem, some considering the development of contrasting syntactic structures over time, some considering the variation among different copies of the same text or the same sets of ideas, some pointing to broader issues of the intersection of syntax and meter or the intersection of syntax and lexicon, and more. Even so, every contributor to the volume would point to Michiko Ogura as having already made useful comments on this point or this idea or this corpus. Her influence in the field of medieval English syntax is all-​pervasive and quite remarkable, as is her remarkable ability to work in Japan and to mentor and engage with her Japanese colleagues, while also attending so many international conferences and symposia, and working in so many international locations every year that she has developed deep friendships and collegial relationships on a truly global level. It is therefore entirely appropriate that the last contribution to the volume is Professor Ogura’s own list of publications during her career. Even there, we are pretty sure that we have not managed to find them all, which somehow fits, as we know we were not able to include all those who would have wished to honor Professor Ogura. She inspires us all.

Liliana Sikorska

Professor Michiko Ogura in “A Fair Field Full of Folk” Keywords: Michiko Ogura, Michel de Montaigne, Jacek Fisiak, Susan Sontag, IAUPE (International Association of University Professors of English)

In his essay “Of Friendship,” Michel de Montaigne asserts that true friendship is predestined by fate, “by some ordinance from heaven” (1958, 139). Accepting this statement, one may surmise that Professor Michiko Ogura and I were meant to meet. Going back in time, though, I cannot recall when I encountered Professor Ogura for the first time. On reflection, it seems that she has always been a part of my professional life, as she frequently participated in medieval conferences organized by the School of English (now the Faculty of English) at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. We might have met in July 1996 when Professor Ogura first came to Poznań, but I doubt it. She recalls that she did meet my future husband, Jacek Fisiak, at that time, having been acquainted with him two years before, and says: I remember clearly that I met Prof. Fisiak at ICEHL 8 (1994) in Edinburgh, when he asked me to give a plenary paper in the next conference in Poland (1996). But I think we met in ICEHL 6 (1990) in Helsinki for the first time. I was in Valencia in 1992, and so I might have met him there as well, but I am not sure about it. It was 1995 when he visited Oizumi for the Kyoto Conference, where I read a short paper. (Ogura, pers. comm., Sept. 2020)

For both of us, the reminiscences of conferences are bound up with the recollections of private meetings, concurrently clarifying and obfuscating the past. Restructuring the space of individual memories is complicated because we are trained to be precise and straightforward, while memory is essentially imprecise.1 Still, I am not going to present Professor Ogura through her scholarly achievements –​which are important and numerous (there are other scholars

1 I am well aware of Mary Carruthers’s seminal study on memory in medieval culture (1990) and Antonio Damasio’s “hidden gifts of memory” as outlined in his locus classicus (1999), but a more in-​depth discussion concerning memory would be out of place in the present essay.

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more qualified to discuss her works) –​but through photographs featuring Michiko in her element, among other friends and colleagues, in “a fair field full of folk.”2 It is certainly true that private recollections of such events produce associations that “extend far beyond the personal” (Kuhn 1995, 5). Instances of professional life encapsulated in photographs become more than commemorations of certain events, as they shape our inner worlds, our identities. What follows is a short meditation on the significance of private records in public life and the power of professional relationships which turn into friendships. As is clear from the above discussion, memory is a finicky Muse, affording us not only glimpses of the bygone events but also diverse versions of the same occurrences. As Annette Kuhn argues, there is no ultimate truth of the past because we constantly revise our memories through the performative acts of remembering: “[M]‌emory never provides access to or represents the past ‘as it was’ ” (1995, 157). In her view, the past is always mediated, rewritten, revised –​ through memory; and moreover that “the activity of remembering is far from neutral” (158). This is how meaning is accorded to the past. Only Jorge Luis Borges’s character, Funes the Memorious, remembered everything, every detail of every day of his life (1999, 131–​37); the rest of us recalls scraps of dialogue and some incidents, thereby creating mental maps by holding on to some images, which imprint themselves more vividly, and leaving out others. The retention of certain events, however, is disrupted by the non-​linear function of memory. It is irrelevant whether extraordinary or commonplace events are celebrated in the photographs; their significance is, so to say, in the eyes of the beholder. Both types create what Kuhn terms “the memory text,” which is essentially “a montage of vignettes, anecdotes, fragments, ‘snapshots,’ flashes” (1995, 162). The said flashes of images pinpoint the oscillation between fragmentation and fusion, certainty and uncertainty, of the simultaneous understanding and misunderstanding of the past. As it transpires, in order to preserve the ephemerality of one’s experiences one has to engage in an act of remembering, and photographs can be auxiliary in evoking the occasions they purport to document.

2 Original: “A fair feld, ful of folke” (Langland 1873, 1, line 19). The contemporary version is found in Langland (1992, 41).

Professor Michiko Ogura in “A Fair Field Full of Folk”

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August 12, 2000: the Laȝamon Tour organized by Professor Jane Roberts, after the Laȝamon conference in London. This is a group photo taken by Jacek Fisiak, outside the Areley Kings Parish Church in Touport-​ on-​ Severn, Worcestershire. We are sitting at the table enjoying mid-​morning tea, coffee and biscuits (in the English meaning of the word), together with Professor Keiko Ikegami, Professor Koichi Jin and his wife, Professor Michiko Ogura, and me. Michiko is smiling contentedly. For two days, we had been visiting various churches connected with Laȝamon in little-​known places. We are dressed in holiday clothes, and quite obviously enjoying the excursion; even more so because we are privileged to be part of the group working in related research areas and can impart our observations with colleagues sharing similar scholarly interests. During the Laȝamon tour, I remember Jacek telling me about his friendships with Japanese scholars, Michiko Ogura in particular. He was impressed with the scope of Michiko’s work on the history of English, her conscientiousness and dedication. I think this tour is my earliest memory of Michiko as a colleague; to see Michiko as a friend I would have to wait until a trip to Tokyo in 2003, and a day in various Ginza shopping centers, where she patiently withstood my trying on various clothes and helped Jacek and me with a long list of presents for people back home. Ten years later, in 2013, at the Medieval Symposium of the IAUPE conference in Beijing, I had no qualms pestering her about Samurai movies and the Japanese cinema, and I will always cherish the book on bushido (Nitobe [1905] 2019) she sent me as a present some time later. Michiko’s thoughtful gifts of Japanese literature translated into English encouraged my interest in Japan and the links between older and more recent English authors fascinated with the country of the Rising Sun sparked a new area of research for me and my colleagues. This pursuit has now been used during my seminars and has impelled the onset of a new program of English and Japanese studies, which we plan to open in the near future at the Faculty of English, Adam Mickiewicz University. None of this would have happened without Professor Ogura’s active involvement.

August 26, 2002: the conference on English and historical linguistics in Glasgow The trajectory of one’s own development is inevitably linked with others whom we meet during the pilgrimage of life. Thus, any relationship, any friendship, is a voyage of discovery, recorded in and retrieved through photographs. In Susan Sontag’s delineation, “[p]‌hotographs are valued because they give information”

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(1977, 22). I do not remember who took the picture of our table at the conference dinner; it must have been a colleague passing by. We are all looking at the camera smiling merrily. There is Professor Michiko, Professor Young-​Bae Park, Professors Dieter Kastovsky and Barbara Kryk-​Kastovsky, Jacek and myself. Strikingly, I do not remember that dinner. Memories evoked by a photo do not simply spring out of the image itself, but are deposited through a network of discourses that shift between the past and the present, the spectator and the picture. The associations are generated through the cultural context of events and are bound with the practice of “unearthing” personal recollections; they “have their power as images (or copies) of the world …” (Sontag 1977, 133). Quite possibly, sentimentality makes us keep photos, and somehow notwithstanding the proper contextual narrative, they make our past real. Thus, even if photographs are “manifestations of the ordinary” (Barthes 1981, 73), it is my ordinary that they reclaim. Flirting with Mnemosyne, I am quite aware that my memory might be playing tricks on me here, as I am attempting to restructure and textualize private recollections.

November 27, 2004: MESS (Medieval English Studies Symposium), at a restaurant in Poznań, Antoninek The restaurant was discovered by Jacek. It served typical Polish food and had space enough to entertain a considerable number of guests. At a large table, Michiko is sitting together with Dennis Preston, his wife, and Paul Szarmach. Looking at their smiling faces I can almost hear the hum of their talk, their laughter. I have always admired Michiko’s ease of moving between Japanese and English cultures, but in this picture, she is very much at home in Poland as well. The photograph captures the intensity of these moments of conversation, implicitly dramatizing what, in the above-​described representations, was a rather static image, of us frozen in time, posing for the photograph. The “frozen” aspect, both in the literal and metaphorical sense, can be observed in the subsequent photographs (I have them all collected in an album), as 2004 was the year when we were building our house. On the following day, Jacek dragged Young-​Bae Park, Michiko Ogura, Merja Stenros, and Paul Szarmach to see the site; and so on a murky November afternoon, they stand freezing in front of the half-​constructed building, in what was to become my street, but what was then, plainly, a field, but perhaps not full of folk.

Professor Michiko Ogura in “A Fair Field Full of Folk”

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July 13, 2006: the Leeds Congress In 2006, Professors Michiko Ogura and Hans Sauer organized a session at the Leeds Congress, to which Jacek and I were invited. After the session, we are caught standing in the classroom happy and relieved that the papers are done. Sontag argues that “[p]‌hotographs do not simply render reality-​realistically. It is reality which is scrutinized, and evaluated, for its fidelity to photographs” (1977, 87). Indeed, group photographs taken at conferences are set within particular conventions of photographic portraiture, suggesting joviality and the spirit of congeniality, but also a discharge from the tension of performance. In this case, photography’s connection with realism is surpassed by the modeling. We are not “caught” during the session but pose to document and endorse the moment; thus, the picture itself represents only what is partially revealed, the gratitude for Michiko’s hard work. Many Polish scholars were fortunate to be invited by Professor Ogura to speak at various conferences. She was always generous and supportive, full of encouragement, and her efforts to organize scholarly events have always been appreciated not only by colleagues from my university but also by others, fortunate enough to become part of the medievalist entourage. We have all experienced Michiko’s extraordinary hospitality and kindness.

May 15, 2008: Poznań This is a picture of Michiko in our garden, which I think was taken at the time of her postdoctoral defense in Poznań. By then, she was always treated by my colleagues and myself as an honorary citizen of Poznań, a more or less permanent fixture in our university life. The snapshot includes Jacek and Professor Ruta Nagucka from the Jagiellonian University in Cracow. Because of the perspective, it looks as if they were standing in a much larger space, not in a field, but certainly with folk. Whenever Michiko came to Poznań, we always met outside the university, so as to have time for quiet discussion. Talking about friendship, Francis Bacon enumerated three benefits; first, it offers “the ease and discharge of the fullness and swellings of the heart” (1985, 139); second, friendship helps us “out of darkness and confusion of thoughts” (142); and third, as we assume different roles in life, of children, spouses, parents, only a friend “may speak as the case requires” (144), and we are able to supersede the parts we play. The image of Michiko Ogura in the garden represents a private moment, testifying to the transformation of a professional association into companionship, confirming the three aspects of friendship fittingly declared by Bacon.

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Our friendship was also celebrated in 2019, when I visited Kobe, owing to Michiko Ogura’s help with organizing the trip. I dedicated the lectures about a novel by an English writer, Andrew Miller, set in wartime Tokyo, to Michiko. The dedicatee of the work was shown in a photograph, taken on August 31, 2012 during a trip to Kamakura, which she organized for a group of medievalists participating in the 2012 SHELL conference in Tokyo. It was a very hot day, and Michiko was the only one dressed in a dress and a jacket, withstanding the heat with the refinement of a true descendant of the Samurai, whose code of behavior, as she told me, required that they never show tiredness, thirst, or hunger in any circumstances. The rest of us trudged slowly after her, trying to stop at various air-​conditioned coffee and tea houses on the way. In the picture, Michiko is standing alone, waiting for the group struggling to catch up with her. She has grace, poise, and a heart-​warming smile. As she is standing close to a bridge, this portrait bears a symbolic significance, the bridge between countries and people, the past and the present, reminding us that friendship opens up worlds beyond our own. Linguistics favors word over image, but let us reverse the Latin phrase, ut poesis pictura, a picture should be like poetry. And it is, thereby incorporating into writing the power of an image. Pictures, even if presented chronologically, offer only an episodic account. While retaining narrative potential, they capture nostalgia for the fleeting moments of our lives. We might say, concurring with Susan Sontag, that photography preserves “the kind of beauty that only the camera reveals –​a corner of material reality that the eye doesn’t see at all or can’t normally isolate …” (1977, 90). In Bacon’s views, “Magna Civitas, Magna Solitudo, because in a great town friends are scattered” (1985, 138) and that bars people from forming true fellowships. So, in the present-​day world, it is conceivably even more important, more of a blessing, to have a network of friends. I see Michiko as one of the pillars of my world, the unchangeable anchor of my life. When we met during Jacek’s illness, she was the most sympathetic, and when he died she offered words of great comfort. The last book Jacek looked through was her work on Periphrases in Medieval English (2018); what is more, in 2020 together with Jane Roberts, she edited a special issue of Poetica (Roberts and Ogura 2020) dedicated to his memory. I do not think that I can ever adequately express my gratitude for her friendship, but looking at the photos I have described, representing Professor Michiko Ogura in “a fair field full of folk,” I have always been glad to find myself part of these gatherings.

Professor Michiko Ogura in “A Fair Field Full of Folk”

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References Bacon, Francis. 1985. The Essays. Edited by John Pitcher. London: Penguin. Barthes, Roland. 1981. Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. Translated by Richard Howard. New York: Hill and Wang. Borges, Jorge Luis. 1999. Collected Fictions. Translated by Andrew Hurley. London: Allen Lane. Carruthers, Mary. 1990. The Book of Memory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Damasio, Antonio. 1999. The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness. London: Vintage. Kuhn, Annette. 1995. Family Secrets: Acts of Memory and Imagination. London: Verso. Langland, William. 1873. Piers the Plowman: Text C. Edited by Walter W. Skeat. EETS os 54. Oxford: Oxford University Press. —​—​—​. 1992. Piers Plowman: The A-​Text: An Alliterative Verse Translation. Translated by Francis Dolores Covella. Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies. Binghamton, NY: State University of New York. de Montaigne, Michel. 1958. The Complete Essays of Montaigne. Translated by Donald M. Frame. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Nitobe, Inazo. (1905) 2019. Bushido: The Soul of Japan. Reprint, New York: Putnam. Ogura, Michiko. 2018. Periphrases in Medieval English. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Roberts, Jane, and Michiko Ogura, eds. 2020. Language, Literature and Culture of Old and Middle English, in Memory of Ian Kirby and Jacek Fisiak. Poetica 93 and 94, special issue. Tokyo: Maruzen-​Yushodo. Sontag, Susan. 1977. On Photography. New York: Picador.

Magdalena Bator

Noun Phrase Modification in Medieval Cooking Instructions –​Revisited Keywords: culinary recipe, noun phrase, premodification, postmodification, Middle English

1. Introduction Numerous scholarly discussions have addressed noun phrase modification and its historical development in English writings. These include such aspects as (a) the position adjectival modifiers occupy within a noun phrase (see, for instance, Raumolin-​ Brunberg 1994; Fischer 2000, 2006; Moskowich 2002; Moskowich and Crespo 2002; Tyrkkö 2014); or (b) the changing patterns in the use of pre-​and postmodifying structures (see, for instance, Norri 1989; Raumolin-​Brunberg 1991; Biber and Clark 2002). Although relatively much attention has been devoted to the examination of noun modification in medical texts (for instance, Biber et al. 2011; Moskowich 2009; Sylwanowicz 2016), the use of pre-​and postmodifying structures in culinary recipes has been discussed only recently in Bator and Sylwanowicz (2020). This paper treats the two types of recipes (culinary and medical) comparatively and, among other conclusions, suggests a possible shift from post-​to premodification in cooking materials towards the end of the medieval period. As the corpus analyzed was rather limited and the emphasis was put on similarities and differences between two types of recipes, any conclusions concerning tendencies within the culinary material are rather tentative and require further investigation. The present study therefore builds upon the article by Bator and Sylwanowicz (2020) and concentrates exclusively on early culinary texts in order to establish a taxonomy of nominal patterns used in particular decades of the Middle English period. The database consists of approximately fifteen hundred instructions of various length. The process of collecting and dividing the corpus has been dictated by the availability of the cooking collections, which –​especially at the earliest stage of the period –​were highly limited. Therefore, any quantitative data quoted in the analysis will be presented as percentage values in order to make the results reliable. Altogether the corpus selected for this study consists of over fifteen hundred culinary recipes from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, that

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is from the time when the first English culinary recipes were written down, until the end of the medieval period. The entire list of collections can be found in the list of Primary Sources at the end of the paper. The earliest period, that is 1320–​1380, is the least represented, due to scarcity or lack of recipes written in these years; for the same reason, some decades are not represented at all; for later decades, an approximately equal number of recipes was selected, that is around two hundred –​the approximated numbers result from the fact that complete collections rather than samples were analyzed. It should be borne in mind that the recipes evolved in terms of their length, which means that the later a recipe the longer it could be. Thus, the same number of recipes from various decades constitutes text samples of different length. The following subperiods are represented in the corpus: –​ –​ –​ –​ –​ –​ –​ –​

1320s: 5 % of all the recipes (i.e. 3 % of total length of recipes) 1380s: 7 % of recipes (i.e. 6 % of total length) 1390s: 15 % of recipes (i.e. 13 % of total length) 1430s: 16 % of recipes (i.e. 18 % of total length) 1450s: 13 % of recipes (i.e. 16 % of total length) 1460s: 15 % of recipes (i.e. 18 % of total length) 1480s: 15 % of recipes (i.e. 15 % of total length) 1490s: 14 % of recipes (i.e. 11 % of total length)

According to Biber et al. (2009), noun modification reflects historical developments in terms of the target audience and the purpose of a text. They state that English nouns are either pre-​or postmodified by one of the following: (a) attributive adjectives, (b) participial adjectives, and (c) nouns; postmodification may additionally take the form of: (d) appositive noun phrases, or (e) prepositional phrases. Noun modification also involves clausal modifiers, in the form of: (f) relative clauses, (g) ing-​clauses, (h) ed-​clauses, and (i) to-​clauses. Bator and Sylwanowicz (2020) found that medieval culinary recipes included patterns composed of attributive and participial adjectives, as well as nominal and prepositional modification. Clausal modification was sporadic in the culinary material. Additionally, their study, although focused on a comparative analysis, shows a shift from post-​to premodification; the latter increased in the fifteenth century as a possible departure from French structures. The corpus selected for this study has been searched manually in order to extract all the instances of noun phrases modified by at least one element. The results were categorized into three groups: (i) premodified noun phrases; (ii) postmodified noun phrases; and (iii) noun phrases with both pre-​and postmodification. Next, groups (i)–​(ii) were further subdivided on the basis of the specific

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structural variants of modification into: (a) attributive adjective +​noun; (b) participial adjective +​noun; (c) noun +​head-​noun; (d) head-​noun +​noun; (e) noun +​attributive adjective; (e) noun +​participial adjective; and (f) noun +​prepositional phrase. Only indisputable phrases were taken into account; therefore, sequences separated by punctuation marks, as in Take hennys or porke, rostyd & chopyd (Take hens or pork, roasted and chopped); noun phrases included in the headings, which often took the French form, as many of the recipes were based on or derived from French instructions; and phrases including measure terms such as oynouns a grete quantite (onions, a great quantity), sugur a god perti (sugar, a good party) were not included in the study.

2. Analysis As the text samples representing the respective decades are not of equal length, ­figure 1 illustrates the number of modifying phrases found in the analyzed corpus per one hundred lines of text as well as per number of recipes examined. It seems that there is no clear tendency for increase or decrease in the use of pre-​ and postmodification with respect to chronological distribution. modification per 100 lines

modification per no. of Rs

100. 80. 60. 40. 20.

.

1320s

1380s

1390s

1430s

1450s

1460s

1480s

1490s

Figure 1.  Normalized frequencies of modifying phrases in the particular sub-​periods

Most of the collections analyzed show a comparable number of these struc­tures, but for the beginning and end of the investigated period. On the one hand, the earliest texts seem to be abundant in noun modifying patterns, with the highest ratio per one hundred lines of text. But if we take into account the number of recipes, the extent of the use of modifying phrases in the earliest analyzed decade is average in comparison with the later decades. A possible explanation for such a difference may be found in the fact that the earliest medieval recipes were very

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concise, made of short paratactical sentences, written in telegram style, some of them –​such as those collected in Diversa Cibaria (1325) –​were composed of a list of ingredients (thus noun phrases) with hardly any clauses (see, for instance, Görlach 2004). The later a recipe, the more descriptive it was; thus, it may be assumed that a similar number of noun phrases referring mostly to ingredients were used per recipe, but the same length of text consisted of fewer recipes in the later period. And so, the frequency of noun phrases used in the earliest (and shortest) recipes was higher than in the later texts of similar length. Similarly, there is a discrepancy in the ratio of noun modification in the latest decade studied here if we compare the number of modified phrases with respect to the length of text and the number of recipes. The former shows an increase, the latter, on the contrary, a decrease in the use of pre-​and postmodification. As such a situation was against the expected trend, to find a probable explanation I looked closer at the content of the particular collections assigned to this decade. It turned out that some of the recipes included in one of the 1490 collections correspond to recipes in the Forme of Cury, which is a fourteenth-​century collection (see Hieatt 1996, 2006). Looking at the particular structures, there are no clear tendencies towards either pre-​or postmodification with respect to the chronological distribution (see ­figure 2). Premodification is underrepresented at the beginning of the fourteenth century but becomes approximately equally popular as postmodification in the later decades. This suggests that the conclusion drawn by Bator and Sylwanowicz (2020) referring to a possible shift from post-​to premodification in the fifteenth-​century culinary material was premature. In order to investigate each of the particular structures, in what follows, the study will be presented according to the type of modifier (adjective –​attributive and participial, noun, and prepositional phrase). Figure 3 shows the frequency of use of each of these modifiers. Attributive adjectives are the most common, followed by prepositional phrases; participial adjectives and nouns are less frequent.

Noun Phrase Modification in Medieval Cooking Instructions – Revisited premodification

postmodification

33

pre- and postmodification

100 75 50 25 0 1320s

1380s

1390s

1430s

1450s

1460s

1480s

1490s

Figure 2.  Percentage of pre-​and postmodifying structures in each of the analyzed periods

3000 2400 1800 1200 600 0 attr. adj.

part. adj.

noun

preposition

Figure 3.  The number of particular modifiers

In the sections to follow, each type of modifiers will be discussed in detail, beginning with the most frequent one, which is the attributive adjective.

2.1 Adjectives as modifiers 2.1.1  Attributive adjectives Generally, there are two interpretative positions concerning adjectives as modifiers. First, represented by scholars such as Lightfoot (1979) and Hawkins (1983), is that adjectival modifiers shift from the pre-​nominal position which

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they occupied in the Old English period to post-​nominal in Middle English. Another viewpoint, for instance that of Raumolin-​Brunberg (1994), is quite opposite, and advocates a change from post-​to pre-​nominal position.1 As the earliest culinary recipes come from the fourteenth century, and thus we are able to analyze later medieval material only, it is impossible to see which pattern has been followed in the case of this text type.2 However, as illustrated in ­figure 4, most of the analyzed material contains attributive adjectives in pre-​nominal position. As a result, the approach advocated by Hawkins and Lightfoot may be discarded and the data agree with Raumolin-​Brunberg’s (1994) results, which demonstrated that over 90 percent of late Middle English adjectives pre-​modified nouns. Following Fischer (2006), attributive adjectives in post-​ position may be accounted for by the influence of French, which justifies phrases such as aqua ardent (a kind of liquor), powdour fort (strong powder), aneys whyte (white anise), quybibes hole (whole cubeb).3 Additionally, among the phrases selected in the analyzed material, adjectival postmodification was also found in elliptical structures, such as þe colur red (the colour red) next to full clauses, as in þe colour schal beon qwyt (the colour shall be white), often placed at the end of a recipe to refer to the final taste or look of a dish.

1 For a discussion of the two approaches, see Fischer (2006). 2 The only material which might serve as a point of reference in the analysis of adjective position in Old English is the study offered by Halvorsen on the medical Leechbook (2020). However, one should bear in mind that (medieval) culinary and medical texts differed in a number of aspects (see, for instance, Bator and Sylwanowicz 2017a, 2017b, 2020), and thus, there might have been discrepancies also in the use of noun modification between these two registers. 3 Powdour fort (strong powder) constitutes most of the examples found in the collections dated to the 1390s.

Noun Phrase Modification in Medieval Cooking Instructions – Revisited premodification

35

postmodification

46 37 28 18 9 0 1320s

1380s

1390s

1430s

1450s

1460s

1480s

1490s

Figure 4.  Percentage of attributive adjectives used in pre-​and postposition

2.1.2  Participial adjectives The use of participial adjectives as modifiers demonstrates an opposite result. These tend to occupy post-​rather than pre-​position (see ­figure 5). premodification

postmodification

30

23

15

8

0 1320s

1380s

1390s

1430s

1450s

1460s

1480s

1490s

Figure 5.  Percentage of participial adjectives used in pre-​and postposition

The use of verb-​derived adjectives (present or past participles) is a factor which, according to Fischer (2006), conditions the post-​position of adjectives in Middle

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English. Among the factors which, as Fischer writes, determine postmodification, is the French origin of either the adjective or the head and the use of such phrases as ‘fixed units’. As the French element is extremely frequent in these recipes, this seems to be the case for most of the postmodified phrases. They can be juxtaposed with phrases in which the components are of Germanic origin, such as grounden benes (ground beans), drawen benes (peeled beans), sodyn eyryn (boiled eggs), gratyd Brede (grated bread) –​in which case premodification is the preferred word order. Among the postmodified noun phrases, which, due to their frequency, may be treated as fixed units are: oynons mysid (minced onions), payndmayn gratyd (grated white bread), almondes (un)blanched ((un)blanched almonds, which sporadically also appears as blaunchyd Almaundys (blanched almonds)), hony clarified (honey clarified, also sporadically: claryfyid hony (clarified honey)). Additionally, the fourteenth-​century material contains a number of noun phrases modified by participial adjectives which imply cross-​reference, as in þe forseid mede (the aforesaid mead). In such cases, the adjective is always preposed, which may be accounted for by following Fischer (2006), who writes that definite noun phrases are as a rule premodified.

2.1.3  A sequence of adjectives Whenever more than one adjectival modifier is used, their position depends on the type of adjectives involved: (a) attributive and participial adjectives –​the former usually preposes, the latter postposes the noun, as in grete birdes rostyd (great birds roasted), god powder rostyng (good powder roasting), grene chybolles smale yhewe (green spring onions chopped small), fresch beef boyled (fresh beef boiled). Single instances of a reversed order were found in the corpus, as in clarefied hony colde (clarified honey cold), next to the more common: fayr clene hony iclaryfyede (fair clean honey clarified); (b) two (or more) attributive adjectives –​usually premodify the head, e.g., goode Freyssche Elys (good fresh eels), gode þikke mylke (good thick milk), fyne thykke mylke (fine thick milk). In such cases the first of the adjectives is usually of a qualifying/​evaluative type. Additionally, a few instances of the Old English pattern (see Fischer 2000) were found in the corpus, that is attr. adj. +​noun +​(and) +​attr. adj., e.g., good meal and royal (good meal and royal), brode leches þynne (broad slices thin), fat motoun fresch (fat mutton fresh), faire water colde (fair water cold); (c) two (or more) participial adjectives –​most of them are postpositioned, e.g., oynouns iboiled and minced (onions boiled and minced); however, a

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37

few examples were found in which the two adjectives are placed on both sides of the head, as in myed bred sethynge (grated bread seething), Myncyd Almaundys y-​fryid (minced almonds fried), tried ginger pared (crushed ginger peeled).

2.2 Noun as a modifier The sequence of a noun followed by another noun may be treated either as a compound or as a noun phrase modified by a noun.4 Those who distinguish compounds from morphological and syntactic phrases composed of two nouns list several features which allow for making such a distinction. These factors include: (a) listedness –​compounds being those items which are included in dictionaries as separate entries; (b) spelling –​compounds being represented as one orthographic item; (c) stress pattern –​first component being stressed in case of compounds, the second in case of syntactic constructions; (d) syntactic isolation of the first component in a compound; (e) co-​ordination of syntactic structures –​ impossible with compounds; (f) replacement of the head by “one” –​impossible with compounds; and (g) fixed word order (of compounds). The above criteria are treated with a certain amount of care by scholars who analyze Modern English as they often do not give a reliable distinction between compounds and syntactic phrases (see, for instance, Bauer 1998, 2019). Moreover, these criteria cannot be treated as decisive factors for medieval English given our limited access to the medieval repositories, and frequent lack of language rules (as in the case of spelling). Therefore, following Sauer (1992), I consider the borderline between a compound and a syntactic noun phrase in Middle English to be rather fuzzy and these two cannot be clearly differentiated. And thus, in order to distinguish compounds from noun phrases modified by nouns, I have decided to include in the analysis only those items which were represented orthographically as two elements. That is, if a sequence of two nouns was found written together within the analyzed corpus, all the tokens of this type were excluded from the investigation, e.g., rost yron vs. roastiron, or gyngyuer bred vs. gyngebred.5

4 Some scholars claim that all sequences of two nouns should be treated as compounds, and certain varieties should be viewed as their subclasses, see, for instance, Bauer (1998). 5 English spelling was far from being fixed, of course; however, this criterion seemed to be the most appropriate as far as this corpus is concerned. Reliability was an issue with

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Among the noun +​noun phrases selected from the corpus, two variants can be distinguished: (a) head-​noun +​modifying noun, and (b) modifying noun +​ head-​noun. Figure 6 illustrates the percentage of these structures in the chosen decades. It seems that a certain shift from pre-​to postmodification in noun phrases took place in this material. Note, however, that ­figure 6 is based on the percentage of tokens used in the corpus. The fact that certain types of phrases were extremely frequent in terms of tokens accounts for the high frequency of postmod­ ification. Among the most common expressions which overstate the postposition of nouns are the names of various powders, written in fourteenth-​century recipes as pouder ginger (powder ginger), pouder canell (powder canel), pouder peper (powder pepper), but appear in the late fifteenth-​century instructions with an of-​phrase (poudre of gynger, poudir of canel, powder of peper). Additionally, the high frequency of phrases denoting various powder mixtures, such as powdour douce (duke’s powder) or powdour marchaunt (merchant’s powder), also contributed to the high rate of postposition of nouns.6 premodification

postmodification

20

15

10

5

0 1320s

1380s

1390s

1430s

1450s

1460s

1480s

1490s

Figure 6.  Percentage of nouns used in pre-​and postposition

other criteria, given the limited nature of the material; it was therefore impossible to determine whether entries might have reversed word order, coordinated phrases, or how a particular example might adopt inflection. 6 For a discussion of the use of various powders and spices in medieval recipes, see Bator (2013).

Noun Phrase Modification in Medieval Cooking Instructions – Revisited

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The majority of noun +​noun phrases found in the corpus are genitival constructions: they either take s-​inflection, as in (a) below, or stand for an of-​ phrase but without an overt preposition, as in (b). The latter, especially in the fifteenth-​century material, corresponds also with the of-​phrases such as powdur of peper, powdour of ginger. (a) genitival phrases: schepys talwe (sheep’s tallow), caponys body (capon’s body), hoggys fet (hog’s feet), the kynges table (the king’s table), Swynys grece (swine’s grease), egges ȝolkes (eggs’ yolks), almondes mylk (almond’s milk), capons broth (capon’s broth), þe gurnards tayle (the gurnard’s tail). (b) of-​structures (without an overt preposition): saffron poudre (powder of saffron), kyne mylke (milk of cow), powdour galyngale (powder of galingale), sugur cypre (sugar of Ciprus), raisouns coraunce (raisins of Corinth). Additionally, the corpus has a few examples of appositive phrases including Seynt Iohn þe Baptist (Saint John the Baptist), þe lord spenser (the lord Spencer), festum Michelis (Michaelmas feast), all proper names.

2.3 Prepositional phrase as a modifier Prepositional phrases are always in postposition. They are extremely frequent in all the decades analyzed here. The majority of these are of-​phrases, often with a number of modifiers, as in: a lyour of paryngys of crustys of whyte bredde drawyn with wyn (a thickening of crusts of white bread mixed with wine),7 past of paryd floure knodyn with milke of almondys (paste of prepared flour kneaded with milk of almonds), a porcyon of clene larde of fat of bacon well sodyn (a portion of clean lard of fat of bacon well sodden). Similar to the postposited noun modifiers discussed in the previous section, the high rate of the of-​phrases is due to the popularity of some ingredients, such as flour of ryse (flour of rice), mylk of almaundys (milk of almonds), raisouns of coraunce (raisins of Corinth), ȝolkes of ayren (yolks of eggs), or various powders: poudere of gyngere (powder of ginger), powder of peper (powder of pepper), among others. In the fourteenth-​ century material, some of the nouns were followed by a prepositional phrase introduced by a foreign element, as in charge de quyns (preserve of quinces), Foille de pastee (foil of paste), garette de moutoun (ham of mutton), greyn de parys (grains of Paris), oyle de olyue (oil of olive), showing the French origin of

7 In this example both paryngys and crustys refer to ‘crusts of bread’, see the MED (s.vv. ‘paring(e, ger.(1) 3’, and ‘cruste, n. 1a’).

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a particular instruction (since some of the recipes were translated from French or Anglo-​Norman).

3. Conclusions The first collections of culinary recipes written in English come from the fourteenth century. However, the earliest instructions were, to a large extent, based on or even translated from French or Anglo-​Norman collections; and thus, they reveal a great influence of French. Later collections often “draw on earlier sources” and may contain a “substantial amount of material from one or more of them [earlier collections], mixed with recipes from other sources” (Hieatt 2002, 20). Even recipes taken from earlier collections are usually altered in terms of their length and amount of detail concerning the preparation of a dish. As a result, variants of the same recipe written in the early fourteenth and late fifteenth centuries may be distant enough to be treated as instructions for the preparation of two separate dishes. It seems that more precise recipes should contain more specialized linguistic structures, noun modification being one of them. Such a viewpoint agrees with Biber et al. (2009, 182), who suggest (though with reference to later texts) that the use of “elaborate noun phrases” connects to a shift in the target readership: the more specialized the audience, the more frequent the occurrence of some syntactic structures, such as passive verbs, relative clauses or noun modification. Bearing in mind that medieval culinary recipes were aimed at a homogenous audience,8 it is no surprise that no clear shift or increase in the use of modification patterns could be discerned during the two centuries studied here (see ­figures 1 and 2). However, a more extensive study addressing early Modern English instructions –​probably directed at lay audiences9 –​may bring more evident and discernible results as to the relation between the type of modification used and the readership. As far as the corpus analyzed here is concerned, all the types of modification found represent phrasal modifiers (see table 1); clausal modification, such as þe metee þat is ihwyted (the food that is whitened) or reysyns to don þrin (raisins to 8 Following Diemer (2013, 140), medieval recipes were “clearly made for professional cooks, since modern measurements are almost completely missing.” Scully (1995), Hammond (2005), and Brears (2008) held the same views, claiming that the recipes were to consult rather than instruct, and a medieval cook used them as memory aids rather than proper instructions on how to prepare a dish. 9 See, for instance, Diemer (2013) and Görlach (2004).

Noun Phrase Modification in Medieval Cooking Instructions – Revisited

41

do therein), was extremely rare in medieval culinary instructions (see Bator and Sylwanowicz 2020, 49). Table 1.  The percentage of particular structures in the respective decades (adjA =​attributive adjective; adjP =​participial adjective; Nh =​ head-​noun) decade adjA +​N adjP +​N N +​Nh Nh +​N N +​adjA N +​adjP N +​PP pre-​ +​ N +​ -​post 1320s 18.1 0.4 6 0.4 8.1 20.6 45.6 0.8 1380s 42 4.3 9.9 1.3 0.7 6.3 33.5 2 1390s 29.2 4.1 6.3 7.9 6.5 16.5 27.2 2.3 1430s 44 5.1 5.9 9.7 0.6 6.1 26.2 2.4 1450s 50.6 6.9 3.5 6.1 0.4 2.9 28.4 1.2 1460s 38 5.8 4.1 2 0.9 10.6 36.2 2.4 1480s 35.9 5.8 6.6 10.4 0.4 12.4 25.5 3 1490s 34.1 10.3 9.3 2 0.8 8 33 2.5

total: =​100 % =​100 % =​100 % =​100 % =​100 % =​100 % =​100 % =​100 %

Two structures dominated here: premodification with an attributive adjective, and postmodification with a prepositional phrase. The former are generally very frequent in English, regardless of register (see Biber et al. 2009). The latter, with the lead of the of-​phrase, was highly popular in the material examined here, irrespective of the decade, which agrees with Fries’s conclusions (1940). Participial adjectives are preferred in post-​rather than in pre-​position. Most of them corroborate Fischer’s claim (2006) that the French origin of the components contributes to participial postmodification of a noun. Finally, nouns were used either as pre-​or post-​modifiers. It seems that the high ratio of these patterns depended on the popularity of certain ingredients, such as various powders or such items as almond milk or rice flour. Throughout the corpus all these phrases had prepositional equivalents, and the choice between a noun +​noun or noun +​ of-​phrase pattern seems to be arbitrary, as no regularities have been noticed here.

References Primary Sources Austin, Thomas, ed. 2000. Two 15th-​Century Cookery Books. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hieatt, Constance B., ed. 1988. The Ordinance of Pottage: An Edition of the 15th c. Culinary Recipes in Yale University’s MS Beinecke 163. London: Prospect Books.

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—​—​—​. 1996. “The Middle English Culinary Recipes in MS Harley 5401: An Edition and Commentary.” Medium Aevum 65.1: 54–​71. —​—​—​. 2004. “The Third 15th-​Century Cookery Book: A Newly Identified Group Within a Family.” Medium Aevum 73.1: 27–​42. —​—​—​. 2008. A Gathering of Medieval English Recipes. Textes Vernaculaires du Moyen Age 5. Turnhout: Brepols. Hieatt, Constance B., and Sharon Butler, eds. 1985. Curye on Inglysch: English Culinary Manuscripts of the 14th Century. London: Oxford University Press.

Secondary sources Bator, Magdalena. 2013. “Sugar and Spice and All Things Nice: An Analysis of the Culinary Vocabulary in Middle English.” Kwartalnik Neofilologiczny 60.4: 425–​38. Bator, Magdalena, and Marta Sylwanowicz. 2017a. “The Typology of Medieval Recipes: Culinary vs. Medical.” In Essays and Studies in Middle English, edited by J. Fisiak et al., 11–​33. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. —​—​—​. 2017b. “Once You See It, Once You Don’t: The Case of Null Object in Medieval Culinary and Medical Recipes.” In Current Developments in English Historical Linguistics: Studies in Honour of Rafał Molencki, edited by A. Kijak et al., 51–​67. Katowice: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego. —​—​—​. 2020. “Noun Phrase Modification in Middle English Culinary and Medical Recipes.” Academic Journal of Modern Philology 10: 39–​55. https://​ajmp.uni.wroc.pl/​upl​oad/​vol​ume-​10/​Bator_​Sylw​anow​icz.pdf. Bauer, Laurie. 1998. “When Is a Sequence of Two Nouns a Compound in English?” English Language and Linguistics 2.1: 65–​86. —​—​—​. 2019. “Compounds and Multi-​Word Expressions in English.” In Complex Lexical Units, edited by B. Schlücker, 45–​68. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Biber, Douglas, and Victoria Clarke. 2002. “Historical Shifts in Modification Patterns with Complex Noun Phrase Structures.” In English Historical Syntax and Morphology, edited by T. Fanego et al., 43–​66. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Biber, Douglas, et al. 2009. “Noun Phrase Modification.” In One Language, Two Grammars: Differences between British and American English, edited by G. Rohdenburg and J. Schlüter, 182–​93. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —​—​—​. 2011. “Prepositional Modifiers in Early English Medical Prose: A Study on Their Historical Development in Noun Phrases.” In Communicating

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Early English Manuscripts, edited by P. Pahta and A. H. Jucker, 197–​211. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brears, Peter. 2008. Cooking and Dining in Medieval England. Wiltshire: Prospect Books. Diemer, Stefan. 2013. “Recipes and Food Discourse in English: A Historical Menu.” In Culinary Linguistics: The Chef ’s Special, edited by C. Gerhardt et al., 139–​55. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Fischer, Olga. 2000. “The Position of the Adjective in Old English.” In Generative Theory and Corpus Studies: A Dialogue from 10 ICEHL, edited by R. Otero-​ Bermúdez et al., 153–​81. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. —​—​—​. 2006. “On the Position of Adjectives in Middle English.” English Language and Linguistics 10.2: 253–​88. Fries, Charles C. 1940. “On the Development of the Structural Use of Word-​ Order in Modern English.” Language 16: 199–​208. Görlach, Manfred. 2004. Text Types and the History of English. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Halvorsen, Rita. 2020. “Adjective Position in Old English from a Micro-​Level Perspective.” MA thesis, University of Oslo. Hammond, Peter. (1993) 2005. Food and Feast in Medieval England. Thrupp: Sutton Publishing. Hawkins, John A. 1983. Word Order Universals. New York: Academic Press. Hieatt, Constance B. 2002. “Medieval Britain.” In Regional Cuisines of Medieval Europe: A Book of Essays, edited by M. Weiss Adamson, 19–​45. London: Routledge. —​—​—​. 2006. A Concordance of English Recipes: Thirteenth through Fifteenth Centuries. Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. Lightfoot, David W. 1979. Principles of Diachronic Syntax. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Moskowich, Isabel. 2002. “The Adjective in English: The ‘French Type’ and Its Place in the History of the Language.” Folia Linguistica Historica 23.1–​2: 59–​71. —​—​—​. 2009. “Of Medicineȝ Sedatyueȝ: Some Notes on Adjective Position and Oral Register in Middle English Medical Texts.” Studia Anglica Posnaniensia 45.1: 57–​68. Moskowich, Isabel, and Begoña Crespo. 2002. “Adjectival Forms in Late Middle English: Syntactic and Semantic Implications.” Studia Neophilologica 74: 161–​70.

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Norri, Juhani. 1989. “Premodification and Postmodification as a Means of Term-​ Formation in Middle English Medical Prose.” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 90: 147–​62. Raumolin-​Brunberg, Helena. 1991. The Noun Phrase in Early Sixteenth-​Century English: A Study Based on Sir Thomas More’s Writings. Helsinki: Societé Neophilologique. —​—​—​. 1994. “The Position of Adjectival Modifiers in Late Middle English Noun Phrases.” In Creating and Using English Language Corpora, edited by Udo Fries, Gunnel Tottie, and Peter Schneider, 159–​68. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Sauer, Hans. 1992. Nominalkomposita im Frühmittelenglischen. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag. Scully, Terence. 1995. The Art of Cookery in the Middle Ages. Woodbridge: Boydell Press. Sylwanowicz, Marta. 2016. “And þan it wole be a good oynement restoratif … Pre-​and Postnominal Adjectives in Middle English Medical Recipes.” Anglica 25.2: 57–​71. Tyrkkö, Jukka. 2014. “Strong Churlish Purging Pills: Multi-​Adjectival Premodification in Early Modern Medical Writing in English.” In Diachronic Corpus Pragmatics, edited by I. Taavitsainen et al., 157–​86. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Daniel Donoghue

Periphrastic Verb Constructions in Old English Verse and Lawman’s Brut Keywords: periphrasis, periphrastic verbs, auxiliary, word order, early Middle English

Over her richly productive career Professor Michiko Ogura has illuminated that area at the intersection of morphology and syntax in the development of the English language, with special attention to Old and Middle English. A good example is her recent book Periphrases in Medieval English (2018), which offers a cogent summary of different kinds of phrasal verbs, such as the periphrastic don, passive constructions, and modal auxiliaries. Each chapter tracks changes in usage from OE to ME and is informed by illustrative passages drawn from primary texts like Ælfric’s prose or Lawman’s verse chronicle and by reference to secondary sources, including over sixty articles and books by Professor Ogura herself. Thus, Periphrases in Medieval English can be read as a triumphant epitome of her various studies, especially those involving verbs, over the decades. Professor Ogura’s investigations have led me to revisit my studies on periphrastic verbs: specifically the pairs consisting of an auxiliary and a verbal, the former of which I broadly define as a finite verb that allows a second verb in the same clause to be in non-​finite form (Donoghue 1986, 1987). These include (1) modal auxiliaries plus infinitives, such as     Wē þæs þonc magon secgan sigedryhtne symle bi gewyrhtum, þæs þe hē hine sylfne ūs sendan wolde “For this we can always say thanks to the Lord of victory for our merits because he was willing to send himself to us” (Christ I 127b–​29) (2) finite forms of beon/​wesan/​weorðan plus past participles as the equivalents of passives, Þā wearð on slȳpe sylfum ætȳwed þām cāsere “Then it was revealed to the emperor in his sleep” (Elene 69–​70) and Þā wæs on gange oft geæhted

gifu Hrōðgāres

46

Daniel Donoghue “Along the way Hrothgar’s gift was often praised” (Beowulf 1884–​85) (3) finite form of habban plus past participle,     þā þe snyttro cræft þurh fyrngewrito gefrigen hæfdon “those who had learned the power of wisdom through ancient writings” (Elene 154b–​55) (4) a verb of motion plus an infinitive of motion, Cōm þā tō recede rinc siðian drēamum bedǣled “Deprived of joys, the warrior came venturing to the hall” (Beowulf 720–​21) (5) form of onginnan plus an infinitive, Ðā þæs fricggan ongan folces aldor “Then the people’s prince began to ask” (Elene 157) (6) various accusative-​and-​infinitive constructions, including þæt ic on wāge geseah wlitig hangian ealdsweord ēacen “that I saw hanging on the wall a beautiful, massive ancient sword” (Beowulf 1662–​63) and Heht þā on ūhtan mid ǣrdæge wīgend wreccan “Then at the dawn’s first light he ordered the warriors be aroused” (Elene 105–​06a)

The passages quoted here offer an incomplete but representative sampling, and they give an idea about the syntactic variability in poetry. My earlier studies tabulated the presence of such pairs in different kinds of clauses and noted their relative positions. The auxiliary (v) can appear before or after the verbal (V); the pairing Vv can constitute its own half-​line; and sometimes v is clause-​initial. For each of the eighteen poems, I also noted whether the auxiliary appeared in a metrically stressed position; infinitives and past participles are most often stressed, but not always.1 In “Word Order and Poetic Style in The Metres of Boethius” (Donoghue 1986), I compared prose and verse versions of the OE translation of Boethius’s 1 On the metrical stress of non-​finite forms of verbs, see Stanley (1975). Old English poems are quoted from Krapp and Dobbie (1931–​53) with vowel lengths added; the OE translations are my own.

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Consolation of Philosophy to examine how they differ in each genre. Although auxiliary-​and-​verbal constructions are more common in verse, they are amply attested in prose, and their specific positions in the word order show regular differences between prose and verse. Style in Old English Poetry (Donoghue 1987) used statistics of auxiliary-​and-​verbal features to compare eighteen of the longer poems in the OE canon. The features examined included the position of the auxiliary in relation to the verbal (vV or Vv), and whether the auxiliary was in a metrically stressed position. Both studies generated conclusions about auxiliary-​and-​verbal pairs because they were frequent, variable, and conventional (thus possibly outside complete conscious control). One of the main conclusions is that OE poems do not fall into patterns that can be identified as a “school” or associated with a particular mode of poetry. An exception to this undifferentiated range were those poems associated with Cynewulf, whose work showed a great deal of consistency, but even this consistency was far from absolute. Another way to characterize the broad similarity among the poems studied is that the auxiliary and verbal constructions were integral to the verse syntax: every OE poet used them and used them in generally similar ways. They were an essential part of traditional poetics. The following table gives the complete count of auxiliary-​and-​verbal constructions in the eighteen poems listed, beginning with those that show the highest proportion: poem

number of lines

number of auxs.

number of auxs. per 100 lines

Maldon Christ & Satan Guthlac A Meters of Boethius Andreas Genesis A Juliana Elene Christ I Beowulf Christ II Christ III Daniel Guthlac B Solomon & Saturn Exodus Phoenix Metrical Psalms

325 729 818 1750 1722 2219 731 1321 439 3182 427 798 764 561 506 590 677 5040 22,599

92 164 172 343 336 428 140 249 83 592 79 145 132 96 85 87 94 617 3934

28.3 22.5 21.0 19.6 19.5 19.3 19.2 18.9 18.9 18.6 18.5 18.2 17.3 17.1 16.8 14.8 13.9 12.2

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On average there are between 17 and 19 auxiliaries per 100 lines.2 Given the pervasiveness of these periphrastic constructions, they provide a means of tracking the continuity or change of poetic conventions in early ME, especially Lawman’s Brut, which as a 16,000-​line alliterative verse chronicle in early ME offers a ready source of comparison. After a survey of the kinds of auxiliaries used in Brut and their basic element order, this study will focus on two constructions in particular: the bracketing pattern, in which the auxiliary is clause-​initial and line-​initial, and the verbal is line-​ final; the other is the verbal-​auxiliary half-​line, in which the verb phrase alone constitutes a complete half-​line. Both are pervasive in OE and (it would seem) not difficult to construct. The differences in periphrastic verbs between the OE and Lawman’s verse help refine our understanding of how poetic conventions changed in the generations after the year 1100. The following survey of Lawman’s auxiliary and verbal pairs is representative, not exhaustive, and lends support to the general observation that periphrastic verbs are a common syntactic feature, beginning with the opening line, “An preost wes on leoden, Laʒamon wes ihoten.”3 A rough estimate of more than 20 auxiliaries per 100 lines would be conservative, and the proportion may be closer to 30 per 100 lines.4 The analysis in the following pages relies on large samplings obtained through keyword searches of an electronic edition of the Caligula text.5 The auxiliaries identified include forms of cunne, agunnen and biginne, habben, haten, mæi, mot, scal, iseon, wulle and nulle, and wurðen. The verbs are identified here using the rather idiosyncratic headwords of Madden’s glossary (Madden 1847), which is useful in providing variant spellings of individual forms. Quotations are drawn from the two-​volume Early English Text Society edition (Brook and Leslie 1963, 1977). The samplings for each word are copious enough to lend credence to the general patterns identified, as the following two passages

2 This table is modified from that in my book (Donoghue 1987, 6) by the omission of the numbers for Genesis B, which is in many ways an outlier. 3 I count six auxiliary-​and-​verbal pairs in the thirty-​five lines of the prologue on lines 1, 7, 8, 13, and two on line 21, which is roughly the same frequency as in the Old English poems studied in Style (1987). The general impression throughout the Brut is that periphrastic constructions are common, even without subjecting it to a numerical analysis. 4 These estimates are based on counts from sample passages throughout the chronicle. 5 Layamon’s Brut (London, British Library, MS Cotton Caligula A. ix), accessed through the Middle English Compendium: http://​name.umdl.umich.edu/​Lay​Cal. The other manuscript is London, British Library Otho C.XIII.

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illustrate. They are unusual only in the frequency of periphrastic verbs but not in the variety of individual constructions, which is fairly typical: Ich habbe þesne leod-​king; ileid in mine benden. & his broðer al-​swa; hit is þe bet mid us. & his leoden of-​slawen; ihc am him þa laðere. & alle his ahte; iʒeuen mine æðelinge. ʒif ʒe hit rædeð; ʒe beo[ð] mine riche men. ich wulle mid swerde; his heue[d]‌of swippen. & ʒif ʒe hit wille[ð] ich hine wlle spillen. & ʒif ʒe me readeð; ich hine wille freoien. ʒif he me ʒefeð gersume; gold & seoluer. alle his maðmas; wið þon þa he mote libben. “I have taken the king of this country into captivity and his brother also—​so much the better for us!—​and have slain his followers and given all his possessions to my nobles—​I am all the more hateful to him! If you, who are my leading men, so advise, I will strike off his head with my sword, and I will kill him if that is your wish. And if you so advise me, I will set him free if he gives me tribute, gold and silver, all his riches in exchange for his life.”6 (lines 436–​45)

Another passage illustrates the potential variety in the order of v and V. It forms part of Merlin’s prophetic utterance about Uther Pendragon and Ygerne, which makes frequent use of scal: Ah longe is æuere; þat ne cummeð nauere. þat he heo biwinne; bute þurh mine ginne. for nis na wimmon treowere; in þissere worlde-​riche. & neoðe-​les he scal aʒe; þa hende Ygærne; on he scal streonen; þat scal wide sturien. he scal streonien hire on; ænne swiðe sellichne mon. Longe beoð æuere; dæd ne bið he næuere. þe wile þe þis world stænt; ilæsten scal is worð-​munt. and scal inne Rome; walden þa þæines. Al him scal abuʒe; þat wuneð inne Bruttene. of him scullen gleomen; godliche singen. of his breosten scullen æten; aðele scopes. scullen of his blode; beornes beon drunke. of his eʒene scullen fleon; furene gleden. ælc finger an his hond; scarp stelene brond. scullen stan walles; biuoren him to-​fallen. beornes scullen rusien; reosen heore mærken.

6 Translations for Lawman throughout are from Barron and Weinberg (1995), modified in some passages.

50

Daniel Donoghue Þus he scal wel longe; liðen ʒeond londen. leoden biwinnen; & his laʒen sette; “But it will never happen, as long as time shall last, that he shall win her save by my magic skill; for there is no truer woman in this mortal world. And yet he shall have the fair Ygerne nonetheless; on her he shall beget one who shall rule far and wide; he shall beget on her a most remarkable man. As long as time lasts, he shall never die; while this world lasts, his fame shall endure; and he shall rule the princes in Rome. All who dwell in Britain shall obey him. Of him shall minstrels splendidly sing; of his breast noble bards shall eat; heroes shall be drunk upon his blood. From his eyes shall fly sparks of fire; each finger on his hand shall be a sharp steel blade. Stone walls shall fall down before him; men shall tremble, their banners fall. So for a long, long time he shall go about the world conquering nations and establishing his laws.” (9400–​18)

In some lines, v is separated from V, but more often they are adjacent. In most instances v precedes V, but not always (e.g., “ilæsten scal,” 9407). Line 9415 shows an example of a bracketing pattern, which will be discussed below. Even with the variety on display in this passage, the basic underlying pattern is SvV, such as “he scal aʒe” (9403). This element order accounts for over one-​third of constructions with scal throughout the poem. The Otho redactor has modernized (or made less archaic) the lexicon of the Caligula manuscript, which is generally assumed to be closer to Lawman’s original, but the syntax in the Otho redaction remains largely unaffected, which suggests that the word order itself was not old-​fashioned (Stanley 1994). We can expand this basic SvV pattern by allowing for some minor variations, such as an adverb or object pronoun on either side of the auxiliary, as in the ­examples below: We scullen ous bi-​redien we hit sculleð bi-​burien we sculleð wel whreken we scullen him don we nu sculleð cuðen

(2095) (5205) (5392) (6021) (12545)

Adding this simple expansion to the basic pattern encompasses over one-​half of clauses with scal in Lawman’s Brut. Even allowing for the short length of most clauses, either one half-​line or a full line in length, we can perceive a more general principal that, for Lawman, the auxiliary and verbal remain near one another, as most of the examples so far illustrate, although there are more than a few passages with a different order of the elements. The same basic word order of SvV, especially if the subject S is a pronoun, characterizes other modal auxiliaries, such as mæi, as the following passage illustrates:

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51

Of Spaine ich wes ut idriuen; and al mi driht-​liche folc. swiðe muchel we habbeoð i-​soht; bi þisse sæ-​rime. a lond þe us were liðe; þe we mihten on libben. ne maʒe we hit ifinden; for næuer næne þinge. lond to ure leoden; þer we maʒen to liðen. “I and all my good followers were driven out of Spain, for a very long time we have searched along this coast for a land which would be suitable for us, a land in which we might live; despite every effort we cannot find it, find a homeland to which we can sail.” (3097–​101)

Line 3100 shows an inversion of the negative modal before the subject pronoun (“ne maʒe we”), which is a not-​infrequent variation, but SvV is far more common, offering more evidence supporting the basic order. Note also the other periphrastic constructions in this passage “ich wes ut idriuen” (3097) and “we habbeoð i-​soht” (3098) showing the same element order. There is an interesting set of counter-​examples with the order SVv, in a full-​ line formula repeated in a number of passages throughout the chronicle. To give an idea of its basic structure and its frequency, I quote all of them, illustrating the concluding Vv of each line: Þe king hine bi-​þoute; wat he don mahte Neoþelas he hine bi-​þoute; wat he don mahte & he hine bi-​þohte; wet he don mahte Leir kin hine biþohte; wat he don mohte he hine bi-​ðohte; weht he don mihten Þe king him bi-​ðohten; whet heo don mihten Gurguint hine bi-​þohte. what he don mæhte Carrais hine biþohte. whæt he don mæhte Þas cheorles heom bi-​þohten. whæt heo don mihten ofte he hine bi-​ðohte. wæht he don mahte Hengest hine bi-​þohte; what he don mahte Hengest hine biðohte; whæt he don mahte Rouwenne heo bi-​þohte; whæt heo don mahte ofte he hine biþohte; whæt he don mahte Octa hine bi[ð]ohte; whæt he don mahte Colgrim hine biþohte; whæt he don mahte Arður hine biðohte; whæt he don mahte Arður hine biþohte; whæt he don mahte Æscil king hine bi-​þohte; whæt he don mahte ofte he hine biþohte; wæt he don mahte ofte heo heom biþohte; what heo don mihte Ofte heo biþohten; what heo don mahten ofte he hine bi-​þohte what he don mahte Ofte he hine biðohte; what he don mahte

(520) (955) (1468) (1572) (2291) (2847) (3044) (5296) (6118) (6631) (7206) (7350) (7434) (9330) (9661) (10001) (10022) (11104) (11626) (14167) (14465) (14987) (15039) (15261)

52

Daniel Donoghue

Each is a variation on “X pondered what X could do.” Part of what gives the formula stability is the near rhyme of biðohte and mahte (and variants), which ensures that the auxiliary falls after the verbal.7 The formula’s impressive frequency may also owe something to its usefulness in the narrative in signalling a moment of transition when a character or characters ponder a dilemma and make plans to address it. For the purposes of this study the formula shows that the order Vv was clearly an option for the verse line, although far outnumbered by vV. The modal wulle-​n in its various inflected forms appears quite extensively in Lawman, with over seven hundred occurrences altogether. In some passages they come in quick succession: For Gudlac him sende word. bi ane wise monne; þat if he him wold leoðien. of laðe his benden; þat he wolde his mon beon. mid alle his mon-​ueorde; & he him wolde ʒeuen al þat gold. þe he haueden i Denemark lond. & ælcche ʒere him senden; þreo þusund punden. her-​to him wolden finden. ʒisel of his gilde “For Godlac had sent him word by a man who was discreet that, if he would free him from his hateful bondage, he would become his liegeman along with all his followers, and he would give him all the gold which he had in the land of Denmark, and each year send him three thousand pounds; in addition he would furnish him with hostages as guarantors of his tribute.” (2383–​88) Al þat ich þe bi-​hate. ich hit þe wulle halden; ich wulle ʒeuen þe mine dohter. þa me is swiðe deore “All that I promise you, I will fulfil. I will give you my daughter, who is most dear to me.” (2456–​57) Ah nu ich wulle sende in-​to þon lond; to iwiten at þon bezste. ʒif heo me wulleð buʒen and ʒif heo me wulleð senden. gauel of heore londe; for ʒif heo wulleð ʒirne grið. nulle ich heom noht fehten wið “But now I will send into that country to find out for certain if they will submit to me, and if they will send me tribute from their land; for if they are prepared to sue for peace I will not fight with them.” (3635–​38)

These passages are typical in the expected element order of SvV, with the auxiliary adjacent to the verbal in most clauses. As with other periphrastic constructions, the order can on occasion vary, as in line 1682:

7 Occasionally another verb like beon appears instead of don, and there are some other variations, such as heo nomen heom to ræde; what heo don mæhten, line 8355, where ræde replaces biþohte. See Tatlock (1923, 497–​98).

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Nu ich wulle hunne faren; forð-​rihte to Cornwalen. ʒernen ich wulle rædes; to Regau mire dohter “Now I will go straight from here to Cornwall; I will seek assistance from my daughter Regau.” (1681–​82)

In addition to scal, mæi, and wulle-​n (using Madden’s headwords), the same predominance of SvV obtains for mot and its various forms, such as “ʒif we mote libben” (13192). Variations from that order are not uncommon, as with two constructions in the following passage: And seo[ð]ðen þu scalt i-​witen; and faren to heofne-​richen. for no most þu nauere-​mære; Ængle-​lond aʒe. ah Alemainisce men; Ænglen scullen aʒen. and næuermære Bruttisce men; bruken hit ne moten. “And then you shall depart and pass to the kingdom of Heaven, for you are never again to possess England. But Germanic people shall possess England, and the Britons shall never again have it in their keeping.” (16016–​19)

The first auxiliary, most, has the order vS…V, with inversion of the subject pronoun and auxiliary; and the second, moten, has Vv. Nevertheless, as with the other modals the order, SvV is far more frequent, usually with the inflected verb adjacent to the infinitive. The verb cunne completes this initial survey of modals, which in Lawman can be used as either an auxiliary or a lexical verb, both of which are conveniently illustrated in the following passage about a wise scholar named Magan: He wes a wis clærc; & cuðe of feole cræften. he cuðe wel ræden; he cuðe feor læden. he cuðe of þan crafte; þe wuneð i þan lufte. he cuðe tellen; of ælche leod-​spelle. “He was a learned scholar and had expertise in many arts; he was a sound adviser and far-​sighted; he knew the art of astrology, he knew how to speak every language.” (7860–​63)

As the Middle English Dictionary explains in the first sense for connen, the verb can mean “To have ability, capability, or skill: be able (to do [something]), be capable (of doing [something]), know how (to do [something]).” This passage neatly shifts between having practical knowledge of a cræft and knowing how to read, to lead, and to tell: ræden, læden, tellen. For the purposes of this study, however, the attention focuses on the periphrastic constructions in which cunne functions as a modal auxiliary, and in each case the order is SvV: Þa he cuðe gan; & speken wið folke. “When he could walk and speak with people.” (1207)

54

Daniel Donoghue Þa þis child wes iwaxen; þat hit cuðe riden “When this boy had grown and was able to ride.” (6439) Brien enne smið funde; þe wel cuðe smiðie “Brien sought out a blacksmith who was skilled in his trade.” (15345)

The related set of inceptive auxiliaries, agon, biginne, and gon bring out the ingressive and perfective aspect of the action of the infinitive. þa sunne gon to scine; þe rein bi-​gon to rine “The sun began to shine, the rain began to fall.” (15919) heo bigunnen to fihten “they began to fight.” (14132)

Some uses of ginnen in ME, however, began to assume more of the function of an auxiliary, as the MED explains under sense 3b: “a weak auxiliary used with infinitives to form phrases denoting actions or events as occurring (rather than as beginning to occur): do, did.” The earliest illustrative quotations with this sense in the MED are from Lawman’s Brut. In this regard the “weak auxiliary” is similar to con and periphrastic do (Mustanoja 1960; Terasawa 1974). In many passages it can be impossible to say whether the past tense of ginnen should mean “began” or be taken as the weak auxiliary denoting past action. Both senses are illustrated in the first quotation below, as indicated by the translation, and the separate semantic functions seem to have no effect on the verb’s syntactic position. Furthermore, as periphrastic constructions they stand apart from the modals previously considered because they can take an inflected infinitive (Ogura 2018, 41–​42). But a far greater number have uninflected infinitives, which would be the common form in OE verse: Summe heo gunnen ærnen; & somme heo gunnen eornen. & summe heo gunnen pleien; “Some raced on horseback, some on foot, and some began to sport together.” (4054–​55)

The two kinds of infinitives can even appear in the same passage: Heo bi-​gunnen þene wude feollen. & heo bi-​foren leggen. mid stocken & mid stanen; & mid stelene orden. heo gunnen heom to werien; wið heore wiðer-​iwinnen “They cut down the trees and piled them before them; they began to defend themselves against their enemies with sticks and stones and with spears.” (4339–​41)

As with other auxiliaries, the usual element order is SvV, illustrated in the examples above, and in most instances the infinitive immediately follows the

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55

auxiliary. However, there are a considerable number of Vv constructions, as with the formula “he cleopien agon” (10213; similarly 10286, 10302, 10597, 11973, 12599, and 13260). These will be discussed in more detail below (p. 62). Verbs of motion with an infinitive of motion form another identifiable category of periphrasis in both OE and Lawman’s ME verse (Ogura 2002a; 2002b; Mitchell 1985, § 1543). Tweiʒe dawes & tua niht; inne sæ weren. þen oðer dai heo comen liðen; on æuen to londe “They were at sea two days and two nights; on the evening of the next day they approached land.” (559–​60) An wis cniht þer com ride; to þas kinges uerde “There came riding to the king’s army a wise knight.” (13070)

Once again the predominant word order is SvV. A distinctive periphrastic category discussed by Professor Ogura is beon/​ habban +​past participle, the development of which she analyzes in the context of OE and early ME texts, including Lawman (Ogura 2018, 25–​28; see also Mitchell 1985 §§ 705–​43). In Lawman the verb of being is especially common with infinitives of motion, including come: ich æm hidere icume; ich æm of þine cunne. Her is Baldulf icumen; mid swiðe hærde hære-​gumen “I who have come here am a kinsman of yours. Baldulf has come here with hardy warriors.” (10105–​06)

There are over one hundred such constructions with the past participle icume(n), and still others with different verbs of motion, such as ifare(n). The alternative periphrastic construction for tense, habban +​past participle, is more characteristic of infinitives expressing action other than motion. The following passages give typical examples: Seoððen he hæfde iwunnen Gascunne “After he had conquered Gascony” (3606) heo habbeoð ibroht to me tol for heore æhte. and heo habbeoð me i-​tald. & treowðen i-​plihte “they have brought to me the tolls for their merchandise, and have told me and plighted their troth” (6646–​47) þat heo heuede idon þer-​in “that she had poured therein” (7488) Mi lond he hafeð to- dæled “He has divided all my land” (10394)

56

Daniel Donoghue Her-​æfter sone; þat word com to Rome. þat Coel hæfden iquald Asclepidiot þene king; Þa weoren Rom-​leoden. bliðe on heore mode; for he hæfde an his daʒen. muchel of heore cunne islaʒen “Shortly after this the news that Coel had killed King Asclepidiot reached Rome. Then the Romans were glad at heart, because while he lived he had slain many of their race.” (5450–​53)

Another prominent auxiliary-​ and-​ verbal construction is commonly known as the accusative-​and-​infinitive, which can be constructed from a variety of inflected verbs, such as haten, “to order someone to do something”: he hæhte ælcne mon; chireche-​grið halden “he always ordered everyone to respect the right of sanctuary.” (11138)

Such constructions with haten are common in Brut. Other verbs that can be used in accusative-​and-​infinitive constructions include seon and þenchen: for he isah Rouuenne; halden þene bolle “since he had seen Rouwenne holding the goblet” (7487) Þa com he in are strete; þat strahte to Rome. þa isah he leden; of Englisce leoden. þreo swiðe fæire men; faste ibunden. “When he came to a road leading to Rome he saw being led captive, tightly bound, three very handsome men of English stock” (14699–​701) Þa isah he of Brien; his teres ut luken “Then he saw Brien’s tears flowing from him” (15109) me seoluen he þohte; driuen ut of mire leoden “he planned to drive me myself out of my realm” (10395) bi-​nimen heo him þohte his lif “she planned to take his life” (1996) þu þenchest to setten o þin hond; al middel-​ærdes lond “you seek to take all the land in the world into your possession.” (3658)

Whether the examples with þenchen are, strictly speaking, accusative-​and-​infinitive constructions or yet another of the many verbs that can be accompanied by an infinitive (Mitchell 1985, §§ 954–​55) matters less for the purposes of this study than noting the element order (usually SvV) and metrical features, which are consistent with other auxiliary-​and-​verbal constructions. Continuing a construction from OE, Lawman made use of two periphrastic passives. The first is the familiar and ubiquitous construction with a verb of being +​past participle, beginning with the first line of the poem:

Periphrastic Verb Constructions in Old English Verse and Lawman’s Brut

57

Laʒamon wes ihoten “who was called Laʒaman” (1) Þa ferde wes isumned “The army was assembled” (743) Þe aðes weoren isworene. & æft heo weoren for-​lorene “The oaths were sworn, and later they were broken.” (6073)

Among all be-​passives in Lawman, the preferred word order overwhelmingly is SvV, as the examples here illustrate. Some passive constructions use a form of wurðen rather than the verb of being: Habbe alc god mon; his rihte ʒif Godd hit an. & ælc þrel & ælc wælh; wurðe iuroeid. “Every worthy man shall have his due, if God ordains it, and every serf and every slave be set free.” (7411–​12) Iþonked wurðe Drihtene; þe alle domes waldeð “Thanks be to the Lord who controls all destinies” (10393) Iniðered wurðe þe ilke mon; þe þer-​to nule helpen “May ruin strike the man who will not help in this” (12594)

It is no coincidence that two of the three examples have Vv order and the third puts wurðe in a position of alliteration, because each of the three wurðe examples are best taken as subjunctive (as the translation gives it) and part of an exhortation, which may also contribute to the unusual word order. The wurðe passives are notable in another way, namely because the total number of them in Lawman is quite small, which accords with the gradual obsolescence of this periphrastic passive construction. They have been called “the only false start” in the OE tense system (Wattie 1930, 143; Mitchell 1985, § 748). The preceding survey of auxiliary-​and-​verbal constructions, with attention to their order in the clause, sets the stage to discuss their role in the metrical structure of the verse line. Lawman’s verse is heavily end-​stopped, with most clauses one or two half-​lines in length (Kooper 2013). The Brut situates itself in the longer tradition of the alliterative line extending back to OE, which is recognizable not only in alliteration but also in its diction. Most metrists agree that the meter of Brut is characterized by a variable number of stressed and unstressed syllables, sometimes called lifts and dips.8 Alliteration is found in most lines but is occasionally replaced or accompanied by rhyme. 8 There are a number of studies on the meter of Brut, including Weiskott (2016, 7–​8, 71–​92; Cable (1991, 58–​63); Bredehoft (2005, 99–​120); Brehe (1994); Allen (2002);

58

Daniel Donoghue

My attention to the role of auxiliaries and verbals in the metrical structure is less concerned with applying a metrical theory to the Brut than in investigating the variable and at times ambiguous role of auxiliaries. Verbals for the most part are unproblematic in the practical task of scansion: they usually occupy a stressed position in the line and may participate in the alliteration. The first passage quoted in this study opens with an example: Ich habbe þesne leod-​king; ileid in mine benden (436)

in which leod and ileid alliterate. Other examples of alliterating verbals from passages quoted earlier include and heo habbeoð me i-​tald. & treowðen i-​plihte þa isah he leden; of Englisce leoden.

(6647) (14700)

As in OE, infinitives and past participles occupy a place in the metrical hierarchy roughly similar to that for nouns and adjectives (Donoghue 1987, 9). In one respect the examples given here are not typical because although verbals may alliterate, in most lines they simply occupy a metrically stressed position without alliterating. Nouns and adjectives, by contrast, are more likely to alliterate in both OE verse and Brut. The auxiliaries occupy a more variable and therefore more interesting role. Consider the following passage quoted earlier: He wes a wis clærc; & cuðe of feole cræften. he cuðe wel ræden; he cuðe feor læden. he cuðe of þan crafte; þe wuneð i þan lufte. he cuðe tellen; of ælche leod-​spelle. (7860–​63)

It is worth pausing to give a detailed analysis of the several possible scansions for each occurrence of the verb cuðe. The cuðe in the first line might seem to participate in the alliteration of clærc and cræften, but could the similarity be accidental? Metrists agree it is not a good strategy to consider two syllables as alliterating merely because they begin with the same sound. Consider wes and Glowka (1982); Glowka (1994). Many of these focus on particular features such as the alternation between rhyme and alliteration, or the place of Brut in a longer tradition of alliterative compositions. Among the various studies there is a great deal of variety in practical scansion. See, for example, the difference between Glowka (1994, 58), which construes a rhythm resembling that of an iambic line, and Weiskott (2016, 7), which limits stressed syllables to two per half-​line. My discussion differs in focusing on a particular kind of syntactic feature with optional or variable metrical stress.

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wis in the same line: the verb of being is rarely given metrical prominence unless it is put in an unusual syntactic position. For analogous reasons the cuðe in the first line might fall in an unstressed position, and the two stressed positions are defined by feole cræften, with alliteration solely on cræften. This scansion depends on assigning two stresses in each half-​line. Although elsewhere in Brut a half-​line can have three stressed syllables, most metrists consider two stresses the norm. Now consider the second line of the passage, which has the rhyming end-​words ræden and læden. One possible scansion would be to assign stressed syllables to each word in the phrases wel ræden and feor læden, which would result in well-​formed half-​lines linked by rhyme. On the other hand, the initial sounds of cuðe in each half-​line raise the question of alliteration again: if cuðe alliterates, does that put the adverbs wel and feor in unstressed positions, or do the adverbs retain metrical stress, yielding two matching half-​lines with three stressed syllables each? The options continue in the third line, which has the consonance (or near rhyme) of crafte and lufte. In the second half-​line, the verb wuneð calls for metrical stress because of its semantic weight, faute de mieux. If we apply the same logic to the first half-​line, then cuðe must have the same metrical stress, in which case it would also alliterate with crafte. In the final line, cuðe may also qualify for metrical stress on the principle that a second stressed syllable is required in its half-​line, but this logic presupposes a mandatory minimum of two stresses, which may be less obvious and less mandatory than it seems, since the OE tradition allows for light verses with only one metrically stressed syllable. Although cuðe in 7863 could be assigned to a stressed position, it has no possibility of alliteration; the two half-​lines are formally linked by the near rhyme of tellen and leod-​spelle. The point of this analysis of lines 7860–​63 is to show how auxiliaries can have an ambiguous place in metrical scansion. An argument can be made in favor of a stressed cuðe or an unstressed cuðe in each instance. If cuðe is stressed only in some instances but not others, then each decision runs the danger of having an ad-​hoc quality in the absence of an underlying metrical theory. Because it is easy to find many half-​lines throughout Brut in which the auxiliary must be unstressed, beginning with “Laʒamon wes ihoten” in the poem’s first line, we can rule out mandatory stress for all auxiliaries. Other passages with unstressed auxiliaries –​if one assumes two stressed syllables for each half-​line –​include: þat he wolde his mon beon. mid alle his mon-​ueorde ich wulle ʒeuen þe mine dohter. þa me is swiðe deore beornes scullen rusien; reosen heore mærken

(2385) (2457) (9417)

60

Daniel Donoghue

Although the auxiliaries seem to be unstressed, in other passages metrical stress on auxiliaries is necessary. So the question becomes one of finding a principle for guidance in scansion. Perhaps, the number of syllables is important because in a polysyllabic verb one syllable will inevitably receive more stress than its neighbors. Perhaps, the verb’s semantic weight is important. Perhaps, the type of clause. Perhaps, its position in the verse line. There is more work to be done on this question. One construction, however, consistently calls for metrical stress on the auxiliary, illustrated in the following passages quoted earlier in this study: Hengest hine bi-​ þohte; what he don mahte        (7206) and næuermære Bruttisce men; bruken hit ne moten.      (16019)

There are relatively few line-​ending auxiliaries, although mahte (7206) is part of a full-​line formula used at least twenty-​four times, as listed above (p. 49). When the auxiliary is line-​final it will invariably be metrically stressed. But this status has less to do with part of speech than the word’s placement because the final word of the verse line is consistently stressed in Brut, even if it is as inconspicuous as a preposition: for ʒif heo wulleð ʒirne grið. nulle ich heom noht fehten wið. “for if they are prepared to sue for peace I will not fight with them.” (3638)

The same principle applies to auxiliaries at the end of the first half-​line (not only the end of the full line): me seoluen he þohte; driuen ut of mire leoden “he planned to drive me out of my realm” (10395) and he cleopien agon; his sele cnihtes anan “and he at once summoned his noble knights” (10213)

Although the example with cleopian agon is a formula repeated in a number of passages (discussed below), its Vv word order ending the first half-​line is even more uncommon than a line-​final auxiliary. It is a curious feature of auxiliaries in Brut that they should appear so infrequently at the end of either half-​line in the verse line. Auxiliaries placed at the end of a half-​line in OE verse are fairly common (Donoghue 1987, 7–​19). A related feature of auxiliaries in Brut is the negligible role they play in alliteration, which of course presupposes metrical stress. The passage with cuðe distributed over five lines (discussed above, lines 7860–​63) does not offer a convincing case for alliteration for any of them, although it is not ruled out, either.

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61

What would be more convincing is a line in which the alliteration is less ambiguous, such as: alle his maðmas; wið þon þa he mote libben “all his riches to ensure he be allowed to live” (445)

in which mote alliterates with maðmas; otherwise the line lacks alliteration altogether. A less convincing ­example is buten we moten mid mihten; senden æfter cnihten “unless we should summon warriors in force” (6655)

in which moten seems to provide a second stressed syllable in the first half-​line, alliterating with mihten. The rhyme between mihten and cnihten would not rule out alliteration as a supplementary formal feature, and moten would supply a second stressed syllable in its half-​line, although not linking it with the second half-​line. This scansion also presupposes that the prosody of Brut requires two stressed syllables in each half-​line. Nevertheless, the number of lines with an auxiliary that is unavoidably, clearly alliterating is relatively small. It is another measure of the ambiguous status of auxiliaries in the metrical structure of Brut: in many passages the basic scansion is uncertain, and they rarely play a role in alliteration. Thus far, this study has analyzed the auxiliary and verbal constructions in Lawman’s Brut, with special attention to word order and metrical features. As periphrastic verbs they are ubiquitous in Brut and therefore essential to its poetic language. In this regard they are much like auxiliaries and verbals in OE poems, and that similarity calls for further investigation into particular constructions. One distinctive construction in OE, which I call a bracketing pattern, spans a full line of verse. The line begins with a clause-​initial auxiliary, and the dependent verbal has the final position in the line, as illustrated in the following examples: Hēt ðā eorla hlēo in gefetian, heaðorōf cyning, Hrēðles lāfe golde gegyrede “Then the warriors’ protector, the battle-​strong king, ordered Hrethel’s gold-​ ornamented heirlooms be fetched inside” (Beowulf 2190–​92a) wæs sē blāca bēam bōcstafum āwriten “the brilliant tree was inscribed with letters” (Elene 91) wolde dōm Godes dǣdum rǣdan gumena gehwylcum “God’s judgment would control the deeds of every person.” (Beowulf 2858–​59a) hæfde ǣghwæðer

ende gefēred

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Daniel Donoghue lǣnan līfes. “each of them had reached the end of this fleeting life” (Beowulf 2844–​45) mæg nō snottor guma sǣle brūcan gōdra tīda “no wise man may enjoy the delight of good seasons.” (Guthlac A 35–​36a)

These examples include accusative-​and-​infinitive constructions, modal auxiliaries, passive constructions, and preterites using a form of habban plus past participle. In short, every kind of periphrastic verb can appear in such constructions. They are fairly common. My 1987 study identified 269 bracketing patterns, or approximately one for every four initial auxiliaries in the eighteen OE poems analyzed (Donoghue 1987, 45). As the examples illustrate, the auxiliary is unstressed and clause-​initial; the verbal is a non-​alliterating element at the end of the second half-​line. The clause may end there, making it coterminus with the line, or the clause may continue. In either case the bracketing pattern provides a recognizable construction that neatly combines metrical features with clausal word order. They are common in poems thought to be early, like Exodus, and one known to be late, The Battle of Maldon, created shortly after the year 991. The example of Maldon may be significant because it would run counter to any theory proposing a gradual shift away from the construction in the late OE period. Brut’s heavily end-​stopped verse lines and its ample use of auxiliaries seem to make it ideally suited for bracketing patterns: ne mihten heo Rome-​wal; nawiht onwalden (2844) scullen alle heore wif. widewen iwurðen (4831) ne moste niht-​longes; nauere istonden (7737) Scullen Sæxisce men; sorʒen ibiden (10038) ne sceollen heo on mine hirede; nenne harm þolien (12403) Scullen alle mine feond; wæi-​sið makeʒe (14074)

Each line concludes with an infinitive dependent on the initial auxiliary, and each line is a complete clause. None of the auxiliaries alliterates, and at least some are likely to be unstressed. Clause-​initial auxiliaries, which are necessary for bracketing patterns, are not as frequent in Brut as they are in OE, but even allowing for that difference, bracketing patterns are rare in Brut. Some “near misses” may be instructive: ich wulle mid swerde; his heue[d]‌of swippen (441) nu we maʒen mid sibben; ure lif libben (7659) Þa isah he of Brien; his teres ut luken (15109)

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Because there is no clausal conjunction it would take only a simple adjustment to yield a bracketing pattern, which suggests the poet was not inclined to create them under any condition. Those few that appear may be more the result of chance than design. Although it may be pointless to speculate why a poet chose one syntactic construction over another, lines like these “near misses” support the idea that Lawman, unlike poets before the year 1100, was indifferent to bracketing patterns. Another distinctive construction in OE is the verbal-​auxiliary half-​line, which consists entirely of the verb phrase, usually with the verbal in the first, alliterating position, as in these examples from Beowulf: oð þæt him ǣghwylc þāra ymbsittendra ofer hronrāde hȳran scolde “until every neighbor across the whale’s road was obliged to heed him” (9–​10) siþðan him scyppend forscrifen hæfde in Cāines cynne “after the creator had condemned him among the descendants of Cain” (106–​07)

These two-​word phrases are quite common in OE verse, appearing at a rate roughly of 20 per 100 auxiliaries. They are compact, apparently useful, and often formulaic. Among the poems analyzed in Donoghue 1987, only Solomon and Saturn stands apart from the other poems in the near absence of verbal-​auxiliary half-​lines, because in the 506 lines of both dialogues there is only one, findan ne mihte (line 8b). Lawman’s Brut is far more like Solomon and Saturn in the near absence of verbal-​auxiliary half-​lines than any of the other OE poems: þe king hehte ælne mon; þe luuede þene Cristindom. þat heo þa hæðene; hatien scolden “the king commanded each person who loved the Christian faith that they should loathe the heathens” (7326) ælc þrel & ælc wælh; wurðe iuroeid “every serf and every slave be set free” (7412)

There may be other examples that my search missed, but even by the most generous estimate such half-​lines are quite uncommon. By contrast, if the proportion in Brut were similar to the OE poems other than Solomon and Saturn, we might expect around one thousand verbal-​auxiliary half-​lines. Once again some “near misses” may be instructive: and næuermære Bruttisce men; bruken hit ne moten. “the Britons shall never again have it in their keeping” (16019)

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In this clause the hit may be necessary for the sense but disrupts the simple pairing of the verb phrase. Similarly, in the first example below the conjunction keeps the half-​line from consisting of the verb phrase alone. & bi-​ ginneð to fihten      (2875)

Another near miss is the formulaic phrase, which (again) has one or two function words added to fill out the half-​line. þa cleopien agon        (12599)

(See also 10213, 10286, 10302, 10597, 11973, and 13260.) The cleopien example is interesting for another reason, namely because it echoes a similar half-​line from the OE Elene: on þa cleopigan ongan (line 696). This OE half-​line does not constitute one of the sixty-​two verbal-​auxiliary half-​lines of Elene, however, because of the initial on þa. I include it because it supports the hypothesis that Lawman did not see verbal-​auxiliary half-​lines –​or for that matter bracketing patterns –​as a significant part of his poetic toolkit. The comparison with Solomon and Saturn is suggestive in pointing to another area for further research about the tradition Lawman inherited. Does Solomon and Saturn represent a different poetic genealogy from the “classical” tradition that produced Beowulf and The Battle of Maldon? Whether or not we can identify a specific poetic tradition for Lawman’s Brut, the differences regarding auxiliaries and verbals allow some useful comparisons with OE. First of all, periphrastic verbs are common in both, and that similarity extends to the very choice of auxiliary verbs. The order vV is so common as to be a norm in Brut, although a norm that allows for departures from it. Although the stressed-​based alliterative line used by Lawman owes much to the OE tradition, it has changed in significant ways. For example, the half-​lines in Brut have more syllables on average: a half-​line of seven or eight words is not uncommon. End-​ rhyme and similar aural patterns can link two half-​lines either in place of or in addition to alliteration, and some lines have neither alliteration nor rhyme (Allen 2002). To these general observations we can add that the near-​absence of alliteration on auxiliaries is another similarity between OE verse and Lawman’s Brut. In each kind of verse an auxiliary is in a middle position for metrical stress: its default state seems to be unstressed but is available to be “promoted” to a position of stress. Both OE verse and Brut generally avoid using auxiliaries for alliteration. Although lexical (i.e., non-​auxiliary) finite verbs also occupy a middle position in scansion, they are more likely to be placed in a position of stress, especially verbs with more semantic weight, and they are more likely to alliterate.

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In OE poetry meter and syntax are integrated to a remarkable degree, so much so that an auxiliary remains unstressed in certain, well-​defined positions and acquires metrical stress if moved elsewhere in the clause (Donoghue 2018). Lawman’s poetic practice adheres to different conventions regarding syntax and meter (Fulk 2012, 183–​84). The basic word order resembles that of prose, including the SvV order for periphrastic constructions, although deviations for emphasis or other local effects are common, such as the vSV inversion. The basic SvV order is a feature of what Stanley calls “Laʒamon’s Un-​Anglo-​Saxon Syntax” (Stanley 1994). And yet periphrastic verbs, as Professor Ogura reminds us, remain a constant feature of the poetic line from OE to Lawman’s Brut and beyond.

References Allen, Rosamund. 2002. “ ‘Nv Seið Mid Loft-​Song’: A Reappraisal of Lawman’s Verse Form.” In Laʒamon: Contexts, Language, and Interpretation, edited by Rosamund Allen, Lucy Perry and Jane Roberts, 251–​282. [London]: King’s College London Centre for Late Antique and Medieval Studies. Barron, W. R. J., and S. C. Weinberg, trans. 1995. Brut, or, Hystoria Brutonum. New York: Longman. Bredehoft, Thomas A. 2005. Early English Metre. Toronto Old English Series 15. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Brehe, S. K. 1994. “ ‘Rhythmical Alliteration’: Ælfric’s Prose and the Origins of Laʒamon’s Meter.” In The Text and Tradition of Layamon’s Brut, edited by Françoise Le Saux, 65–​87. Woodbridge, England: Brewer. Brook, G. L., and R. F. Leslie, eds. 1963, 1978. Laʒamon: Brut. 2 vols. Early English Text Society. O.S. 250, 277. London: Published for the Early English Text Society by the Oxford University Press. Cable, Thomas. 1991. The English Alliterative Tradition. Middle Ages Series. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Donoghue, Daniel. 1986. “Word Order and Poetic Style: Auxiliary and Verbal in the Metres of Boethius.” Anglo Saxon England 15: 167–​196. —​—​—​. 1987. Style in Old English Poetry: The Test of the Auxiliary. Yale Studies in English 196. New Haven: Yale University Press. —​—​—​. 1990. “Laʒamon’s Ambivalence.” Speculum 65: 537–​563. —​—​—​. 2015. “Lawman’s Language: A Test Case in Digital Humanities.” In Oxford Handbooks Online: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/​oxfordhb/​9780199935338.013.56.

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Fulk, R. D. 2012. An Introduction to Middle English: Grammar, Texts. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview. Glowka, Arthur Wayne. 1982. “Prosodic Decorum in Laʒamon’s Brut.” Poetica: An International Journal of Linguistic-​Literary Studies 18: 40–​53. —​—​—​. 1994. “The Poetics of Laʒamon’s Brut.” In The Text and Tradition of Laʒamon’s Brut, edited by Françoise Le Saux, 57–​ 63. Woodbridge, England: Brewer. Kooper, Erik. 2013. “Laʒamon’s Prosody: Caligula and Otho—​Metres Apart.” In Reading Laʒamon’s Brut, edited by Rosamund Allen, Jane Roberts and Carol Weinberg, 419–​41. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Krapp, G. P., and E. V. K. Dobbie, eds. 1931–​1953. The Anglo-​Saxon Poetic Records. 6 vols. New York: Columbia University Press. Madden, Frederic. 1847. Laʒamon’s Brut, or Chronicle of Britain; a Poetical Semi-​ Saxon Paraphrase of the Brut of Wace. 3 vols. London: Society of Antiquaries of London. Mitchell, Bruce. 1985. Old English Syntax. 2 vols. Oxford Clarendon Press. Mustanoja, Tauno F. 1960. A Middle English Syntax. Helsinki: Société Néophilologique. Ogura, Michiko. 2002. “Verbs of Motion in Laʒamon’s Brut.” In Laʒamon: Contexts, Language, and Interpretation, edited by Rosamund Allen, Lucy Perry and Jane Roberts, 211–​225. [London]: King’s College London Centre for Late Antique and Medieval Studies. —​—​—​. 2002. Verbs of Motion in Medieval English. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer. —​—​—​. 2018. Periphrases in Medieval English. Studies in English Medieval Language and Literature 54. Berlin: Peter Lang. Stanley, E. G. 1975. “Verbal Stress in Old English Verse.” Anglia 93: 307–​34. —​—​—​. 1969. “Laʒamon’s Antiquarian Sentiments.” Medium Ævum 38: 23–​37. —​—​—​. 1994. “Laʒamon’s Un-​Anglo-​Saxon Syntax.” In The Text and Tradition of Laʒamon’s Brut, edited by Françoise Le Saux, 47–​ 56. Woodbridge, England: Brewer. Tatlock, John S. P. 1923. “Epic Formulas, Especially in Laʒamon.” PMLA 38: 494–​529. Terasawa, Yoshio. 1974. “Some Notes on ME gan Periphrasis.” Poetica (Tokyo) 1: 89–​105. Wattie, J. M. 1930. “Tense.” English Studies 16: 121–​43. Weiskott, Eric. 2016. English Alliterative Verse: Poetic Tradition and Literary History. Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature 96. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Antonette diPaolo Healey

The Verbal Syntax of (ge)hȳran and its Relation to Meaning Keywords: ge-​hyran, Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM), auditory perception, case, lexicography

This paper is offered in honor of Prof. Michiko Ogura, an invaluable colleague and friend of more than forty years, who has illuminated Old English syntax, most especially its verbs, in one learned study after another in her astonishingly productive career.1 For many of us, she has been the face of Medieval Studies in Japan not only through her voluminous publications, but also through her wide participation at international conferences abroad, and through her exceptional skills in organizing international conferences at home. She also has the distinction of contributing no fewer than nine signed entries for the Dictionary of Old English (2018), comprising the important verbs (ge)cweþan, (ge)faran, and (ge)fēran and their past participles. It may seem contrary to honor a scholar who has done masterly work on periphrasis in a range of verbs across the medieval period (Ogura 2018) by presenting her with a study on the inflectional expression of case limited mainly to one verb. Nevertheless, I offer her, in gratitude for her contributions to our field and especially to the DOE, some reflections on how cases encode meaning in the verb “hear” and their representation in the DOE.

The Sonic World What does it mean “to hear”? Not everything has changed in a thousand years or more. We “hear,” i.e., “perceive sound” in much the same way as the Anglo-​ Saxons did by exercising our faculty of hearing. It might even be argued that in the strongly oral culture of the Middle Ages, the Anglo-​Saxons might have heard even more acutely than we at present do, might have been more attuned to their sonic environment, the ambient noise where reading aloud, the reciting of poetry, the singing of songs, the sounding of horns, the striking of bells, 1 An earlier version of this paper was given as a plenary address at the International Symposium on Verbs, Clauses, and Constructions, at the Universidad de La Rioja, 27 October 2016.

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the preaching of sermons, the walking in procession, the perceiving of voices, whether human, angelic or divine –​were ways of daily living in the world.2 Our knowledge of what is heard comes only indirectly; however; it is what texts, our witnesses, tell us is heard. Here are a few of the sounds recorded in our texts: on the island of Farne, Æthelwald “heard the dashing of the storm and of the surging sea”: Bede 5 1.386.7: he gehyrde þæt gebrec þara storma & þæs weallendes sæs (cf. BEDA. Hist.eccl. 5.1, 454 audito etenim fragore procellarum).3 In Beowulf, “the bold monster Grendel suffered wretchedly all the time because he heard every day the joyful din, loud in the hall”; the poet then specifies in what this “joyful din” consists: “there was the sound of the harp, the clear song of the poet-​ singer”: Beo 86: ða se ellengæst earfoðlice þrage geþolode … þæt he dogora gehwam dream gehyrde hludne in healle; þær wæs hearpan sweg, swutol sang scopes. And one sermon writer warns that “the devil teaches us sleepiness … so that we may not hear the clear signal of the bell” to call us to prayer: HomS 6 106: deofol us læreð slæpnesse … þæt we ne magon þone beorhtan beacn þære bellan gehyran. Today our immediate sense of “to hear” is likewise sensory and also physiological. As David Crystal (1997, 142) describes the process of hearing in The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, sound waves travel to the ear, passing through the outer ear, the middle ear, and the inner ear along the auditory nerve to the brain. And yet we know that even those who are profoundly deaf from birth may perceive themselves as “hearing” something. I quote from the autobiography of a deaf man, David Wright, who describes his ability to hear: I do not live in a world of complete silence. There is no such thing as absolute deafness … If I stand on a wooden floor I can “hear” footsteps behind me, but not when standing on a floor made of some less resonant substance—​for example stone or concrete. I can even partially “hear” my own voice. This is not surprising, for people hear themselves talk mainly by bone-​conduction inside their heads … Likewise, I “hear” a piano if I place a finger on it while it is being played … I cannot hear wind instruments (flute, bagpipes, oboe). (Wright 1996, 10–​11; cited in Wierzbicka 1996, 80)

This is a description of hearing which does not depend on the ears.

2 My understanding of some aspects of the oral culture of the Middle Ages draws on the important study by Boynton, Kay, Cornish, and Albin (2016, 998–​1039, especially 998–​1002). 3 All the OE citations are drawn from the DOEC. The short titles and the systems of reference for both the OE texts and the Latin sources are those used by the DOE project and are available at http://​doe.utoronto.ca/​pages/​index.html

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Natural Semantic Metalanguage Drawing on a wide-​range of experience such as this experience of a deaf man assists Anna Wierzbicka and her colleagues in linguistics to develop the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) framework. Their aim is to identify basic words and concepts found in all languages. In short, they are attempting to create a “conceptual and communicative framework.” They categorize the verb hear as a “universal word,” that is, “its meaning, not the word as such is universally shared.” They further classify hear as a “semantic prime” or “primitive” because it is very simple and cannot be defined in terms of other words. According to the proponents of the NSM framework, there are sixty-​five universal primes present in all languages. The verb hear is one of them, listed as a “mental predicate” and grouped with six other mental verbs: THINK, KNOW, WANT, DON’T WANT, FEEL, SEE, HEAR (Wierzbicka 2014, 33–​34).4 We notice at once that the last two verbs in this list pertain to two of our senses. The NSM framework’s classification of HEAR as a mental verb at first seems counterintuitive, for our immediate sense of HEAR is physiological and sensory, according to David Crystal’s definition. However, Anna Wierzbicka distinguishes the concepts in the verbs SEE and HEAR from those of the other sense verbs, SMELL, TASTE, and TOUCH, by noting that they refer to events and processes “which do not rely crucially on the body” (1996, 82). Her emphasis is obviously on the adverb “crucially” because, of course, most of us do rely on the physical to convey hearing in the way Crystal describes. She further elaborates her point that SEE and HEAR are mental concepts by appealing to the conventional language we use of the Deity: we view, she states, as the natural attributes of God the power of seeing and hearing (“God sees our hearts /​actions”; “God hears our prayers”) whereas we do not use the unnatural language of the olfactory sense. We do not say, for example, “God smells something” which she dismisses as a “ludicrous” statement. Her argument, then, is that our conceptions of seeing and hearing are more abstract than smelling, tasting, and touching which do rely crucially on the senses (Wierzbicka 1996, 82). This leads her to hypothesize HEAR as a concept that is both universal and innate.

Cognates to the Verb hȳran The verb hear is an old verb. It is found in the languages cognate with Old English: OFris. hēra, OS hōrian, OHG hōren, ON heyra, Goth. hausjan 4 Wierzbicka (2014) lists the sixty-​five semantic primes and their categories (35, table 4).

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(Holthausen 1974, 159, “hieran”). The word is clearly Common Germanic derived from *χauzjanan ~*χausjanan, and according to Vladimir Orel (2003), cognates outside Germanic seem not to exist. This point of view has not always been accepted, for the OED (“hear v.”) records evidence of the word’s contested etymology in its dismissal as “extremely doubtful” the conjectured relationships between the common Germanic root and the root of the English word ear, Latin audire “to hear,” and Greek ἀκούειν “to hear.” The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology concurs, remarking that the common Germanic root and the Greek word for “hear” are “dubiously connected” (Onions 1966, 433, “hear”). As we cannot securely hypothesize a pre-​Germanic stage for the verb, and therefore an even earlier common Indo-​European root, all that we can confidently say is that, formally, the verb is inherited from Germanic.

The Status of hȳran /​gehȳran The simple form of the verb has a frequency of ca. 600 occurrences; the prefixed form, in contrast, is more than seven times as large, ca. 4400 occurrences; and the past participle gehȳred occurs ca. 300 times, all three forms comprising some 5300 occurrences. This paper focuses mainly on gehȳran, as the prefixed form has a fuller lexical development than the simplex and the past participle. The OED charts thirteen main senses for the sense development of hear v. In very abbreviated form it looks like this: 1.a. 2.a. 2.b. 3.a. 3.b. 4. 4.a. 4.b. 5.a. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.a. 10.b. 11. 12.a 13.a.

intransitive. To perceive, or have the sensation of, sound transitive. To perceive (sound) predicated of the ear the object may be followed by an inf. present participle or past participle, expressing an action the ellipsis of such objects as people, persons in the phrases to hear say, hear tell, etc. To exercise the auditory function intentionally; to give ear, hearken, listen intransitive. transitive. To listen to (a person or thing) with attention or understanding transitive. To attend and listen to (a lecture, sermon, etc.) transitive. To listen to judicially in a court of law; to give (one) a hearing To listen to with compliance or assent; to grant (a request or prayer) To obey. Obsolete. (Only OE, ME, and archaic) Originally with dative. intransitive. To be subject (to); to belong. Obsolete. transitive. To learn or get to know by hearing with object clause absol. or intransitive. To be informed, learn, receive information of To be reported or spoken (well or ill) of The imperative hear!, now usually repeated, hear! hear!

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The DOE entry for gehȳran shows a reduction in primary senses from the OED’s thirteen to the DOE’s ten; these encompass the main categories in the OED which appear in OE: 1. 2. 3. 3.a 3.b. 4. 4.a. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

intransitive: to hear, perceive sound, have /​exercise the faculty of hearing transitive: to hear (something acc.) to hear attentively: listen, listen to (something /​someone) intransitive: to give ear, listen transitive: to listen to (someone /​something acc.) to listen to /​hear (a religious service acc.); mæssan gehyran “to hear /​attend mass,” etc. intransitive. andetnesse gehyran “to hear (someone’s) confession” to hear judicially (a charge against someone), try (someone’s deeds acc.) to listen to with compassion /​favour /​compliance, hear (a suppliant /​supplication acc.) to obey (someone /​something dat.) intransitive: gehyran to /​ into “to belong to (something dat.)” to learn by hearing, be told /​informed

A comparison of the two entries shows that the DOE has omitted the OED’s senses 11, 12, and 13 as they do not exist in OE, but are attested only from the fourteenth century and later. The DOE has also slightly reconfigured the OED’s display, by nesting OED senses 3.a. and 3.b., which provide syntactic information, under sense 2 “to hear (something)” to which they properly belong. In fact, DOE sense 2 is sub-​divided further from 2.a. to 2.f with even more divisions within some of the subdivisions –​twenty in all –​to account for the syntactic richness of the grammatical patterns in this particular sense. And the DOE has added a new sense, sense 5: andetnesse gehyran “to hear (someone’s) confession” which is placed before sense 6 because the DOE editors thought it was the near ecclesiastical equivalent to hearing a case before the law. In senses 5 and 6 “hearing” involves an exercise in judgement about culpability. Interestingly, only these two senses in gehȳran with their juridical bent are not attested in the simplex form of the verb. The past participle also lacks sense 5 “to hear (someone’s) confession” but, in addition, it lacks the two senses which take a dative object, sense 8 “to obey” and sense 9 “to belong to.” The absence of these senses may simply be due to the fact that there are so many fewer citations in the simplex and past participle for consideration. However, all three forms of the verb show audire /​ auditus as the predominant Latin equivalent.

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Degree of “Hearing” and the “Objects” Heard As we ponder the main outlines of the verb hear, we notice that “to hear” can mean different things, frequently dependent upon the degree of our “hearing.” The difference will also vary according to the “objects” heard –​whether people or things. In OE, there is the additional feature of the case expression, whether accusative or dative, which depends on the semantic relationship between elements in the clause. David Crystal (1997, 145) has described for us four stages of auditory perception: 1) when a body reacts to a sound, but is not consciously aware of it (as his example, he cites babies whose reaction to a sound stimulus can only be detected by their involuntary responses of breathing and heartbeat); 2) sound can minimally penetrate our consciousness (e.g., the hum of a refrigerator); 3) the mind is able both to detect and discriminate sound; 4) the mind focuses preferentially on certain parts of an auditory stimulus while disregarding others. As is evident from this neurological progression, there is a difference between “hear, perceive sound” and “hear attentively, listen.” As Crystal concludes, the concepts of “hearing” and “listening” are not the same, and we need to distinguish them (145). Wierzbicka describes the difference between these two meanings another way: to her the concept of “listen” is complex, for it involves “wanting” as well as “hearing” (i.e. “wanting to hear”), whereas “hear” itself cannot be “decomposed” in the same way into simpler concepts (1996, 79). To her “hear” is unitary, universal, and prime. The DOE entry maintains the essential distinction between these two concepts by their separation into different senses.

The Role of the Cases: Accusative Although I have described a difference in sense and cognition between “hear” and “listen,” the transitive forms of both senses display the same grammar, the same combinatory properties: they take their objects in the accusative. Of the two senses, “hear” displays a greater variety of accusative constructions. In writing the entry, the editor’s difficulty lay not so much in disambiguating the senses but in getting control of and displaying the grammar of the word. Here is a sample of subsenses and citations nested under sense 2, “transitive: to hear (something acc.)”: 2.c. with accusative object and infinitive HomS 8 85: hælend ferde þær forþ, & þa gehyrde þone blindan cleopian (cf. GREG. MAG. Hom.evang. 2, 15.77 clamantem … caecum transiens audiuit). “the Savior went forth there and then he heard the blind man calling out.”

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2.d. with accusative object and present participle Lk (WSCp) 18.36: þa he gehyrde þa menego farende, he ahsude hwæt þæt wære (Li geherde, Ru giherde; cf. Lc: cum audiret turbam praetereuntem). “when he heard the multitude passing by, he asked what that was.” 2.e. where subject accusative in accusative and infinitive construction is unexpressed: þonne we bec rædan gehyraþ “when we hear (someone) read books, when we hear books read,” etc. ÆLS (Pr Moses) 62: þonne we bec rædað oððe rædan gehyrað, þonne sprecð God to us þurh þa gastlican rædincge. “when we read books or hear them read, then God speaks to us through the spiritual reading.”

The most frequent collocation is with a verb of saying. 2.f. in constructions with a verb of saying 2.f.i. in accusative and infinitive constructions: we gehyrdon hine secgan “we heard him say” (introducing direct speech), we gehyrdon hie sprecan “we heard them declare (something acc.)” (cf. sense 2.c) ÆCHom I, 22 356.54: we gehyrdon hi sprecan Godes mærþa: mid urum gereordum (B we hyrden heom speken, E we herdon hu hi spræcan; cf. Act 2:11 audivimus loquentes eos [var. eos loquentes] nostris linguis magnalia Dei). “we heard them declare God’s wonders in our own languages.” 2.f.ii. with accusative object and present participle of verb of saying (cf. sense 2.d.) Nic (A) 13.1.8: we gehyrdon þone engel cweðende to þam wyfum þe to ðæs hælendes byrgene comon; he cwæð: ne ondræde ge eow (B gehyrdun; cf. Evang.Nic. 13.1 audiuimus angelum dicentem ad mulieres). “we heard the angel speaking to the women who came to the Savior’s grave; he said: do not be afraid.” 2.f.iii. where subject accusative in accusative and infinitive construction is unexpressed: þa þe cyng Willelm gehyrde þæt secgen “when King William heard that said,” etc. (cf. sense 2.e.) ChronE 1066.35: þa þe cyng Willelm geherde þet secgen, þa wearð he swiðe wrað. “when King William heard that said, then he became very angry.”

As I ponder the fine distinctions in sense 2 of the DOE entry, I am aware that the twenty-​first-​century lexicographer of a historical dictionary can learn much from both corpus and cognitive linguistics. As I have written elsewhere (2016, 167–​68), occasionally it is necessary to negotiate their competing claims.5 Should every entry carefully calibrate each shade of meaning depending on the differing 5 This discussion is an edited version of my earlier treatment.

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contexts, including its syntactic features? Or should the larger conceptual framework prevail to determine the shape of the entry? Should the entry look like a concordance, recording every expression in the language? Or should the entry display the chief features? It is the traditional splitters /​lumpers debate, the “meaning-​finders” and the “meaning-​losers” (Béjoint 2010, 293), but now couched in a new rhetoric. As Penny Silva reminds us, the degree to which sense division occurs in a dictionary is largely dependent upon the sensitivity and judgement of the individual lexicographer (2000, 86). The recurrent conflicts between the early editors of the OED on precisely this question, erupting in the page proofs of the OED (Mugglestone 2005, xvi) and in the Murray correspondence (Silva 2000, 86),6 reveal the opposing sides: Murray wanted broad definitions; his two editors, Bradley and Craigie, valued finer sense distinctions which Murray viewed as excessive. As the experience of the OED reveals, achieving equilibrium between the lumpers and the splitters was an ongoing challenge. Lexicographers working today must take into account the synthetic power of cognitive linguistics and balance that with the analytic richness of context favored by corpus linguists and syntacticians. In the sense development of “hear,” as we move from “hear” (DOE senses 1 and 2) to “hear attentively: listen, listen to (something /​someone)” (DOE sense 3), we notice that its transitive meaning also takes the accusative, whether a personal object, or words, or an object clause. Here is an example of each. The Rule of St. Benedict, through the person of Benedict, instructs its followers: 3.b. transitive: to listen to (someone /​something acc.) 3.b.i. with personal object (in acc.) BenR 2.12: cume ge mine bearn, gehyrað me; Godes ege ic eow tæce (venite, filii, audite me [Ps 33:12]; BenRGl 2.14 gehyrað, BenRW 5.7 gehyreð). “Come, my children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of God.”

The Meters of Boethius also has teachable moments with attention requested for a narrative: 3.b.ii. to listen to (words /​speech /​instruction, etc. acc) Met 25.1: geher nu an spell be ðæm ofermodum unrihtwisum eorðan cyningum, ða her nu manegum and mislicum wædum wlitebeorhtum wundrum scinað on heahsetlum (MS: eher with space left for initial g, B geher). “Listen now to a story about the proud,

6 Silva (2000) cites from the unpublished Murray Papers OED/​MISC/​12/​24.ii. J. A. H. Murray to W. A. Craigie, 3 December 1902.

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unrighteous kings of the earth, who here now shine gloriously on their high seats in many and various radiant clothes.”

And one of the Anglo-​Saxon laws, the law of excommunication, states in an object clause that it be attended to: 3.b.iii. with object clause LawExcom VII 1: men þa leofestan, geherað, hwæt þeos boc segþ. “Dearest men, listen to what this book says.”

From these acts of listening, naturally develop other specific senses of attentive hearing represented by DOE senses 4 through 7, all of which take accusative objects. People hear /​attend Mass or Evensong, etc. 4. to listen to /​hear (a religious service acc.); mæssan gehyran “to hear /​attend mass,” etc. LS 13 (Machutus) 11v.6: þa wearþ astyred seo stow þær seo mæsse geweorþad wæs & ealle þa þe þa mæssan geherdan afyrhte wæron (cf. bili. Vit.Mach.: omnes missam audientes). “Then the place where the Mass was celebrated shook, and all those who heard Mass were afraid.” ThCap 1 24.337.14: hit gedafenað þæt gehwylce cristene men þa þurhteon magon on sæternesdæg cume to cyrcean … & þær æfensang gehyran & on uhtan þone uhtsang (conueniendum est ad uigilias siue ad matutinae officium). “It is fitting that all Christian people, when they can bring it about, shall come to church on Saturday … and hear Evensong there and at dawn Matins.”

Priests hear confessions: 5. andetnesse gehyran “to hear (someone’s) confession” Conf 10.5: ðonne þu þæs mannes andetnesse gehyre & he þe his dæda bote axige … bide hine þonne ærost … þæt he his lif mid rihte libbe. “When you hear the man’s confession and he asks for forgiveness for his deeds … entreat him then first … that he live his life justly.”

On Judgement Day, one poem tells us, the Lord himself will hear judicially /​try the deeds of each person: 6. to hear judicially (a charge against someone), try (someone’s deeds acc.) Soul 1 88: þonne ðu for unc bæm andwyrdan scealt on ðam miclan dæge … ðonne wyle dryhten sylf dæda gehyran hæleða gehwylces (Soul II 86 dæda gehyran). “Then you will have to answer for the two of us on that great day … then will the Lord himself try the deeds of each and every person.”

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This last sense is the austere hearing of a charge against someone as if in a court of law. There is a strictness, perhaps even a hint of severity which circumscribes this example of hear +​accusative, and the other citations under DOE sense 6. However, the verb “hear” also develops a more benign sense: “to listen to with compassion /​favour /​compliance, hear (a suppliant /​supplication acc).” There is a kindness, an accommodation, almost an affirmation of the suppliant which surrounds these uses in DOE sense 7. Take, for example, one of King Alfred’s laws which legislates against the harming of widows and orphans. Borrowing from Exodus 22:23, “If you hurt them, they will cry out to me, and I will hear their cry,” the law of King Alfred states: LawAfEl 34: þa wuduwan & þa stiopcild ne sceððað ge, ne hie nawer deriað; gif ge þonne elles doð, hie cleopiað to me, & ic gehiere hie & ic eow þonne slea mid minum sweorde (G gehyre, H gehire; cf. Quadr.: uociferabuntur ad me, et ego exaudiam clamorem eorum [Ex 22:23]). “Do not injure widows and orphans, nor harm them in any way; if you then do otherwise, they will call to me, and I will listen to them with compassion, and I will then slay you with my sword.” Not only people but also prayer /​supplication can be the object of listening to with compassion. Ælfric in his Grammar defines the imperative mood this way, giving us an example of its use from the opening of Psalm 63: ÆGram 210.13: imperatiuus is bebeodendlic, ac swa ðeah we hit awendað oft to gebede … exaudi, deus, orationem meam gehyr, God, min gebed (U gehir). “imperatiuus is the imperative mood, but nevertheless we often translate it as a petition /​request … listen with compassion, God, to my request” which Ælfric then carefully distinguishes from a command (hǣs). The last sense of gehȳran which takes the accusative is DOE sense 10.a: “to learn (something acc.) by hearing, hear about /​be told /​be informed of (something acc.).” This sense is a natural development of “hear” where the emphasis is not so much on the act of hearing but on the results of hearing. In this sense hearing imparts information, brings about new knowledge, and the emphasis is on what is learned by the subject. Take, for example, this quotation where Boethius informs Wisdom of the knowledge he has acquired about human nature: Bo 39.124.24: ic næfre ne geseah ne geherde nænne wisne mon þe ma wolde bion wrecca & earm & elðiodig & forsewen, þonne welig & weorð & rice & foremære on his agnum earde (B gehyrde; cf. BOETH. Cons.Phil.pr. 4.5.2 neque enim sapientum quisquam exsul inops ignominiosusque esse malit potius quam pollens opibus … in sua permanens urbe florere). “I never saw nor heard any wise person who would rather be an exile and poor, away from home and despised than rich, honored, powerful and full of fame in his own land.”

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The DOE illustrates various kinds of accusatives under this sense: 10.a.ii. with accusative object and past participle /​adjective as predicate accusative: Bede 3 17.232.30: mid þy þa broðor þa gehyrdon … heora biscop forðferendne & bebyrgedne in Norðanhymbrum, þa eode heora þritig of þam mynstre. “when the brothers heard that their bishop was dead and buried, then thirty of them departed from the monastery.”

In the next example, the poet of the Battle of Maldon relates what he found out about an event which took place in 991, probably within living memory. Here accusative þæt refers forward to the following clause: 10.a.iii. with object clause: Mald 117: gehyrde ic þæt Eadweard anne sloge swiðe mid his swurde. “I learned that Edward struck down one (of the Vikings) vigorously with his sword.”

In the next example, accusative þæt refers back to the news of Hannibal’s victory: 10.a.iv. with pronominal object (in acc.) representing a statement in a preceding clause: Or 4 11.109.6: þæs on ðæm æfterran gere gefeaht Scipia wið Hannibal ute on sæ, & sige hæfde; þa Antiochus þæt gehierde, þa bæd he Scipian friþes (C gehyrde; cf. OROS. Hist. adv.pag. 4.20.22 Antiochus uicto Hannibale … pacem rogauit). “in the next year Scipio fought against Hannibal out on the sea and had victory; when Antiochus heard that, he then asked Scipio for peace.”

In contrast, in the next example, accusative þæt looks forward to its object clause which follows: 10.a.v. with pronominal object (in acc.) and object clause in apposition: ChronA 755.24: þa on morgenne gehierdun þæt þæs cyninges þegnas … þæt se cyning ofslęgen wæs, þa ridon hie þider … þær se cyning ofslægen læg (BCDE gehyrdon). “when in the morning the thanes of the king heard that … that the king was slain, then they rode there … to where the king lay slain.”

Despite the large number of citations in sense 10, there are no syntactical contortions in the renderings although some of the clauses are complex. In my survey of the evidence in the DOE where “hear” takes the accusative object, the development of the definitions seems to follow a straightforward trajectory: from hearing a sound to a more conscious and attentive listening (to someone or to their words) in general, to very specific kinds of hearing: hearing Mass or Evensong, hearing confession (with its judicial overtone), the hearing /​ trying of deeds (as in a court of law) on Judgement Day, to listen to with compassion. The last sense “to learn (something acc.) by hearing, hear about /​be told /​be

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informed of (something acc.)” is slightly different because it involves the hearing and learning from reported speech. Yet, this sense still takes the accusative and is semantically related to the previous senses. Interestingly, this sense does not appear in the OED (sense 11) with a direct object, but as absolute or intransitive. In the later history of the word, by the Middle English period, the absolute sense “I heard” or the intransitive use with a preposition, such as “I heard of /​about /​ concerning (something)” replace the now obsolete use of an accusative object.7

The role of the cases: dative There are two main outliers in this sea of accusative direct objects. The first is the specific sense “to obey” (someone /​something) which takes a dative object, not the previous pattern of the expected accusative. Here are a few examples from the DOE: 8. to obey (someone /​something dat.) 8.a. with personal object (in dat.; cf. mishȳran, oferhȳran sense 1) ÆHom 11 94: se frumsceapena mann, … Adam ure fæder, wæs ðurh God swa gesceapen þæt he beon mihte butan synnum æfre, and eac butan deaðe, gif he his drihtne gehyrde (Lat. gloss in R: obediuit, in T: pareret). “the first-​created man, … Adam, our father, was so created by God that he could be without sin forever and also without death, if he obeyed his Lord.” 8.b. to obey /​follow (a command /​counsel dat.), consent to (a proposal dat.) And 1498: geher ðu, marmanstan, meotudes rædum … læt nu of þinum staþole streamas weallan,“obey, you marble (fountain), the commands of the Lord … let streams well up now from your foundation.”

In addition, there is one specialized sense restricted to the Northumbrian glosses, namely the Lindisfarne and Rushworth Gospels and the Durham Ritual, where (ge)hȳran glosses Latin (de)servire /​ famulari /​ minstrare, all meaning “to serve /​ minister to (someone dat.).” However, the DOE editors wondered if this was not to be interpreted more generally as “to obey /​do the bidding of (someone dat.).” The question marks in the definitions suggest lexicographic uncertainty. Here are two examples from the Lindisfarne Gospels: MtGl (Li) 6.24: non potestis deo seruire et mamonae ne maga gie Gode gehera & dioble (RuABCpHR forms of þeowian). “you are not able to serve /​?obey God and the devil.”

7 Cf. MED, “ihẹ̄ren,” senses 1a(a) and 2a(b).

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MkGl (Li) 1.13: angeli ministrabant illi englas geherdon him (Ru geþegnedon ł herdon him, ABCpHR forms of þenian). “angels ministered to him /​?did his bidding.”

We believe that these citations are not a separate sense but belong appropriately with the sense “to obey” followed by a dative object. As we analyze DOE sense 8, we recognize that “to obey” places the subject and object in an intimate vertical relation, one lower, one higher, one beneath, one elevated. This verticality is a social hierarchy, describing relative positions of power or their lack. As Marc Alexander reminds us, metaphors of power, authority, and command are “the ways in which people have conceptualized their complex bonds of obligation, control, and government” (2016, 191). A closer look at the first citation quoted from DOE sense 8 problematizes well some of the issues in the meaning “obey.” Here we see the extreme hierarchical relationship between creature and Creator. Adam’s identity is presented as that of a created being, se frumsceafta man “the first-​created man.” The mention of God as dryhten “Lord” further articulates Adam’s identity as based on a relationship between a subject and his lord. Adam’s obligation in this dependent relationship is “to obey” which is central to his own identity, and in fact to all human identity, for Adam is described appositionally as “our father.”8 Syntactically, the hierarchical relation of Adam to his Lord is encoded in the grammar of the sentence with Adam as dependent subject in the nominative case and the Lord as powerful object in the dative case. The second outlier with the dative is found in two intransitive phrases: 9. intransitive: gehyran to /​into “to belong to (something dat.)” 9.a. of property: gehyran to /​into “to belong /​pertain to (an estate dat.)” Ch 1486 11: ic gean … þæt land æt Stoce into þeræ halagan stowæ & æal þæt þæt þær to tunæ gæhyrð. “I grant … the estate at Stoke to that holy foundation and everything that belongs to the village there.” Ch 877 2.64: þis is se haga þæt gehiraþ to Natingdune … þe Leofstan getimbrade (ME version in same MS: thys ys the hows that longyth to Natyngdune). “this is the fenced enclosure which belongs to Nackington … which Leofstan built.” 9.b. of a person: gehyran to “to belong /​be attached to /​under the jurisdiction of (a place)”

8 My understanding of the concept of obedience in the early Middle Ages has been greatly informed by O’Brien O’Keeffe’s superb study (2012). My discussion of Adam draws upon O’Brien O’Keeffe (2012, 28–​29).

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With DOE sense 9 we enter the conceptual domain of possession /​ownership involving a relationship between a possessor and a possessed. As Ruth Möhlig-​Falke (2012, 55, 102–​3) has shown, two types of constructions are used to express these possessive notions: the “have” construction (possessor has an estate) and the “belong to” construction (the estate belongs to the possessor). The two constructions differ in their perspective: the “have” construction reflects the point of view of the possessor; the “belong” construction reflects the point of view of the possessed. Here we have the latter where the focus of attention is on the possessed, “the participant not in control of the ownership relation.” And as Möhlig-​Falke notes, the focus, the thing possessed, is usually encoded as the subject in the nominative case and the possessor, the point of reference, is encoded by a locative prepositional phrase, in all cases here, the dative (103). These conditions are clearly seen in the second citation: “this is the fenced enclosure which belongs to Nackington.” Conceptualizing the sense “belong to” in terms of “possession” and “possessed” suggests the closeness of the relationship between the two participants in this non-​dynamic relational sense of gehȳran.

What Do Cases Encode? After examining these many examples of “hear” in their various senses, we might ask ourselves the question what do cases encode? The use of the plural “cases” for this particular verb is deliberate, for “hear” not only takes the accusative object but also the dative in certain specific senses. “Hear” is a verb with variable object marking. Why is this so? Reading through Bruce Mitchell’s “List of verbal rections” in the Old English Syntax (1985, § 1092), an inventory consisting of twenty alphabetically-​arranged columns of verbs in various constructions, we initially have the impression that case may be an arbitrary marker controlled by individual predicates. Depending upon the verb, a range of cases may appear, and there seems to be no pattern to the specific case(s) a verb governs. Or taking a more extreme view, we might view this list as evidence for the decline and eventual collapse of the entire OE case system. However, those familiar with Mitchell’s Old English Syntax are acutely aware that instead of seeing verbal rection as meaningless or random, much less a sign of a troubled and confused case system nearing dissolution, Mitchell is a proponent of the traditional view of case, that case forms encode syntactic relations. He states: “The accusative answers the question ‘Whom?’ or ‘What?’ and is traditionally said to be the

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case which follows a verb used ‘transitively’ … or the case of the ‘direct object’ ” (§ 1255). For him the accusative encodes (at the very least) the direct object. His account of the dative is slightly more complicated, for it is not simply that the dative encodes indirect objects. As Mitchell acknowledges, some verbs such as gecwēman “to please” govern the dative for what we would call today the “direct object”: hu he Gode gecweme “how he pleases God.” And he seems to account for the presence of both accusative and dative direct objects in a verb such as gehȳran by a summary statement: “Some [verbs], of course, can take more than one case” (§ 1349). Mitchell acknowledges that lack of time has prevented him from conducting “a study of the comparative frequency of the various constructions or of such questions as whether one particular usage occurs in prose, poetry, and glosses, or is limited to one or two of these.” He concludes by suggesting that responsibility for this sort of investigation lies elsewhere: “This can, I suppose, be said to be the job of the lexicographer” (§ 1091). I find Mitchell’s challenge to lexicographers irresistible. However, I would like to refocus his questions away from one of genre (prose, poetry, glosses), although that is in itself interesting, to that of syntax. Do cases in OE encode semantic content? Do they enable or prompt the generation of specific meanings in the sentences /​clauses in which they occur? If so, how does this account for the development of sense in (ge)hȳran? To answer these questions, I have found illuminating the seminal work of Frans Plank. Although his study, “Coming into Being among the Anglo-​Saxons” (Plank 1982, 73–​118) is largely an analysis of verbs of pro-​creation in OE, his article is, in fact, a platform for theorizing about the notion of case. In order to construct his argument that the choice of alternative case markings for an object in a clause is not “purposeless” but “correlates with differences in meaning,” he adduces a number of examples, among which are a few illustrations of (ge)hȳran (82–​83). He states that we find the accusative when the verb means “to hear,” and we find the dative when it means “to obey”; “to belong to.” As I have argued above, this is clearly evident in the DOE’s treatment of gehȳran. According to Plank, the meanings “to hear” and “to obey; to belong to” are not so different in this essentially monosemous word that separate homonyms need to be posited. This contrasts, for example, with the DOE’s classification of the verb (ge) hȳran1 “to hear” as distinct from the verb (ge)hȳran2 “to hire.” With the former the meanings “hear” and “obey” are semantically related. “To obey” can be interpreted as a radical or maximum form of hearing within the conceptual domains of power and submission, and “to belong to” participates in the conceptual domain of ownership /​possession. Now we would all agree that “to hear” is different from “to obey” and “to belong to,” and I found brilliantly suggestive

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Plank’s argument that the semantic difference between “hear” and the other two senses is not simply verbal polysemy, but that the difference in meaning is also expressed through the different cases, i.e., accusative or dative. According to Plank, the argument structure of nominative –​dative signals a closer relationship between subject and object than the nominative –​accusative. In other words, the relationships of “obeying /​following,” and “belonging to /​under the jurisdiction of ” expresses a closer affinity with the subject than the relationships conceptualized as “hearing,” “listening,” “hearing judicially,” “listening with favor /​compliance,” and “learning by hearing” do (88). Here verbal polysemy and case encoding work together to reinforce each other. Plank’s theory seems to me an elegant way to understand the display of dative and accusative cases in the sense development of gehȳran.

Conclusion “Hear” is essentially a monosemous verb. Although it defines one of the senses, it is an abstract “mental” verb in Wierzbicka’s framework. To determine the meaning of “hear” in OE, attention must be paid to the case of the object. In my generalization about the semantics of case assignment for this verb, Plank is followed. The specific meanings of “hear” require contextual information on the object case in order to assess the relation between the subject and its object. Scholars would then discover that in close relations with a dative object “to hear” can mean “to obey” and “to belong to.”

References Alexander, Marc. 2016. “The Metaphorical Understanding of Power and Authority.” In Mapping English Metaphor, edited by Anderson, Bramwell, and Hough, 191–​207. Anderson, Wendy, Ellen Bramwell, and Carol Hough, eds. 2016. Mapping English Metaphor Through Time. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Béjoint, Henri. 2010. The Lexicography of English. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Boynton, Susan, Sarah Kay, Alison Cornish, and Andrew Albin. 2016. “Sound Matters.” Speculum 91: 998–​1039. Crystal, David. 1997. “Speech Reception.” In The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, 2nd ed., 142–​48. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Healey, Antonette diPaolo. 2016. “The Importance of Old English head.” In Mapping English Metaphor, edited by Anderson, Bramwell, and Hough, 165–​84.

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Holthausen, F., ed. 1974. Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. 3rd unchanged ed. Heidelberg: Carl Winter. Mitchell, Bruce. 1985. Old English Syntax. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Möhlig-​ Falke, Ruth. 2012. The Early English Impersonal Construction: An Analysis of Verbal and Constructional Meaning. Oxford Studies in the History of English. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mugglestone, Lynda. 2005. Lost for Words: The Hidden History of the Oxford English Dictionary. New Haven: Yale University Press. O’Brien O’Keeffe, Katherine. 2012. Stealing Obedience: Narratives of Agency and Identity in Later Anglo-​Saxon England. Toronto Anglo-​Saxon Series 11. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Ogura, Michiko. 2018. Periphrases in Medieval English. Studies in English Medieval Language and Literature 54. Berlin: Peter Lang. Onions, Charles T., ed., with the assistance of George W. S. Friedrichsen and Robert W. Burchfield. 1966. The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Orel, Vladimir, ed. 2003. A Handbook of Germanic Etymology. Leiden: Brill. Plank, Frans. 1982. “Coming into Being Among the Anglo-Saxons.” Folia Linguistica 16: 73–​118. [Reprinted in Current Topics in English Historical Linguistics, Proceedings of the Second International Conference on English Historical Linguistics at Odense University, April 13–​15, 1981, edited by Michael Davenport, Erik Hansen, and Hans Frede Nielsen, 239–​78. Odense: Odense University Press, 1983. Citations are from the original publication.] Silva, Penny. 2000. “Sense and Definition in the OED.” In Lexicography and the OED: Pioneers in the Untrodden Forest, edited by Lynda Mugglestone, 77–​95. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wierzbicka, Anna. 1996. Semantics: Primes and Universals. Oxford: Oxford University Press. —​—​—​. 2014. “Universal Words, Semantic Atoms, and Semantic Molecules.” In Imprisoned in English: The Hazards of English as a Default Language, 31–​39. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wright, David. 1996. Deafness: An Autobiography. London: Mandarin.

Joyce Hill

The English of the Cloister Keywords: Old English, Benedictine Reform, loanword, loan compound, Latin

Although the subject of this article is the English of the cloister, I begin with some comments on Latin, for two reasons: first, and most obviously, despite the extensive use of the vernacular in England, Latin was supremely the language of the church in general and of monastic communities in particular; and second, the English of the cloister cannot be understood without reference to the Latin. English texts originating in ecclesiastical circles and dealing with ecclesiastical matters have a great many Latin loan words, of course, and this is more pronounced when the subject is fundamentally monastic. But the centrality of Latin, particularly within the monastic world, is also a major factor in understanding the nature of the linguistic awareness that repeatedly reveals itself in the cloister’s use of English. And it is a sense of this linguistic awareness that I want to tease out from the body of texts that I shall be examining here. So, first, some observations on Latin in the context of the tenth century Anglo-​Saxon Benedictine Reform. Chapter 45 of the Benedictine Rule is insistent that high standards of Latin must be established and maintained. I quote from the base-​text of the glossed version of the Rule in British Library, MS Cotton Tiberius A iii: Si quis dum pronuntiat psalmum. Responsorium. aut antiphonam. vel fallitur lectionem nisi per satisfactionem ibi coram omnibus humiliatus fuerit: majori vindicte subjaceat: quippe qui noluit humilitate corrigere: quod neglegentia deliquid; Infantes autem pro tali culpa vapulent. (Logeman 1888, 79) “If anyone make a mistake in the recitation of psalm, responsory, antiphon, or lesson, and does not make humble satisfaction there before all, let him undergo greater punishment, because he would not repair by humility the fault that he committed through carelessness. But boys for such faults shall be whipped.” (McCann 1976, 51)

What the Rule is directly concerned about here is faults in the performance of the Latin liturgy, the opus dei that lay at the heart of the monastic life. But if the opus dei is to be carried out with due honor to God, which is what motivates Benedict’s remarks, it needs to be learnt accurately, recited without error day by day, and understood even as it is said, without which its repetition dishonors God and is meaningless. The learning, the recitation, and the understanding depend,

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therefore, on a sound knowledge of the language, best acquired from a young age. It is hardly surprising, then, that the boys within the monastic community, practising their Latin through Ælfric’s carefully designed pedagogic conversation, the Colloquy, beg to be taught to speak Latin recte; they explain that they speak it at present corrupte and that, in seeking to remedy this in the classroom, they do not mind what they talk about, provided that recta locutio sit, “it may be a correct way of speaking” (Garmonsway 1947, 18). Obviously at least part of what this means is speaking Latin grammatically, and the Colloquy’s conversational mode, with its changes of person, tense, and mood, underpinned by the repetitive use of certain verbs for this purpose in order to exercise their different forms, interspersed with many lists to support the learning of vocabulary, is an ideal pedagogic medium (Hill 1998). But the young monks’ desire to speak correctly may also result from the Rule’s injunction about correct delivery –​something that Ælfric also refers to in the Latin Preface to his Grammar when he discusses the vowel-​length of pater and malus (Zupitza 1880, 2). Learning Latin in Anglo-​ Saxon England, however, was a demanding business: Latin was so far removed from the Germanic vernacular that it had to be learnt and maintained in a situation of linguistic disjunction, always as a hard-​won, bookish second language, however fluent any individual might subsequently become. In those areas of the old Roman Empire where the evolving vernacular was a development of vulgar Latin, the formal Latin that was learnt in the process of acquiring literacy existed on a continuous spectrum with the native language. In these regions, therefore, the tried and tested texts and pedagogical practices that had developed in classical and late-​antique times remained accessible and thus usable, even up to the Carolingian period and a little beyond (Wright 1991; Banniard 1995). Such traditional language-​teaching texts were introduced into England when Christianity arrived, requiring literacy in Latin for the ecclesiastical elite. But they were less serviceable in England than in much of continental Europe at this date because of the nature of the native language. The innovative response, within the space of three or four generations, was to develop grammars expressly designed for those whose native language was not Latin or an evolved form of Latin (Law 1997). They still had the disadvantage of being written in Latin, but at least in the elementary ones the paradigms and examples were systematically set out with a minimum of commentary, features which were not characteristic of the major grammars of the antique world. For the more advanced student there were the exegetical grammars which explained the grammatical phenomena that they had already encountered –​also developments from classical tradition, but of that branch concerned more with rhetoric, metrics, and theoretical linguistics: Donatus’s Ars Maior, we might say,

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rather than his elementary Ars Minor, which dealt only with the parts of speech. And since the difficulty persisted, Ælfric took Anglo-​Saxon innovation a step further by writing an intermediate-​level Latin Grammar in English, based upon the Excerptiones de Prisciano, which fuses together material from the various treatises of the great grammarian Priscian, Donatus’s Ars Minor, and at least one other as yet unidentified medieval source (Law 1997, 200–​23; Porter 2002; Hill 2007). In turning to the Excerptiones de Prisciano, he was, as he explains in the Latin Preface to his Grammar, following the example of his revered teacher Æthelwold, who used the Excerptiones at Winchester. Wulfstan of Winchester, in his Vita Æthelwoldi, fondly recalled how Æthelwold used to encourage the boys in their learning: Dulce namque erat ei adolescentes et iuuenes semper docere, et Latinos libros Anglice eis soluere, et regulas grammaticae artis ac metricae rationis tradere, et iocundis alloquiis ad meliora hortari. “It was always agreeable to him to teach young men and the more mature students, translating Latin texts into English for them, passing on the rules of grammar and metric, and encouraging them to do better by cheerful words.” (Lapidge and Winterbottom 1991, 46–​49)

The memory of Æthelwold as an encouraging figure was also preserved in Ælfric’s radical abbreviation of Wulfstan’s Vita (Lapidge and Winterbottom 1991, 77). But this attractive vignette, beyond its immediate purpose of presenting Æthelwold as an ideal teacher, speaks of the intellectual challenge: such were the difficulties that it might be useful to use English in the learning process, and certainly persistence was called for –​the boys needed to be encouraged as they tackled the theory (the rules) of grammar and metrics. Learning Latin then, though essential within the monastic context, was inevitably a long process, in which linguistic features might be revisited as layers of complexity and competence were developed, and where language was approached as a system, from the outside, as it were. Ælfric, indeed, hoped that the boys who used his vernacular Latin Grammar might thereby gain an understanding of both languages –​Latin and English. It might, in other words, have given them a capacity to think about English more systematically and objectively, even as they inevitably applied this approach to the learning of Latin. This was consequently an educational context that was bound to engender a well-​developed linguistic awareness: about linguistic systems, about word-​ relationships and about lexical flexibility. These are the gains that we can appreciate from our own experience in systematic language-​learning, where the reflective linguistic awareness is most sharply developed through acquiring skills

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in reading and writing the formal registers. In late Anglo-​Saxon England, this unavoidable linguistic self-​consciousness, bred within the hot-​house of high-​ status literacy acquisition, was further deepened amongst the monastic educational elites through the cultivation of hermeneutic Latin, sometimes evident in its elaborate structure, but most dramatically characterized by its abstruse vocabulary, full of Latin neologisms, Latinized Grecisms, and sundry other recherché words (Lapidge 1975; Stephenson 2015, 6–​27). This was in fashion in the late tenth and early eleventh centuries, a linguistic dimension of the Benedictine Reform contemporaneous with the corpus of English texts to which I shall be referring. This characterization of the general attitude to language created by the learning of Latin needs also to be particularized by reference to the vernacular linguistic self-​consciousness created in the world of monastic Winchester. The teaching practices here led to the evolution of “Winchester vocabulary,” identified by Gneuss (1972), studied in depth by Hofstetter (1987, 1988), and further examined by Gretsch (1999, 2009). The lexical preferences for translating particular Latin words became embedded in the consciousness of ecclesiastical writers trained within this school so that “Winchester words” are the preferred lexical choice for key items of vocabulary even when a given author is composing in English, rather than translating from Latin. For us it is evidence of linguistic refinement within late Old English language and literature. Looked at in its contemporary context, it is another pointer to a self-​conscious focus on lexis within what was the dominant center of monastic learning in the Reform period. My focus in the examples that follow uses lexis in exploring linguistic sensitivity within the cloister and identifying possible indications as to monastic usage. It is at this level, and in this immediate context, where individual monks most obviously and most directly negotiated their life in two languages. But this self-​conscious awareness of language also had a political and polemical aspect, being used to define monastic identity as something apart, something distinctive not just from the non-​religious world, but also, and importantly, from the world of the secular church and the non-​monastic priests who ministered to the people. As Rebecca Stephenson vividly demonstrated in 2015 with reference to the works of Byrhtferth and Ælfric, the use of Latin was a key marker of the monastic Reform and needed constantly to be asserted. But, as she equally clearly shows, practical reality required the use of English as well, even in the monastic context; and in creating the space that allowed this to happen alongside the emphatic commitment to Latin, sophisticated rhetorical manoeuvring was required. This larger “political” context governing the way Latin and English were used within the cloister is on a different plane from the evidence that I have

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previously referred to, but it is relevant here as yet further testimony to a sophisticated interest in and concern for language, specifically at the interface between Latin and English, which lay at the heart of Benedictine Reform identity. For my illustrations of linguistic sensitivity within the cloister I have selected the translations of and continuous interlinear glosses to the Benedictine Rule and the Regularis Concordia. Of course, most vernacular writing surviving from late Anglo-​Saxon England is of the cloister in being a product of monastic centers, written by people who were actually monks or were trained by monks. But choosing these key texts offers a chance of gaining an insight into the language of the cloister itself since they deal with what one might describe as the technical business of living as a religious. While each specifies certain liturgical details, such as particular lections and the cycle of the psalms and antiphons, they are essentially non-​liturgical documents, dealing with the practicalities of community life, the organization of the daily round, the monastic hierarchy, the arrangements for special days, and so on. The subjects that they address are thus often specific to the monastic context. When rendering this into the vernacular, the translator or glossator would sometimes have needed lexical resources beyond the Christian vocabulary that formed so large a part of everyday OE. How was this need met? In some instances, we can see that they introduced a loan; in others, despite the existence of a viable OE word, they adopted alternative solutions. Why might this be? What might it tell us about usage within the cloister and about attitudes to their specialized vocabulary, even in vernacular contexts? For the Benedictine Rule the texts used are: A unique almost continuous interlinear gloss in British Library Cotton Tiberius A iii, a mid-​eleventh Canterbury manuscript, but with the gloss to the Rule being ultimately derived from a Winchester exemplar, as evidenced by its strongly “Winchester vocabulary.” The Latin text and gloss are edited by Logeman (1888). The glossator’s use of Winchester vocabulary was demonstrated by Hofstetter (1987, 1988). A translation of the Rule by Bishop Æthelwold, which exists in several manuscripts, edited by Schröer (1888), reissued with a supplementary introduction by Gneuss (1964). The language is characterized by Gretsch (1974, 150) as representing “an early stage in the work of the Winchester school.” The Winteney Version of the Rule, a witness to the Latin and the OE of Æthelwold’s text, both systematically adapted throughout for use in a female house. The extant text, edited by Schröer (1888) and reprinted with an appendix by Gretsch (1978), is from the first quarter of the thirteenth century, but its textual origin is almost certainly datable to the time of Æthelwold himself.

For the Regularis Concordia the principal texts used are:

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Joyce Hill A unique almost continuous interlinear gloss in Cotton Tiberius A iii, edited by Kornexl (1993). The OE gloss is strongly non-​Winchester in its lexical choices and probably originated in Canterbury, although it was taken, together with the Latin text, from an earlier exemplar; it is not an intervention made when this version of the Latin text was written out, so its date in origin is earlier than the mid-​eleventh century. See further, Kornexl (1995). A unique translation of part of the Regularis Concordia, from Palm Sunday to partway through Good Friday, in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 201, corresponding to Symons (1953), page 34, line 23, to page 42, line 7, although there is evidence that there was once more than this, perhaps even the whole text, at least in the exemplar. The present text incorporates into the body of the running prose some modifications for women that probably stood as interlineations and marginalia in the exemplar. What survives is from the early eleventh century, so the exemplar, with its modifications for women, must be pushed back into the tenth. The vocabulary of the translation is clearly marked by Winchester usage. The text is edited by Zupitza (1890). For analysis and discussion, see Hill (2005, 2006, 2011).

The first example I wish to explore from these texts is the technical term hebdomadarius. It is technical in the sense that, being concerned with the rotation of functions within a religious community, it is a word that is needed within that world and not outside it. In the Latin master-​texts it does, of course, by implication and often by direct statement, refer to the rotation of specifically priestly and diaconal functions: the priestly function of saying mass, the diaconal function of reading the gospel, and so on. Its first element is from the Greek word for seven (as in the Heptateuch of the Old Testament, or the heptathlon in sport), but we do not have to imagine that users of the term in the Latin world of western monasticism were conscious of this Greek etymology. For them, in their monastic world, the point was that the hebdomadary ministers, drawn from the community, assumed certain duties for a week at a time: observable practice would clearly establish contextual meaning. The translators and glossators of the Rule, despite their differing points of origin in Canterbury and Winchester, freely use the everyday vernacular wucu “week,” for hebdomedarius, as we see from the Dictionary of Old English Corpus, and so produce phrases such as se wuca þen for ebdomedarius in the interlinear gloss to the Benedictine Rule (Logeman 1888, 70, line 4); and Be þære wucan rædere, rendering the title of ­chapter 38, “De ebdomedario lectore” in Æthelwold’s translation of the Rule (Schröer 1888, 62). Beyond the Winchester circle represented by these two texts, the glossator of the Regularis Concordia likewise uses wucu for ebdomada (Kornexl 1993, 127, line 1471). Compounds may also be created, such as wucþegn/​wucþen, referring to the monk or priest assigned a task for a week. It is found, for example, in the gloss to the Rule, mid þam wucuþenum rendering ebdomedariis (Logeman 1888, 70,

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line 7) and in the Regularis Concordia gloss, se diacon wucþen rending diaconus epdomadarius (Kornexl 1993, 85, line 995). This is an efficient and accessible translation, unlike some element-​by-​element renderings, such as we sometimes see awkwardly cropping up in the interlinear OE versions of these key texts. An example of this is the use of beforaneodon for Latin precesserunt in the gloss to the Regularis Concordia (Kornexl 1993, 73, line 858). As the Dictionary of Old English shows, it is a word that occurs in the OE lexicon only as a glossator’s creation. In the Regularis Concordia context, it is much more naturally rendered by the Corpus 201 translator as þe þider forð eodan (Zupitza 1890, 4). By contrast the use of wuc-​ in compounds and in phrases reflects a down-​to-​earth reality, the Latin hebdomadarius accurately expressed through a sensibly practical use of a common vernacular word, or a compound with two common vernacular words, which clearly and simply captures the essential meaning. The fact that hebdomadarius is dealt within this way in different monastic centers shows that it was the norm within the monastic world. But what happens when the Rule or the Regularis Concordia is modified for women? Obviously, it is only male priests who can perform the sacramental rites, and so they have to be brought in to houses of female religious in order to do this. This means that in passages which describe these activities, no change to the text is required, even when it is systematically modified for a female community. But both of these regulatory texts also describe community observances and practical activities that women could carry out for themselves. Some situations may not require any to be made: what is described in the originally male-​language text is permissible for women. But for others adaptations may be necessary, as discussed by Hill (2005, 2006) in respect of the Regularis Concordia. At its most simple, where substantive modifications are not needed, adaptation for female religious can be signalled by changing abbot to abbess, and brother to sister, as in both the Latin and the OE of the Winteney Version of the Rule (Schröer 1888). Some of these community activities involved weekly rotation, just as the sacramental ones did. A case in point is the weekly Maundy where, in a substantially modified part of the Rule (ch. 35), the Winteney text refers to the weekly (hebdomedary) service as wuceðenung and to the weekly (hebdomedary) office holder as wuceðenestre (Schröer 1888, 76,78 [Latin], 77, 79 [OE]), using the feminine element found elsewhere in OE, as in bæcestre as the female form of bacere “baker.” This is again practical and clear, underlining further the rooted use of wucðen/​wucðenung as monastic vernacular compounds for technical Latin terminology. But it is striking that wucðen –​which has such a strong association with men in the context of the Rule, and such a strong association with men in its second element ðen/​ðegn –​can, in this very context, be so comfortably adapted

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for women. Yet this is not the only example. Benedict dealt in some detail in ­chapter 55 of the Rule with the issue of clothing to the monks from the vestiarium or clothing store, which would be controlled by the vestiarius. Æthelwold, in his translation, variously uses the native noun-​compounds hræglhus, hrægltal, and hræglþegn, as the context requires, although he expands on the Latin to make the meaning clearer (Schröer 1888, 89, 91, 92). The compounds are transparent, but are uniquely monastic. Unsurprisingly, the same compounds occur in the corresponding chapter of the Winteney version: the text is, after all, essentially Æthelwold’s. But hræglþegn is feminized as hræglþenestre (Schröer 1888, 110, 112 [Latin], 111, 113 [OE]). A further example is rædestre for a female reader, found in the Corpus 201 translation of the Regularis Concordia (Zupitza 1890, 13), and in the Winteney text of the Rule, ­chapter 38, where the Latin has itself been altered from lector to lectrix (Schröer 1888, 82 [Latin], 83 [OE]), with lectrix ebdomedaria being translated as þære wucan rædestre. The next word category that I wish to illustrate is where compounds are created by marrying a native element with a Latin loan. My examples are abbodhad and prafostscir, which have to be considered together because they occur in a context where they are discussed in parallel. Chapters 64 and 65 of the Rule set out the manner of appointment of the abbot and the provost/​prior respectively, and are most careful to draw a distinction between them. This is because, despite some superficial similarities in the way they are confirmed in office, Benedict is anxious to ensure that the provost/​prior does not come to believe that he is on a par with the abbot and therefore does not really owe obedience to him. Benedict uses abbas and praepositus throughout, but Æthelwold, while remaining close to the Latin, expands on it very slightly in order to provide clarification of certain details, and in so doing makes a distinction at one point between the individual functionary on the one hand, for which he uses abbod and prafast/​prafost, and the more abstract notion of the authority that they hold by virtue of their office, for which he uses abbodhad and prafostscir (Schröer 1888, 116–​27, together with the corresponding facing-​page text of the Wells Fragment). According to the DOEC, abbodhad occurs six times in all, always in monastic texts (although abbod is of course by no means limited in this way, since abbots had major roles to play in secular as well as religious society). As we see from the DOEC, prafostscir by contrast occurs only twice in the surviving OE corpus: this example, and one instance in the OE translation of Gregory’s Dialogues. Abbodhad and prafostcir are transparent in their meaning. But it is worth reflecting on their different second elements. The suffix -​had is common enough in OE (cf. preosthad, which still survives as priesthood), so why not *prafosthad alongside abbodhad? We do not know, of course, whether Æthelwold used prafostscir as a deliberate contrast

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with abbodhad, but the distinction certainly gives us pause for thought. There are only two instances in the surviving OE corpus: this example, and one in the OE translation of Gregory’s Dialogues. Scir, as a freestanding noun, signifies office, appointment, charge, authority; and territorially notions of district, province, shire, diocese, parish, whereas had, in ecclesiastical contexts, centers upon ideas of degree, rank, order, and office, especially in the sense of holy office. Benedict –​and Æthelwold in his slightly expanded vernacular –​are dealing with two offices that are fundamentally different: the abbot holding a holy office, and the provost/​prior holding an office that is essentially administrative and managerial. Is this what Æthelwold was drawing out, giving an extra edge to the point that Benedict was making by defining their respective authority through the linguistic elements, as prafostscir and abbodhad? Whether he was doing so by drawing on existing but unattested monastic usage, or was acting independently, the difference in choice sensitively employs native word-​elements to reflect an important distinction, which Æthelwold was as keen as Benedict to ensure was properly understood. There are also key words in the monastic vocabulary where there seems to have been negotiation (not necessarily deliberative, of course) between the benefits of a vernacular rendering and the simplicity of retaining the Latin, perhaps with a sense of reverence and respect. I have made a detailed examination of several instances of this in a study which compares the fragmentary translation of the Regularis Concordia in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 201 with the corresponding text in the gloss to the Regularis Concordia in British Library, Cotton Tiberius A iii (Hill 2011, 260–​67). The words examined are altare, canonicus, collecta, confessio, mandatum, parasceve, processio, sacrarium, and subdiaconus, each of which, in their distinctive treatment by the glossators and translators, provides clues to usage within the cloister. In referring back to that analysis, it is important to remember that the evidence of the two texts is not of equal value. The idiomatic translator of the Corpus 201 text is likely to be closer to familiar usage since he is working both from the text itself and from his own knowledge of the Regularis Concordia as lived out and is careful to be explanatory where he thinks that is needed. Furthermore, he has the freedom of the discretion that translating provides, whereas the glossator, working within a classroom tradition of providing vernacular equivalents for each Latin word within the text as he comes to it, is more mechanical in his approach and attempts to be exhaustive even, as we have seen above, to the extent of using on occasion what one might call glossators’ lexis. But, as I demonstrate in my 2011 article, the pull of the Latin was strong, even when acceptable OE words existed, resulting in loans with or without OE inflections. Admittedly, the Corpus 201 translator’s preference for

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retaining the Latin term might not be simply a reflection of the monastic practice he was familiar with; it could also be influenced by personal preference. But even if that were so, it points to the lexical mix that would be heard in the cloister even in the context of speech in English amongst members of the community. One example, however, on which the two texts are in complete agreement, is mandatum. This is the most straightforward of the instances I examined, and I summarize my analysis of it here to illustrate the nature of the evidence for specialized direct borrowing and the religious sensitivity that was likely to have brought it about. The Maundy (mandatum) is particularly associated with Maundy Thursday, the first of the three special days, with distinctive ceremonial, which lead up to Easter Day. As described in the Regularis Concordia, the distinctive ritual act on the Thursday before Easter, known as the Maundy of the Poor, involved the washing and drying of the feet of some poor men and the distribution of food and money to them (Symons 1953, 39). In addition there was also a foot-​washing ceremony within the community (40). The name mandatum for these ceremonies derives from the opening words of Christ’s discourse to the disciples in the Latin Bible, after he has washed their feet at the Last Supper on the night before the Crucifixion: Mandatum nouum do uobis ut diligatus inuicem … (John 13:34). As a re-​enactment of the actions of Christ himself, the Maundy carried with it particular spiritual resonance at a time of heightened solemnity within the liturgical cycle. So this might go some way towards explaining why it might have been felt preferable to retain the word itself, rather than rendering it by a vernacular equivalent, since it was certainly not the case that mandatum could not be translated. The DOEC shows that mandatum is commonly glossed or translated as bebod. But these are all instances where mandatum is being used in its general Latin sense of “command”; mandatum is not rendered as bebod when it is being used for a particular set of ecclesiastical rituals. In addition, these rituals, special though they are in the climaxing days of Holy Week, had a further role in strengthening community life, since a foot-​washing ceremony, also known as a maundy/​mandatum was performed within the community each Saturday (Symons 1953, 22–​23). The word was thus in use throughout the year, but always as a reflex of the special, biblically-​inspired ceremony of Maundy Thursday. If we take all these factors into account, we can appreciate why it might be that the Corpus translator simply uses mandatum without explanation (Zupitza 1890, 10, 12) and that the Tiberius glossator never provides a gloss for it, neither for the several occurrences in the passage on Maundy Thursday which corresponds to the Corpus 201 fragment (Kornexl 1993, 81–​86) nor in the earlier passage dealing with the weekly Saturday Maundy (Kornexl 1993, 46, line 547), which is

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not present in the brief extract in Corpus 201. As already noted, it is the glossator who is very careful to gloss everything that can be glossed, and the Corpus translator is equally careful to explain loan-​words that may present difficulties. Their tacit acceptance of mandatum thus suggests that it was the common term within the cloister, even in an English context. It is a supposition that is reinforced by the fact that the Corpus translation comes from the Winchester tradition, while the Tiberius gloss clearly does not. They thus provide complementary testimony as to usage. What this and the other lexical choices I examined have in common is that they refer to matters of great importance within the monastic life, which are of necessity regularly referred to. Here, then, even in the eminently practical context of the vernacular, which the translators and glossators could handle well, the primacy of Latin, with its aura of higher status and greater solemnity, sometimes breaks through. Rebecca Stephenson refers to the “battle between the cultural supremacy of Latin among ecclesiastics and the utility of the mother tongue” (2015, 67). She traces this through the work of Byrhtferth and Ælfric, who provide usefully different perspectives on the challenge that the Reform faced. In the few examples studied here, we can see both the utility of the mother tongue through sensitive translation, and the pressure of the cultural supremacy of Latin in the response to certain key terms even in an English context, in ways that may be indicative of established daily practice within the cloister. Cultural negotiation and linguistic skill is something that is characteristic of Michiko’s lifetime of detailed study of the earlier stages of the English language –​in her case linguistic skill and cultural negotiation which extend across time and across oceans. It is a delight to be able to join others in celebrating her work and in appreciation of many years of friendship.

References Banniard, Michel. 1995. “Language and Communication in Carolingian Europe.” In The New Cambridge Medieval History: II. c. 700–​c. 900, edited by Rosamond McKitterick, 695–​708. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Garmonsway, G. N., ed. 1947. Ælfric’s Colloquy. 2nd ed. London: Methuen. Gneuss, Helmut. 1972. “The Origin of Standard Old English and Æthelwold’s School at Winchester.” Anglo-​Saxon England 1: 63–​83. Gretsch, Mechthild. 1975. “Æthelwold’s Translation of the Regula Sancti Benedicti.” Anglo-​Saxon England 3: 125–​51. —​—​—​. 1999. The Intellectual Foundations of the English Benedictine Reform. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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—​—​—​. 2009. “Ælfric, Language and Winchester.” In A Companion to Ælfric, edited by Hugh Magennis and Mary Swan, 109–​37. Leiden and Boston: Brill. Hill, Joyce. 1998. “Winchester Pedagogy and the Colloquy of Ælfric.” Leeds Studies in English 29: 137–​52. —​—​—​. 2005. “Rending the Garment and Reading by the Rood: Regularis Concordia Rituals for Men and Women.” In The Liturgy of the Late Anglo-​ Saxon Church, edited by Helen Gittos and M. Bradford Bedingfield, 53–​ 64. Henry Bradshaw Society, Subsidia 5. London: Boydell, for the Henry Bradshaw Society. —​ —​ —​ . 2006. “Making Women Visible: An Adaptation of the Regularis Concordia in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS. 201.” In Conversion and Colonization in Anglo-​Saxon England, edited by Catherine E. Karkov and Nicholas Howe, 153–​ 67. Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. —​—​—​. 2007. “Ælfric’s Grammatical Triad.” In Form and Content of Instruction in Anglo-​Saxon England in the Light of Contemporary Manuscript Evidence, edited by Patrizia Lendinara, Loredana Lazzari, and Maria Amalia D’Aronco, 285–​307. Fédération Internationale des Instituts d’Études Médiévales: Textes et Études du Moyen Âge 39. Turnhout: Brepols. —​—​—​. 2011. “The Regularis Concordia Glossed and Translated.” In Rethinking and Recontextualizing Glosses: New Perspectives in the Study of Late Anglo-​Saxon Glossography, edited by Patrizia Lendinara, Loredana Lazzari, and Claudia Di Sciacca, 249–​67. Textes et Études du Moyen Âge 54. Porto: Fédération Internationale des Instituts d’Études Médiévales. Hofstetter, Walter. 1987. Winchester und der spätaltenglische Sprachbebrauch: Untersuchungen zur geographischen und zeitlichen Verbreitung altenglischer Synonyme. Munich: Fink. —​—​—​. 1988. “Winchester and the Standardization of Old English Vocabulary.” Anglo-​Saxon England 17: 139–​61. Kornexl. Lucia, ed. 1993. Die Regularis Concordia und ihre altenglische Interlinearversion. Munich: Fink. —​—​—​. 1995. “The Regularis Concordia and its Old English Gloss.” Anglo-​Saxon England 24: 95–​130. Lapidge, Michael. 1975. “The Hermeneutic Style in Tenth-​Century Anglo-​Latin Literature.” Anglo-​Saxon England 4: 67–​111. Lapidge, Michael, and Michael Winterbottom, eds. and trans. 1991. Wulfstan of Winchester: Life of St Æthelwold. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Law, Vivien. 1997. Grammar and Grammarians in the Early Middle Ages. London and New York: Longman.

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Logeman, H., ed. 1888. The Rule of S. Benet: Latin and Anglo-​Saxon Interlinear Version. EETS, os 90. London: Trübner. McCann, Justin, trans. 1976. The Rule of Saint Benedict. London: Sheed and Ward. Porter, David W., ed. 2002. Excerptiones de Prisciano: The Source for Ælfric’s Latin-​Old English Grammar. Cambridge: D. S. Bewer. Schröer, Arnold, ed. 1888. Die angelsächscischen Prosabearbeitungen der Benediktinerregel. Bibiothek der angelsächsischen Prosa 2. Kassel: Georg H. Wigand. Reissued with a supplementary introduction by Helmut Gneuss. 1964. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. —​—​—​, ed. 1888. Die Winteney-​Version der Regula S. Benedicti. Halle. Reissued with an Appendix by Mechthild Gretsch. 1978. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer. Stephenson, Rebecca. 2015. The Politics of Language: Byrhtferth, Ælfric, and the Multilingual Identity of the Benedictine Reform. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Symons, Thomas, ed. and trans. 1953. Regularis Concordia Anglicae Nationis Monachorum Sacntimonialiumque: The Monastic Agreement of the Monks and Nuns of the English Nation. London: Nelson. Wright, Roger, ed. 1991. Latin and the Romance Languages in the Early Middle Ages. London and New York: Routledge. Zupitza, Julius, ed. 1880. Ælfrics Grammatik und Glossar. Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung. —​—​—​. 1890. “Ein weiteres Bruchstück der Regulars Concordia in altenglischer Sprache.” Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen un Litteraturen 84: 1–​24.

Michio Hosaka and Tomofumi Akiha*

Habban +​Past Participle of an Intransitive Verb in Old English Keywords: Old English, intransitive verb, perfect constructions, auxiliary verb, habban

1. Introduction The development of perfective constructions is among the most controversial topics in the field of the history of English. In particular, auxiliary selection (have or be1) has been at issue from both a cross-​linguistic and a diachronic point of view. From the former perspective, we can see the following contrast in many European languages. (1)

a. Ria heeft de schuur geverfd. [Dutch] Ria has the shed painted “Ria has painted the shed.” b. Onze nieuwe piano is eindelijk gearriveerd. [Dutch] our new piano is finally arrived “Our new piano has finally arrived.” (Ackema and Sorace 2017, 2)

(1) shows that a transitive verb such as verven is used with have, whereas an intransitive verb such as arriveren co-​occurs with be. In addition, some intransitive verbs can be used with have instead of be. (2)

a. b. c. d.

Ma sœur est arrivée/​*a arrivé   en retard. [French] my sister is arrived/​has arrived late Der Zug ist/​*hat spät angekommen. [German] the train is/​has late arrived Les ouvriers ont travaillé/​*sont travaillés toute la nuit. [French] the   workmen have worked/​are worked all the night Kurt hat/​*ist den ganzen Tag gearbeitet. [German] Kurt has/​is   the whole day worked (Sorace 2004, 256)

* This work is supported by MEXT/​JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP17H06379 in #4903 (Evolinguistics) and JP17K02824. 1 The symbols of have and be in italics are used to represent the concrete phonetic realizations of these verbs in specific languages.

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(2) indicates that an unaccusative verb, such as arriver or ankommen, is used with be, while an unergative verb, such as travailler or arbeiten, co-​occurs with have.2 The factors related to auxiliary selection in European languages have long been disputed. Historical exploration of English auxiliary selection also provides a new perspective in the study of perfect constructions. As is well known, the have-​perfect has overwhelmed the be-​perfect in the course of historical change. As shown in (3) and (4), have is exclusively used in Present-​day English, whereas be is often found, particularly with a mutative verb, in early English. (3)

(4)

a. John has/​*is eaten pizza. b. John has/​*is worked for an hour. c. John has/​*is arrived. (McFadden 2007, 675) a. oþþæt wintra bið þusend urnen until winters(GEN) is thousand run “until a thousand years have passed” (Phoen 363; Denison 1993, 359) b. Whanne he escaped was (Chaucer, CT.Mk. VII.2735; ibid.) c. yet Benedicke was such another; and now is he become a man. (Shakespeare, Ado III.iv.86; ibid.)

In this paper, based on an analysis of perfective constructions in Old English, we aim to detect the germinal signs of the expansion of the have-​perfect. To achieve our goals, we used the York-​Toronto-​Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English (henceforth the YCOE), an annotated corpus of 1.5 million words of OE prose (Taylor et al. 2003). By examining the construction of the have +​PP (Past Participle) of an intransitive verb, we try to clarify the extent to which the have-​perfect was established in OE. Moreover, analyzing the factors dominating which verb (be or have) is selected in the construction with the same type of PP extends our knowledge of the development of perfect constructions in the history of English.

2. Previous Studies 2.1 Cross-​Linguistic Perspective As shown in the preceding section, auxiliary selection in constructions with intransitive verbs seems to be unstable in various languages. Moreover, some verbs can select both be and have depending on their context, as in (5). 2 An unaccusative verb assigns a theme role to an underlying object, such as arrive and appear, whereas an unergative verb assigns an agent role to its subject, such as walk and jump.

Habban +​Past Participle of an Intransitive Verb in Old English (5)

a. Hij he b. Hij he

heeft/​*is has/​is is/​?heeft is/​has

gelopen. [Dutch] run naar huis towards home

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gelopen. [Dutch] run (Aranovich 2007, 11)

(5b) shows that an endpoint adverbial (naar huis) emphasizes the telicity implied in the sentence. Sorace (2000), combining a syntactic approach and a lexical approach, proposed an Auxiliary Selection Hierarchy ranging between change of location predicates and non-​motional controlled processes predicates, which is a basic rule to select be or have, respectively, in all languages with auxiliary selection, as in (6). (6)

Auxiliary Selection Hierarchy Change of Location selects BE (least variation) Change of State Continuation of a Pre-​existing State Existence of State Uncontrolled Process Controlled Process (Motional) Controlled Process (Nonmotional) selects HAVE (least variation) (Sorace 2000, 863)

Furthermore, as argued in Aranovich (2007, 18), the selection between be and have goes beyond the identification of two classes of intransitive verbs and requires consideration not only from a synchronic but also from a diachronic point of view.

2.2 Auxiliary Selection in OE As seen in the preceding section, the division of roles between the two auxiliaries has been blurred, and have has overcome be in the course of the history of English. Although the point of divergence was in Late Modern English, there is evidence that have began to be used in contexts in which be was a primary selection in OE. Fischer and van der Wurff (2006, 140) state that the verb have loses its weak possessive meaning and begins to occur with intransitive verbs, a stage already reached in OE. Mitchell (1985, § 722) also admits that “intransitive verbs are used with habban throughout the OE period.” Visser (1963–​73), investigating various verbs, claims that intransitive verbs, such as cuman, faran, gan and wician, were sometimes used in the construction of have +​PP (vi.). Mustanoja (1960, 500) further argues that “Habban is originally used only with perfective transitive verbs, …and is occasionally found also with true intransitive

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verbs (we to symble geseten hæfdon), which suggests that even in OE it is developing into a kind of general auxiliary of the perfect and pluperfect tenses.” Ogura (1996) makes an important contribution to this issue. After examining a number of genuine intransitive verbs such as (ge)faran, oferfaran, (ge)feran, (ge)gan(gan), beon/​wesan/​weorðan, liðan, standan, wunian, cuman, sittan, and weaxan, as well as some ambiguous verbs used both transitively and intransitively such as (ge)cyrran, (ge)hweorfan, (ge)wendan, awendan, acuman, agan, becuman, and gewitan, she concludes that these verbs used in “habban +​PP (vi.)” have three features in common, as shown in (7). (7)

i. Some of them have a transitive use as well as an intransitive use. ii. They express more an action than a state. iii. They often prove to be prefixed verbs or attain their transitivity from prefixed cognates. (Ogura 1996, 210)

Furthermore, implying that there must have been a semantic distinction between “beon/​wesan +​ gefaren” and “habban +​ gefaren,” she clarifies that the latter could express the situation and the result of an action, whereas the former could represent the state. However, she suggests that further study is required for firmer conclusions regarding this construction. Inspired by the above literature, this paper investigates the have +​PP (vi.) construction based on the analysis of data from the YCOE.

3. Data Analysis 3.1 The have +​PP (vi.) Construction in the YCOE Defining intransitive verbs requires thorough debate. To proceed smoothly in our investigation, verbs without objects are assumed to be intransitive verbs in general for the purposes of this paper.3 The total number of intransitive verbs in have +​PP (vi.) constructions (henceforth called the have construction) is 173, as shown in table 1. There are three major types of verbs in this classification: (i) verbs that originated as transitive verbs, (ii) genuine intransitive verbs, and (iii) mutative verbs.

3 For further information concerning the definition of intransitive verbs, see Huddleston and Pullum (2002) and Levin (1993).

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Table 1.  Verbs in have +​PP (vi.) constructions in the YCOE Verb (i) Verbs that originated as transitive verbs abeodan acennan ascian awefan awritan beclysan bindan bycgan bringan ceapian cwæðan deman don drincan earnian etan findan hieran hrepian motian myntan offrian onfon onginnan onliesan openian rædan reccan rowan sawan secgan seglan sendan settan sprecan tellan

Frequency 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 2 1 2 7 1 13 1 2 2 2 7 1 2 7 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 9 1 1 1 13 1 (continued on next page)

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Table 1. Continued Verb teohhian ðencan ðegnian ðeofian ðingian weorðan wiðsacan wilnian wyrcan Sub-​total (ii) Genuine intransitive verbs agyltan beon biddan blawan buan droht(r)ian eaðmedan fullbetan gyltan mæssian syngian wician wifian winnan wunian wyrcan Sub-​total (iii) Mutative verbs faran gan Sub-​total TOTAL

Frequency 4 1 2 1 1 1 1 2 2 109 11 1 3 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 9 7 4 1 3 1 47 13 4 17 173

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3.1.1  Verbs that Originated as Transitive Verbs The most frequent type of verb used in the have construction is verbs that were originally transitive. As shown in table 1, various types of verbs are attested for this construction. Verbs can be further categorized into three types. The first one is “verbs of communication,” which include abeodan, ascian, awritan, cwæðan, hieran, hrepian, motian, reccan, secgan, sprecan, and tellan. As seen in the following examples, they are often used within adverbial clauses, such as a swa-​ clause (8), or co-​occur with adverbs, such as þus (9), and are also used with some prepositional phrases (10). (8)

(9)

and se halga wer   ne com   swa swa he gecweden hæfde. and the holy man not came as   he said had “and the holy man didn’t come as he had said” (ÆCHom_​II,_​11:101.314.2140) þa ða se   engel ðus   gereht   hæfde. when the angel thus related had “when the angel had thus related” (ÆCHom_​II,_​23:202.96.4484)

(10) He hæfde geaxod be ðæs hælendes wundrum, he   had asked about the Savior’s miracles “He had asked about the Savior’s miracles” (ÆLS_​[Abdon_​and_​Sennes]:86.4776)

The second type is “verbs of mental activity,” which include deman, ðencan, myntan, teohhian, and wilnian. These verbs are found in primarily the same grammatical conditions as those above. (11) and ferde siððan on   ælðeodignysse swa swa he   gemynt and went afterwards into foreign residence as   he intended “and went afterwards into a foreign land as he had intended” (ÆCHom_​II,_​43:318.4.7172)

hæfde; had

(12) & he welt eallra gesceafta swa swa he æt fruman getiohhod hæfde & and   he rules all creatures as he at first determined had and get hæfð. still has “and he governs all creatures as he had determined at the beginning and still has” (Bo:39.129.15.2569)

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(12) is particularly intriguing with regard to the developing function of have in OE. As can be seen in the sequence of getiohhod hæfde & get hæfð, have can be considered to have already performed a function of tense and aspect. The third type is “Verbs with objects arbitrarily unexpressed,” which include bycgan, ceapian, don, drincan, earnian, etan, findan, rowan, sendan, ðegnian, wyrcan, and so on, as shown in (13) to (15). (13) þa hie swa gedon hæfdon, þa com   a[n]‌ ren; when they so done had then came a   rain “when they had done so, then came a rain” (Or_​5:7.121.29.2554) (14) þa   hi eten hæfdon, hi wunedon ðær. when they eaten had, they dwelt there “when they had eaten, they stayed there” (Gen:31.54.1297) (15) La leof Sæxulf ic haue geseond æfter þe   for mine well dear   Seaxwulf I have sent after   you for my “Well, dear Seaxwulf, I have sent after you for my soul’s need” (ChronE_​[Plummer]:656.12.396)

saule þurfe. soul’s need

As the verbs of the above type are intrinsically transitive, it seems natural that have is selected for the perfect construction. However, the fact that the object is not expressed in this construction suggests that the possessive meaning of have had already begun to fade at this stage.

3.1.2  Genuine Intransitive Verbs Previous studies claim that have is an auxiliary verb typically employed for the perfect construction with transitive verbs, and that the use of have in such constructions with intransitive verbs is limited. The purpose of this section is to examine the extent to which have is used in perfect constructions with genuine intransitive verbs. As table 1 shows, 16 types of verbs are attested in this type of construction. The most frequently used group of verbs has a meaning of “sin,” which contains agyltan, gyltan, and syngian, as shown in (16) to (18).

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(16) & sædon þam kinge þæt he hæfde swyðe agylt wið Crist þæt he æfre and said to the king that he had greatly sinned against Christ that he ever sceolde   niman ænig þing of Cristes   cyrcean þe should take anything from Christ’s church which his foragengceon dydon þiderinn. his predecessor assigned therein “and said to the king that he had greatly sinned against Christ in taking anything from Christ’s church which his predecessor had assigned to it” (Ch_​1467_​[Rob_​91]:15.160) (17) & wæron andettende, þæt hi gegylt hæfdon. and were   confessing that they sinned had “and confessed that they had done wickedly”4 (GD_​2_​[C]‌:12.127.14.1532) (18) þin   folc hæfð gesyngod, þe   ðu ut alæddest   of Egypta lande. your people have sinned   that you out brought of Egypt’s land “your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely”5 (Exod 32.7.3446)

Notably, these verbs retain marked agentivity, which is inherently related to the intention and volitionality of the subject. Biddan, wician, and wifian are also often attested in this construction. (19)

(20)

Ða he þus gebeden hæfde þa becom he to þære stowe þær   se burna when   he   thus prayed had then came he to the place where the stream getacnod wæs þær   hi ærest spræcon, marked was where they first spoke “when he had thus prayed, he arrived at the place where the stream was marked out, where they first spoke together” (LS_​23_​[MaryofEgypt]:739.496) Þa hie ða þæt geweorc furþum   ongunnen hæfdon, & þær to when they then that work already begun had and thereto hæfdon. had “when they had just begun that work and had camped by there” (ChronA_​[Plummer]:896.12.1108)

4 After the ModE version by Gardner (1911, 71). 5 After the New Revised Standard Version (1989).

gewicod camped

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(21) Manige habbað genog gesælilice gewifod, many have enough happily taken wives “Many have married happily enough” (Bo:11.24.9.403) (22) And þonne þu ðe gebeden hæbbe, awrit þonne þæt gebed, þi læs þu and when you yourself prayed have write then that prayer lest you forgyte, forget “and when you have prayed, write that prayer lest you forget it” (Solil_​1:4.5.19)

hit it

Although (19) to (21) also contain agentivity in the same way as do “sin” verbs, (22) should be noted as having a reflexive object, ðe.6 In this respect, the boundary between intransitive and transitive verbs is blurred. The verb of wunian found in (23) and (24) must be examined further. (23) and ure ealde fæderes ealle geneosode, þær heo on þan þeostre and our   elder fathers all found out where they in the   darkness gewuned hæfden. dwelled had “and found out all our ancestors where they had stayed long in the darkness” (Nic_​[C]‌:304.301)

lange long

(24) ðonne he hæfð to godum weorce gewunad, when   he has   to good work accustomed “when he has accustomed himself to good works” (CP:11.65.12.412)

Wunian in (23) means “stay” and can be regarded as a locative verb, as in the case of wician, whereas in (24), wunian means “habituate oneself ” and can be considered close to a transitive verb.7 The latter use will be discussed in further detail and compared to the use in the be +​PP (vi.) construction (henceforth called the be construction) in later sections of the paper. The majority of the verbs in this section are considered to have a meaning of agentivity. The exceptions are blawan and beon.

6 There are two other instances of a reflexive verb, biddan, in the have construction: cochdrul,ChrodR_​1:84.15.1109 and corood,LS_​5_​[InventCrossNap]:471.494 7 The other instance of wunian meaning “habituate oneself ” is found in coboeth, BoHead: 7.8.

Habban +​Past Participle of an Intransitive Verb in Old English (25)

(26)

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Þonne siþan þa byman geblawen habbað, when   the trumpets blown have “when the trumpets have been blown” (Nic_​[D]‌:64.55) Þær beteah Gosfrei Bainard Willelm of Ou þes cynges mæg   þæt he there accused Geoffrey Bainard William of Eu the   king’s relative that he heafde gebeon on þes cynges swicdome. had   been   in the   king’s   betrayal “There, Geoffrey Bainard accused William of Eu, the king’s relative, of being treacherous to the king” (ChronE_​[Plummer]:1096.4.3253)

Blawan in (25) does not have agentivity, unlike the other verbs in this section. However, it is worth noting that blawan has dual transitivity, in which the semantic role of the intransitive subject is the same as that of the transitive object, as seen in (27). (27)

ðam folce wæs gewunelic þæt hi weredon byman on ælcum to the people   was   usual that they kept trumpets in each gefeohte and þa   bleowon swiðe. fight   and those blew   fiercely “it was customary for the people that they kept trumpets in each fight and blew them fiercely” (HEPT [Judg] 7:16)

These are often referred to as ergative verbs, in which agentivity can be assumed implicitly. Although beon is usually stative and has no agentivity, gebeon on þes cynges swicdome in (26) is considered to imply the intentional behavior of the subject as in the case of the construction of be +​an adjectival (e.g., Be kind to others.). Therefore, the inference of agentivity can be assumed even in these examples.

3.1.3  Mutative Verbs Two mutative verbs, faran and gan, are attested in the have construction, as in (28) and (29). (28)

Þa he hæfde on þæm emnete gefaren    oþ he com to Ticenan þære ie, when he had on the plain marched till he came to Ticinus the river þa com him ðær ongean Scipio se consul, then came him there against Scipio the consul “When he had marched on the level ground till he came to the river Ticinus, then Scipio, the consul, came against him there” (Or_​4:8.99.29.2057)

110 (29)

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Þa hi swa feor gegan hæfdon swa hi ða woldan, comon þa to ðam when   they as far gone had as they then wanted came then at the middan wintra to hiora scipon. mid   winter   to their   ships “when they had gone as far as they wanted, they came at midwinter to the ships” (ChronC_​[Rositzke]:1010.31.1508)

These mutative verbs are usually found in the be construction. Therefore, the usage of mutative verbs in the have construction is quite intriguing. A detailed comparative analysis of the have construction and the be construction with mutative verbs is presented in section 3.2.

3.1.4  Chronological Analysis It is often mentioned that the usage of the have construction extends over time in the OE period. This section attempts to detect the chronological differences observed in the have construction. Table 2.  The number and frequency (per million) of verbs in the have constructiona Verbs that originated in transitive verbs Genuine intransitive verbs Mutative verbs Total

Early OE 36 (104) 8 (23) 2 (6) 46 (133)

Late OE 73 (66) 39 (35) 15 (14) 127 (115)

Total 109 47 17 173

a The YCOE is originally divided into four periods (OE1, OE2, OE3, and OE4). In this table, the former two periods and the latter two periods are renamed as Early OE and Late OE, respectively. The frequency is calculated based on the total number of words: Early OE (345,270 words) and Late OE (1,105,105 words).

While table 2 seems to show that the total number of verbs used with the have construction increases in Late OE, their frequency per million words indicates the reverse trend. There seems to be no drastic change during the OE period. However, the change in the number and frequency of mutative verbs (from 2 [6]‌ to 15 [14]) suggests that the have construction is steadily expanding its territory among mutative verbs. Further analysis is provided in the next section.

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3.2 Have Construction vs. be Construction 3.2.1  Genuine Intransitive Verbs As shown in table 3, gyltan, syngian, wician, and wunian are used in either the have construction or the be construction. Examples of the be construction are closely examined. Table 3.  Genuine intransitive verbs in the two constructions gyltan syngian wician wunian Total

have construction 1 9 7 3 20

be construction 1 1 1 18 21

Total 2 10 8 21 41

Regarding gyltan, (17) with the have construction can be compared to (30) with the be construction. Gegylt hæfdon in (17) suggests the voluntary action of trespassing, whereas wæs gegylted in (30) implies the result of the action. (30) forþon þe se rihtwisa man wæs gegylted in his life on þam wege þurh because   the  righteous man was sinned in his life on the way through unhyrsumnesse, disobedience “because he that was culpable in his life, having his sin of disobedience …”8 (GDPref_​and_​4_​[C]‌:25.295.2.4365)

In the case of syngian, the use of the have construction is overwhelming. As typically seen in (18), all instances of syngian used in this construction suggest the active conduct of trespassing. In contrast, syngian in the be construction represents the result of the conduct, as shown in (31). (31)

& forþon þe se man her beneoðan byþ gelustfullod & gesyngod, he and because the man here beneath is rejoiced and sinned, he forþon   þrowaþ ða dimnesse for ðam uplican dome. for that endures the darkness   for the heavenly judgment “and because the man beneath here has rejoiced and sinned, he for that reason en​dures the darkness for the heavenly judgment” (GDPref_​and_​4_​[C]‌:38.323.7.4848)  

8 After the ModE version by Gardner (1911, 203)

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Wician is also overwhelmingly used in the have construction. As typically found in (20), all examples of wician used in the construction imply the voluntary action of camping. In contrast, wician in (32) suggests the result of the action. (32)

& beferde ðæt   Israhelisce folc ðær hi gewicode wæron be ðære and surrounded the Israeli people   where they camped were by the Readan Sæ. Red Sea “and surrounded the Israeli people where they had camped by the Red Sea” (Exod 14.7.2930)

Wunian is a particularly intriguing verb in that it has two types of usage. In the case of wunian meaning location, three instances of the be construction are observed as in (33). All are equivalent to be or exist, referring to the resultant state. In contrast, the other 15 examples of wunian, such as in (34), mean “habituate oneself ” and may be interpreted as passive. However, considering the have construction exemplified in (24), they should be assumed to be resultative. (33) Gif   ðeor sy gewunad in anre stowwe, wyrc gode beðingce, if inflammation is existed in a place apply good fomentation “if inflammation is in a place, apply a good fomentation” (Med_​3_​[Grattan-​Singer]:76.1.419) (34) Næs   Petrus gewunod to nanre wæpnunge. was not Peter accustomed to not any arming “Peter was not accustomed to any arming” (ÆCHom_​II,_​14.1:141.107.3120)

This type of wunian can be followed by to-​infinitive as in (35). (35) Ymbe underntid þa ða se broðor   wæs gewunod    to mæssigenne. about third hour when the   brother was accustomed to celebrate mass toburston ða bendas oftost; burst   the bonds most often “About the third hour, when his brother was accustomed to celebrate mass, the bonds burst most frequently” (ÆCHom_​II,_​24:204.169.4543)

It is interesting that we can see some relevancy to the modern usage of used to do and be used to doing.

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3.2.2  Mutative Verbs Regarding mutative verbs, the have construction is used only with faran and gan. The results are presented in table 4. Table 4.  Mutative verbs in the two constructions faran gan Total

have construction 13 4 17

be construction 22 5 27

Total 35 9 44

It is certain that the be construction is used more frequently, but the have construction is also used more than expected. From the perspective of agentivity, these constructions are examined more closely. Table 5 indicates the contrast in agentivity between the two constructions. Table 5.  Agentivity in both constructions have construction be construction Total

+​ Agentive 16 13 29

–​ Agentive 1 14 15

Total 17 27 44

For the have construction, almost all of the examples have agentivity, as in (36). (36) a. Þa he ðus gefaren hæfde, wende   þa norðweard to his scipum when   he thus   travelled had turned then   northward   to his ships “when he had travelled thus, he turned northward to his ships” (ChronC_​[Rositzke]:1013.23.1570) b. Þær   wæs gewuna þæm folce þonne hie to husle gegangen hæfdon, there was   custom   to the people when they to sacrament gone had þæt hie æfter hlæddrum up to ðæm glæsenum fæte astigon that they after   steps up to the   glassy vessel   ascend “it was a custom of these people when they had received the Eucharist that they should ascend by steps to the glass vessel” (LS_​25_​[MichaelMor[BlHom_​17]]:209.214.2660)

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One exception is idiomatic expressions such as “how one has/​had fared,” seen in (37).9 (37) & cydde be dæle hu hi gefaren and gave a one-​sided account of how they fared “and gave a one-​sided account of how they had fared” (ChronE_​[Plummer]:1048.33.2274)

hæfdon. had

In contrast, the be construction is used frequently in contexts without agentivity, as in (38). (38) a. Eft þa Alexander gefaren wæs, after Alexander gone was “after Alexander was dead” (Or_​4:5.90.24.1830) b. Se hælend sæt æt ðam wylle þa he wæs werig   gegan & hit wæs the Lord sat at the   well when   he was wearied gone and it   was middæg. midday “the Lord sat on the well when he had become wearied and it was midday” (Jn_​[WSCp]:4.6.5958) c. Þa   ðæt eft ofer gan   wæs  þa cwæð Dauid to þam cnihte, when that again over gone was then said David to the servant “when that had passed over, David said to the servant” (LS_​5_​[InventCrossNap]:122.117) d. Hit is langsum to atellanne eall hu hit gefaren wæs. it is tedious to tell all   how it fared was “it is tedious to tell how it all fell out” (ChronD_​[Classen-​Harm]:1058.3.2108)

The examples that include faran meaning “die,” as in (38a), are found six times. (38b) is an example of gan meaning “become.” Instances with an inanimate subject, as in (38c), are found four times. (38d) is regarded as an idiomatic expression similar to (37), three instances of which are attested. In regard to the be construction with agentivity, all of them also have the meaning of the resultant state, as in (39).

9 For further information on this idiomatic usage, see Ogura (1996, 202).

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(39) a. Eadgar æþeling þe litle ær fram þam cynge to þam eorle wæs Edgar ætheling   who little before from the king to the   earl was gefaren þær wæs eac gefangen. gone there was   also seized “The ætheling Edgar, who a little earlier had gone over from the king to the earl, was also seized there” (ChronE_​[Plummer]:1106.39.3445) b. þa geascade he þæt Ercol se ent þær wæs to   gefaren then   heard he that Hercules the giant there was to gone on ærdagum, in former days “then he learned that Hercules, the giant, had come there in former days” (Or_​3:9.72.5.1411)

From these examples, we can deduce that agentivity can be regarded as crucial in the have construction, while the resultant state plays an important role in the be construction. Considering this result and the chronological analysis shown in table 2, the development of the have construction seems to be accelerated in a group of mutative verbs of OE.

4. Implications As mentioned in section 2.2, there are not a few scholars who acknowledge the existence of the have +​PP (vi.) construction in OE. However, the process of its development remains unclear. The data from the YCOE provides new insight into the problem. Consideration of the have-​perfect construction has been assumed to reflect (40a) to (40b) in previous analyses: (40)

a. America [VP [V has] [[NP a role] [A found]]]. b. America [VP [has [V found]] [NP a role]].

(Denison 1993, 340)

This reflects the auxiliarization of a main verb, have, which has the meaning of “possessive.” However, as seen in the preceding section, we found a considerable number of instances of the have construction without objects at the early stage of English. This suggests that the reanalysis had already progressed to some extent at that time. What are the factors that accelerated this process? From the analysis of the data in the preceding section, we can discern the possible factors shown in (41).

116 (41)

Hosaka and Akiha

a. The construction with unexpressed objects b. The agentivity of have

4.1 The Construction with Unexpressed Objects As shown in table 1 in the previous section, the verbs that originated as transitive but do not have objects account for about 60 % of all the examples. This means that these sentences have already lost the construction presumed in (40a). That is, the original main verbal function of have was lost, and have thus became similar to an auxiliary verb, as implied in a sentence such as (42). (42)

and cwæð þæt hi sceoldon þone lofsang singan, swa swa he and bade   that they should the song of praise sing as he geset hæfde, appointed had “and bade that they should sing the song of praise, as he had appointed” (ÆLS_​[Swithun]:257.4382)

Such an auxiliary function is more evidently attested in the following examples. (43)

a. & he welt eallra gesceafta swa swa he æt fruman getiohhod hæfde & get and  he rules  all   creatures as   he at first determined had and still hæfð. has “and he governs all creatures as he had determined at the beginning, and still has” (Bo:39.129.15.2569; [12] repeated) b. We habbað oft gesæd & git secgað þæt Cristes   rihtwisnys is swa micel we   have often said and yet say that Christ’s justice   is so   great “we have often said, and still say, that the justice of Christ is so great” (ÆCHom_​I,_​14.1:296.167.2691)

(43a) indicates that have can be assumed to carry out the function of tense and aspect, as previously discussed. Although the construction in (43b) is transitive, a similar function of have can be detected. The increasing number of examples with unexpressed objects can be considered to contribute to the progress of the auxiliarization of have.

4.2 The Agentivity of have One of the most controversial issues concerning the development of the perfect construction in English is the growing dominance of have over be. Why did have

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acquire such an enormous influence on the perfect construction in the history of English? Although the full development of the have-​perfect could not have been completed until the seventeenth century (cf. Denison 1993, among others), some auxiliary functions were detected even in OE, as explained above. The analysis of the data in section 3 indicates that agentivity, including intentional or voluntary actions, plays an important role in the development of the have construction, as shown in (44) and (45). (44) a. siððan   he agylt hæfde ongean Godes bebod, after he sinned had   against God’s   command “after he had sinned against God’s command” (ÆLS[Ash_​Wed]:16.2714) b. forþon þe se rihtwisa   man wæs gegylted in his life on þam wege þurh because   the   righteous man was sinned in his life on the   way  through unhyrsumnesse, disobedience “because he that was culpable in his life, having his sin of disobedience …” (GDPref_​and_​4_​[C]‌:25.295.2.4365; [30] repeated) (45) a. Þa he ðus gefaren hæfde,   wende þa norðweard to his scipum. when he thus   travelled had turned then northward to his ships “when he had travelled thus, he turned northward to his ships” (ChronC_​[Rositzke]:1013.23.1570; [36a] repeated) b. Ac hio wæs gefaren ær he þider come. but she was gone   before he thither came “but she was dead before he came there” (Or_​5:13.130.20.2761)

As shown in (44), the have construction indicates agentivity, whereas the be construction implies the resultant state. In addition, as suggested by Ogura (1996, 212), prefixed verbs such as agyltan tend to be used for the have construction. (45) also shows that the have construction is more closely related to agentivity than the be construction in that (45b) does not have any intention on the part of the subject. The reason is assumed to lie in the difference in the functions of have and be. As discussed above, have has an almost auxiliary usage, whereas be can be regarded as a copula, as discussed in Denison (1993) and other literature. That is, the past participle can be considered a main verb in the have construction, while it can still be regarded as adjectival in the be construction.

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5. Concluding Remarks It is unquestionable that English is one of the Germanic languages, but the have-​ perfect in English has proceeded on its own path in that it has ousted the be-​ perfect entirely. There is a marked difference in perfect constructions between German and English, as in (46). (46)

a. Er ist /​ *hat mit dem Auto in die Stadt gefahren. b. He *is /​has gone to town by car.

This difference can be traced back to OE as in (47). (47)

ÞA Moyses hæfde   gefaren   ofer ða Readan Sæ, þa gegaderode he eal when  Moses had gone over the Red Sea then   gathered he all Israhela folc togædere Israel’s people together “when Moses had travelled over the Red Sea, he gathered all Israel’s people together” (Exod 15.1.2966)

In the early stages of English, the agentivity of have appears to have played a significant role in the development of the English perfect construction.

References Aranovich, Raúl. 2007. “Split Auxiliary Selection from a Cross-​ Linguistic Perspective.” In Split Auxiliary Systems, edited by Raúl Aranovich, 1–​23. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Ackema, Peter, and Antonella Sorace. 2017. “Auxiliary Selection.” In The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Syntax, 2nd ed., edited by Martin Everaert and Henk van Riemsdijk, 1–​32. Hoboken: Wiley-​Blackwell. Brinton, Laurel J. 1988. The Development of English Aspectual Systems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Carey, Kathleen. 1994. “The Grammaticalization of the Perfect in Old English.” In Perspectives on Grammaticalization, edited by William Pagliuca, 103–​17. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Denison, David. 1993. English Historical Syntax. New York: Longman. Fischer, Olga, and Wim van der Wurff. 2006. “Syntax” In A History of the English Language, edited by Richard Hogg and David Denison, 109–​98. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gardner, Edmund G. 1911. The Dialogues of St. Gregory the Great. London: Philip Lee Warner.

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Hosaka, Michio. 2018. “Ambiguity between the BE Perfect and the BE Passive in Old English, ” In Aspects of Medieval English Language and Literature, edited by Michiko Ogura and Hans Sauer, 217–​238. Berlin: Peter Lang. Huddleston, Rodney, and Geoffrey K. Pullum. 2002. The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Johannsen, Berit. 2016. “From Possessive-​Resultative to Perfect? Re-​assessing the Meaning of [hæbb-​+​past participle] Constructions in Old English Prose” In Re-​assessing the Present Perfect, edited by Valentin Werner, Elena Seoane, and Cristina Suárez-​Gómez, 23–​41. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Levin, Beth. 1993. English Verb Classes and Alternations. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. McFadden, Thomas. 2007. “Auxiliary Selection.” Language and Linguistics Compass 1: 674–​708. Mitchell, Bruce. 1985. Old English Syntax. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mustanoja, Tauno F. 1960. Middle English Syntax. Part I. Helsinki: Société Néophilologique. Ogura, Michiko. 1996. “Old English habban +​Past Participle of a Verb of Motion.” In Studies in English Language and Literature, edited by M. J. Toswell and E. M. Tyler, 199–​214. London: Routledge. Smith, K. Aaron. 2001. “The Role of Frequency in the Specialization of the English Anterior.” In Frequency and the Emergence of Linguistic Structure, edited by Joan Bybee and Paul Hopper, 361–​82, Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Sorace, Antonella. 2000. “Gradients in Auxiliary Selection with Intransitive Verbs.” Language 76.4: 859–​90. Sorace, Antonella. 2004. “Gradience at the Lexicon-​ Syntax Interface: Evidence from Auxiliary Selection.” In The Unaccusativity Puzzle, edited by Artemis Alexiadou, Elena Anagnostopoulou, and Martin Everaert, 243–​68. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Taylor, Ann, Anthony Warner, Susan Pintzuk, and Frank Beths. 2003. The York-​ Toronto-​Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Prose. Department of Language and Linguistic Science, University of York. Visser, F. Th. 1963–​73. An Historical Syntax of the English Language. Vols. I–​IIIb. Leiden: Brill. Wischer, Ilse. 2004. “The HAVE-​‘perfect’ in Old English.” In New Perspectives on English Historical Linguistics, edited by Christian J. Kay, Simon Horobin, and Jeremy J. Smith, 1: 243–​55. Amsterdam: John Benjamin.

Taro Ishiguro

Guthlac wende þæt he hi æfre gebetan ne mihte: Text Emendation and Expletive Negation Keywords: Expletive negation, Old English, manuscript variation, Guthlac, negative clause

Introduction In 1995 or 1996, when I was a graduate student working with Jane Roberts, Michiko Ogura encouraged me to read a paper in a session at a Medieval Academy of America conference, which was to take place in Toronto in April 1997.1 The session’s title was “The Dictionary of Old English: Accomplishments and Prospects,” organized by Jane Toswell, my co-​editor of the present collection of articles. I read a paper on Old English verbs of negative import in the session, focusing on expletive negation in a clause subordinate to such verbs as forbeodan “to forbid.” This essay is to honor Michiko by revisiting expletive negation and discussing a sentence in the OE Life of St. Guthlac in light of syntactic evidence accumulated in the field to which Michiko has contributed so significantly.

Guthlac Remembers the Sins He Committed There are two witnesses to the OE translation of Felix’s Vita sancti Guthlaci. One witness is Vercelli Homily 23, found in Vercelli, Biblioteca Capitolare, CXVII, the Vercelli Book, ff. 133v–​35r. N. R. Ker (1957, 460) dates the manuscript to the latter half of the eleventh century. The other witness is in London, British Library, Cotton Vespasian D. xxi, ff. 18r–​40v. Ker (422) dates the hand responsible for the work to the latter half of the twelfth century. The Vespasian Life is the sole witness to a complete translation of the Vita into OE. The Vercelli Homily is an excerpt from an earlier version of the OE translation than the Life, according to Jane Roberts (1986, 365), shorter than “a seventh of the whole” (363).2 1 I would like to thank Jane Roberts and Jane Toswell for their helpful comments and suggestions in preparing this essay. This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP20K00687. 2 The standard edition for Felix’s Vita is Colgrave (1956). That for the Vespasian Life remains Gonser (1909) though Kramer et al. (2020) have recently made the OE text readily available with a facing-​page translation. The Vercelli Homily has appeared in Szarmach (1981) and Scragg (1992). Pilch (1990) provides a diplomatic edition of the

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Felix’s Vita, ­chapter 29, describes Satan’s first temptation of Guthlac soon after the saint sets up his solitary dwelling in the middle of the fenland. Satan shoots “a poisoned arrow of despair” (Colgrave 1956, 95) into Guthlac’s mind and torments him with its poison: Interea cum telum toxicum atri veneni sucum infunderet, tum miles Christi totis sensibus turbatus de eo, quod incoeperat, desperare coepit et huc illucque turbulentum animum convertens, quo solo sederet, nesciebat. Nam cum sua ante commissa crimina inmensi ponderis fuisse meditabatur, tunc sibi de se ablui ea non posse videbatur. In tantum enim desperare coepit, ut infinitum et inportabile opus se incoepisse putasset. “Now when meanwhile the poisoned weapon had poured in its potion of black venom, then every feeling of the soldier of Christ was disturbed by it, and he began to despair about what he had undertaken, and turning things over in his troubled mind he knew not in what place to rest. For when he remembered that the sins he had committed in the past were of immense weight, it seemed to him that he could not be cleansed from them. He began indeed to despair so utterly that he thought he had undertaken an infinite and insupportable labour.” (Colgrave 1956, 96–​97; italics mine)

For the portion of the Vercelli Homily corresponding to the italicized sequence in the Latin quoted above, D. G. Scragg presents the following edited text with some words supplied from the readings of the Vespasian Life in brackets: He ða hine hider ⁊ þyder gelomlice on his mode cyrde, ⁊ he gemunde þa ærran fyrena ⁊ leahteras þe he gefremede ⁊ geworht hæfde, [⁊ þa maran ⁊ unmættran þe he sylfa dyde, þonne] he wende þæt he hie æfre gebetan ne meahte. Þa wæs se eadiga wer Guðlac mid þære ormodnesse [þry dagas] swa gedrefed ⁊ gewundod, þæt he sylfa nyste hwider he mid his mode cyrran wolde. (Scragg 1992, 384)

Repeatedly turning himself this way and that, Guthlac remembers sins he committed in the past in his mind. Scragg’s emended text then reads that he also remembers þa maran ⁊ unmættran þe he sylfa dyde “the greater and more extraordinary things which he did himself.”3 The next word þonne, supplied from the other manuscript, appears ambiguous. It may be an adverb/​conjunction of time “then/​when,” making the subsequent words mean “then/​when he thought that he could never make amends for them.” This interpretation will leave the two comparative adjectives, maran and unmættran, supplied from the Life

Homily and a detailed sentential analysis, but he does not mention the issue discussed in the present paper. 3 All subsequent ModE translations of OE, ME, and Latin examples and quotations in this paper are mine unless otherwise indicated.

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absolute.4 It will also make a good translation of the Latin tunc sibi de se ablui ea non posse videbatur which can be rendered as “then it seemed to him that they could not be washed off of himself.” The other seemingly possible interpretation will read the þonne as a conjunction of comparison that goes with the two comparative adjectives. The sequence can be translated as “the greater and more extraordinary things … than he thought that he could make amends for.” This interpretation requires that the negative in the subordinate clause be expletive.

Manuscript Readings The Latin and the OE texts quoted above are not exactly what is written in the manuscripts. As already mentioned, Scragg’s text of the Homily incorporates words from the Life. Bertram Colgrave’s Latin is likewise a text reconstructed from readings of various manuscripts. Colgrave lists thirteen extant manuscripts that contain Felix’s Vita (1956, 26–​44). In preparing the edited text, he “attempted, when deciding upon a reading, to choose the variant which seemed to be most in keeping with Felix’s general style” (52). Colgrave’s text is not what the original author of the OE translation had in front of him or her when working on the translation. None of the extant thirteen manuscripts may be the exact copy with which he or she worked. That said, we have two manuscripts that are closer to that copy than the others. W. F. Bolton (1961, 301–​02) compares corresponding words and phrases between Felix’s Vita and the Vespasian Life. He argues that those words and phrases missing in two manuscripts of the Vita are also missing in the OE Life. One manuscript, London, British Library, Cotton Nero E. i, is the stronger candidate of the two in terms of the correspondence of those missing words and phrases. The same two manuscripts also contain OE glosses. The other manuscript of the two, Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 389, turns out to be an even more viable candidate in that more of the glosses in this manuscript appear in the OE Life. Bolton cautiously concludes his article by saying, “it may have been one of these [two] or, as seems more likely, a closely related manuscript” (303). But he chooses the Corpus manuscript as the Latin for the OE Life in his Anthology (1963, 64–​66) as Roberts notes (1986, 376n8). Therefore, it will be reasonable to assume that the Corpus manuscript presents the closest text, if not the self-​same text, used by the original translator. The Vita text quoted above appears in the Corpus manuscript, ff. 32r–​32v, as follows: Interea cum telum toxicum atri ueneni sucum infunderet ⹎ [32v] tum miles christi totis sensibus turbatus . de eo quod inceperat desperare coepit ⹎ et huc illucque turbulentum

4 The manuscript reads unmættra, without the last -​n which Scragg supplied.

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animum conuertens . quo solo sederet nesciebat ; Nam cum sua ante commissa crimina inmensi ponderis fuisse meditabatur ⹎ tunc sibi de se abluere non posse uidebatur ; In tantum enim desperare coepit ⹎ ut infinitum et inportabile opus se incepisse putasset

The reading in the Corpus manuscript does not diverge far from Colgrave’s reconstructive text, but the scribe uses a different construction in one clause. Colgrave’s text has the pronoun ea, which refers to the sins that the saint committed in tunc sibi de se ablui ea non posse videbatur. In contrast, the Corpus text omits it and changes the voice of the infinitive ablui “to be washed” to the active, abluere “to wash.” The literal translation of Colgrave’s text will be “then it seemed to him that they could not be washed off of himself ” and that of the Corpus manuscript “then it seemed to him that he could not wash [them] off of himself.” It should also be noted that the Corpus manuscript has a punctus elevatus before et huc illucque, thus indicating a boundary before this et “and.” The boundary and the adverbial phrase in the Latin match with the beginning of the OE quotation above, He ða hine hider ⁊ þyder gelomlice on his mode cyrde. It will be easy to compare the two OE texts if they appear side by side. I will quote the readings of the two manuscripts, piece by piece, and number the first portion from the Vercelli Homily as 1H and that from the Vespasian Life as 1L, and the subsequent portions in the same way, as follows:5 1H 1L

he ða hine hider and þyder gelomlice on his mode cyrde mid þam he þa hine hider and þyder gelomlice on his mode cyrde

2H 2L

and he gemunde þa ærran fyrena and leahteras þe he gefremede and geworht hæfde and gemunde þa ærran synna and leahtras þe he gefremede and geworht hæfde

3H 3L

and þa maran and unmættra him sylfa dyde

4H 4L

he wende þæt he hie æfre gebetan ne meahte þonne he wende þæt he hi æfre gebetan mihte

5H 5L

ða hæfde hine seo deofollice stræl mid ormodnysse gewundodne

6H 6L

þa wæs se eadiga wer Guðlac mid þære ormodnesse wæs se eadiga wer Guðlac mid þære ormodnysse þri dagas

5 The texts are from Gonser (1909, 120) without his punctuation and capitalization. All the occurrences of the conjunction and are represented here by the tironian note ⁊ in both manuscripts.

Guthlac wende þæt he hi æfre gebetan ne mihte 7H 7L

swa gedrefed and gewundod þæt he sylfa nyste gewundod þæt he sylfa nyste

8H 8L

hwider he mid his mode cyrran wolde hwider he wolde mid his mode gecyrran

125

Some observations are evident from this parallel layout of the two OE versions for the þonne issue mentioned above. The Homily does not have counterparts to 3L and 5L in the Life. 3L expands Guthlac’s sins and crimes in the past mentioned in 2L. The Life does not have a negative in 4L so that 4L functions as a clause of comparison following 3L, “the greater and more extraordinary things … than he thought that he could make amends for,” and the þonne is not ambiguous, appearing this way. With the words in 3L, the Life better reflects inmensi ponderis fuisse “[those sins] were of immense weight.” 5L, which can be translated as “then the devilish arrow had wounded him with despair,” says the same thing as 6L and 7L, “the blessed man, Guthlac, was wounded with despair for three days,” except for the þri dagas “three days” that is not present in the corresponding portion of the Homily. Scragg incorporates the duration of the saint’s despair in his text. Scragg inserts 3L and the first word of 4L into his text of the Homily and leaves the negative in the last clause: [⁊ þa maran ⁊ unmættran þe he sylfa dyde, þonne] he wende þæt he hie æfre gebetan ne meahte

The negative would have to be regarded as expletive if the interpretation of 3L and 4L were intended for this emended text.

Expletive Negation Expletive negation in Modern English is not usually treated in discussing the standard variety of the language though some examples appear in a standard book on English grammar. Rodney Huddleston and Geoffrey K. Pullum (2002) cite the following three examples of “pleonastic negation in subordinate clauses”: (1) I wouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t rain. (2) No one can say what might not happen if there were another earthquake. (3) He is unable to predict how much of it may not turn out to be pure fabrication. (Huddleston and Pullum 2002, 845–​46; italics mine) They say that (1) is ambiguous between two readings, whether one reads it with one or two semantic negations. The subordinate clause is an indirect question with a modal may/​might in the other two examples (846). Example (1) does not

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contain an expletive negative if it is read with two semantic negations. The italicized negative could be expletive only if the utterance is synonymous with “I wouldn’t be surprised if it rained.” Still, in that case, it is dubious as to whether the utterance will make an excellent example for the standard variety of the language. The modal’s presence in examples (2) and (3) makes it uncertain whether the italicized negative in each subordinate clause is expletive. Some part of “it” may turn out to be “pure fabrication,” and some part of “it” may not in (3). Expletive negation is not observable in the standard written variety of ModE. It disappears with the emergence of the standard variety in the ModE period. Expletive negation is mainly discussed in the literature that focuses on OE and ME. Expletive negation in ME has been studied relatively well. Wim van der Wurff treats the phenomenon in Late ME in his often-​cited study (1999). He observes that expletive negation “involves a verb or noun with the meaning ‘fear’, ‘forbid’, ‘prohibit’, ‘hinder’, ‘prevent’, ‘avoid’, ‘deny’, ‘refuse’, ‘doubt’ or another predicate with some kind of negative meaning which triggers the use of a negative marker in a subordinate clause” (295–​96). Yoko Iyeiri (2001, 86–​91) further discusses examples of subordinate clauses dependent on those verbs that she collected from various ME texts. André Joly’s 1972 article is the first study to focus on expletive negation in OE. He thinks that it is comparable to that in Modern French (31). The negative ne alone is expletive in the sequence Je crains qu’il ne vienne “I fear that he is coming,” which can be paraphrased by Je crains sa venue “I fear his coming.” In contrast, the additional negative particle pas makes the subordinate clause fully negative: Je crains qu’il ne vienne pas =​ Je crains sa non-​venue “I fear that he is not coming.” His OE examples of expletive negation contain only one negative in the subordinate clause, even though there are examples with multiple negatives in OE. The OE Orosius, for instance, has an example with forbeodan “to forbid” followed by a subordinate clause with multiple negatives: he forbead ofer ealne his onwald þæt mon nanum cristenum men ne abulge “he forbade that no Christian be molested anywhere in his empire” (Or 6 11.140.11)6

Joly lists some twenty OE verbs which govern a subordinate clause with expletive negation (32n3). One of those verbs, ondrædan “to dread,” would correspond to French craindre. Still, there is no example of this OE verb with expletive negation, even though there are examples of subordinate clauses that contain a negative, as I pointed out elsewhere (1998, 26). The negative is either part of a word-​for-​word

6 Citations of OE examples follow the DOEC.

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gloss for the Latin negative conjunction ne or used with its full negative force as in the following example: Oðer for ðæm ege, ðe he ondred ðæt he hit sua medomlice don ne meahte, him wiðsoc “Or he refused for that fear: he feared that he could not perform it so properly” (CP 7.49.4)

Joly is limited in approach, forcusing on OE constructions by comparison to Modern French. Michiko Ogura (2020) discusses expletive negation in clauses subordinate to a verb of prohibition. She focuses on forbeodan “to forbid,” but she also mentions other verbs of negative import. She shows that a clause subordinate to forbeodan could be either affirmative or negative and that more than two-​thirds of the instances are negative (22). She observes that such verbs of negative import tend to take a negative subordinate clause, and she regards the expletive negative clause as “a kind of correlative construction based on Old English syntax.” The verb is often paired with a verb of saying, from which she interprets the negative clause as direct or indirect speech, meaning “he forbade and said that I should not do that” (35). She cites ME examples of forbeden with expletive negation from Ormulum and Laȝamon’s Brut (29–​30), arguing for the construction “in late Old English and early Middle English as Anglo-​Saxon syntax” (35). The OE usage is not exactly parallel to the French usage. Back to ME again, Iyeiri reports that “expletive negation also occurs in comparative constructions, especially after the conjunction than” (2001, 91), citing the following example from The Owl and the Nightingale: An eke ich can of þe goddspelle More þan ich nule þe telle “And I also know about the gospel more than I wish to tell you” (The Owl and the Nightingale 1209–​10; Iyeiri 2001, 92)

The negative prefixed to the finite verb in the second line of the example, nule, does not have full negative force. Eric Gerald Stanley (1972, 135) comments, “In comparative constructions a negative was at times introduced pleonastically … In translation it must, of course, be omitted” (135). It should be pointed out that Neil Cartlidge (2001, 30) emends the verb to wule. The reading of Cartlidge’s base manuscript, London, British Library, Cotton Caligula A ix, is either uule or nule, while the other manuscript, Oxford, Jesus College 29, reads wile. Cartlidge notes that the latter reading “clearly makes better sense” (129). Van der Wurff (1999) quotes an example from Chaucer’s Boece and says that the expletive negative appears “following a comparative of inequality”:

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And thanne thilke thing that the blake cloude of errour whilom hadd ycovered schal lighte more clerly than Phebus hymself ne schyneth “And then the same thing which the black cloud formerly covered for a while will light up more brightly than Phoebus himself shines” (Chaucer, Boece, bk 3, metrum 11 [Benson 1987, 437]; van der Wurff 1999, 298)7

The Latin original supports this translation with the negative as an expletive in the ME: dudum quod atra texit erroris nubes lucebit ipso perspicacius Phoebo “what the black cloud of error has long been hiding will shine more brightly than Phoebus himself ” (Boethius, De consolatio philosophiae, bk 3, metrum 11, lines 7–​8 [Moreschini 2005, 91])

There are thus some examples of expletive negation in ME when comparison of inequality is expressed by the subordinate clause, at least in the fourteenth century. Old French often has an expletive negative ne that “precedes the verb in subordinate clauses dependent on verbs of fearing, forbidding, etc., or in expressed or implied comparisons” according to E. Einhorn (1974, 96). Einhorn gives two examples: Crient que la vieille n’oublit “He fears that the old woman may forget” (Auberée, La vielle maquerelle 322) Plus fresche que n’est rose “Fresher than a rose is” (Le mystère d’Adam 228; Einhorn 1974, 96; Einhorn’s translations)

Expletive negation in French has not changed since Old French. It appears with verbs of negative import and appears in a clause that expresses comparison of inequality. Modern French still has an expletive negative ne in comparisons as in Vous offrez peut-​être plus que vous ne croyez “You may be offering more than you think.” It may thus be reasonable to compare the French usage with that in ME. It accords with Iyeiri’s observations that the negative form in the examples she has found is “invariably the unsupported ne” and that “ne is occasionally missed out” (2001, 93). Modern French makes the negative non-​expletive by supporting it with another negative particle pas as seen above: Je crains qu’il ne vienne pas =​ Je crains sa non-​venue “I fear that he is not coming.” An expletive negative is not required in a subordinate clause after a verb of negative import or in comparison

7 Wallage (2017, 39) cites this particular example with somewhat different spellings of words.

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of inequality in Modern French. Joly’s argument might, therefore, have had more explanatory power had he discussed ME. The OE and early ME examples, however, do not quite fit in the same picture as the French usage. As in French, verbs of negative import take a subordinate clause with or without expletive negation. But expletive negation in OE can be expressed by a single negative ne as well as by a combination of more than one negative. Ogura’s examples from Laȝamon’s Brut (2001, 29–​30) consist of four with multiple negatives in the subordinate clause and one without any negative. And more importantly for this essay, there is no example of comparison of inequality with expletive negation in OE. Bruce Mitchell (1985, § 3207) flatly rejects Joly’s argument (1967, 21) for the OE preferred use of negation with the comparative conjunction þonne. Expletive negation in OE and early ME is a usage that ought to be studied independently from French. Therefore, the þonne in Scragg’s emended text [⁊ þa maran ⁊ unmættran þe he sylfa dyde, þonne] he wende þæt he hie æfre gebetan ne meahte is not “than” but it is a particle meaning “then/​when” on the ground of the presence of the negative ne. The sequence can be interpreted as “[he remembered the sins he committed in the past] and the greater and more extraordinary things which he did himself; then it seemed to him that they could not be washed off of himself.”

Conclusion Scragg’s incorporation of the Life’s readings into his Homily text has quite unnecessarily created a sequence of comparative adjectives followed by a negative clause beginning with þonne. A reader who regards expletive negation in OE as identical to that in French would find the sequence ambiguous. The words of the Homily in question make good enough sense just as they are recorded in the manuscript.8 The compiler of the Vercelli Homilies possibly thought that he could not ever make them better (wende þæt he hi æfre gebetan ne mihte). OE expletive negation is not identical with the French usage, and it does not appear in a clause of comparison. The sequence in Scragg’s edited text, although unnecessarily augmented, is not ambiguous after all. This meandering essay has attempted to show that a sound knowledge of syntax, based on evidence, helps us correctly interpret the language of a distant past and of a distant country, even if disguised by an editor’s hand. It has been made manifest above that Michiko has built part of that sound knowledge for us readers of OE and ME. I am sure

8 See text presented by Szarmach (1981, 97) and cf. Pilch’s translation (1990, 317).

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that she will continue building up our understanding of the language for more years to come.

References Benson, Larry D., ed. 1987. The Riverside Chaucer. 3rd ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Bolton, W. F. 1961. “The Manuscript Source of the Old English Prose Life of St. Guthlac.” Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprache 197: 301–​03. —​—​—​, ed. 1963. An Old English Anthology. London: Edward Arnold. Cartlidge, Neil, ed. and trans. 2001. The Owl and the Nightingale: Text and Translation. University of Exeter Press. Colgrave, Bertram, ed. and trans. 1956. Felix’s Life of Saint Guthlac. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Einhorn, E. 1974. Old French: A Concise Handbook. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gonser, Paul, ed. 1909. Das angelsächsische Prosa-​ Leben des hl. Guthlac. Anglistische Forschungen 27. Heidelberg: Carl Winter. Huddleston, Rodney, and Geoffrey K. Pullum. 2002. The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ishiguro, Taro. 1998. “Verbs of Negative Import: A Syntactic Study That Benefited from the Dictionary of Old English Project.” In The Dictionary of Old English: Retrospects and Prospects, edited by M. J. Toswell, 23–​32. Old English Newsletter Subsidia 26. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute, Western Michigan University. Iyeiri, Yoko. 2001. Negative Constructions in Middle English. Fukuoka, Japan: Kyushu University Press. Joly, André. 1967. Negation and the Comparative Particle in English. Cahiers de psychomecanique du langage 9. Quebec: Presses de l’Université Laval. —​—​—​. 1972. “La négation dite ‘explétive’ en vieil anglais et dans d’autres langues indo-​européennes.” Études anglaises 25: 30–​44. Ker, N. R. 1957. Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-​Saxon. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kramer, Johanna, Hugh Magennis, and Robin Norris, eds. and trans. 2020. Anonymous Old English Lives of Saints. Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 63. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Mitchell, Bruce. 1985. Old English Syntax. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Moreschini, Claudio, ed. 2005. Boethius: de consolatione philosophiae opuscula theologica. 2nd ed. Bibliotheca Teubneriana. Munich: K. G. Saur. Ogura, Michiko. 2020. “He forbead þæt hi ne weopon: A Negative Element in the þæt-​Clause Introduced by a Verb of Prohibition.” SELIM 25: 21–​36. Pilch, Herbert. 1990. “The Last Vercelli Homily: A Sentence-​Analytical Edition.” In Historical Linguistics and Philology, edited by Jacek Fisiak, 297–​336. Trends in Linguistics, Studies and Monographs 46. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Roberts, Jane. 1986. “The Old English Prose Translation of Felix’s Vita sancti Guthlaci.” In Studies in Earlier Old English Prose, edited by Paul E. Szarmach, 363–​79. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Scragg, D. G., ed. 1992. The Vercelli Homilies and Related Texts. EETS os 300. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stanley, Eric Gerald, ed. 1972. The Owl and the Nightingale. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Szarmach, Paul E., ed. 1981. Vercelli Homilies IX–​XXIII. Toronto Old English Series 5. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. van der Wurff, Wim. 1999. “On Expletive Negation with Adversative Predicates in the History of English.” In Negation in the History of English, edited by Ingrid Tieken-​Boon van Ostade, Gunnel Tottie, and Wim van der Wurff, 295–​ 327. Topics in English Linguistics 26. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Wallage, Phillip W. 2017. Negation in Early English: Grammatical and Functional Change. Studies in English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Leena Kahlas-​Tarkka

Revisiting EVERY and EACH from Old English to Early Modern English Keywords: Indefinite pronoun, indefinite adjective, language variation, universal quantification, medieval English

EVERY and EACH offer an interesting case of variation and change in the history of English. For a diachronic approach we are provided with a wealth of written texts that cover a period longer than a millennium.1 They allow us to see the changes the English language has undergone during this period, and modern technology and electronic databases and corpora have come to help in data collecting and analysis. From a variationist perspective, we see language especially as a dynamic process and that this dynamism is a result of the interaction between language-​internal and language-​external factors (Rissanen 2001). Variation can be regional or idiolectal, textual depending on the genre or text type, and sociolinguistic depending on social hierarchies and related factors like gender and age, relevant even in historical material. To start with Present-​ day English, we can claim that relatively general agreement prevails with reference to the semantic and syntactic characteristics of EVERY and EACH. In linguistic terms these lexical items are commonly called “indefinites,” more precisely indefinite pronouns and adjectives or determiners, depending on their syntactic function. In addition to conveying the idea of indefiniteness, EVERY and EACH convey different aspects of “totality” in different contexts (for a more detailed discussion see, e.g., Kahlas-​Tarkka 1987). Quirk et al. (1985, 377) define the words under scrutiny as indefinite universal pronouns and determiners. Both every and each appear as determiners of singular count nouns, whereas every is exceptional in that it cannot function independently as a pronoun as many other determinatives can. They are both distributive in meaning. In pronominal function all, each, and every one can be equivalent, except that each can also refer to just two people or things. In

1 The present paper is based on part of the material covered in a talk given at the Annual Conference of the Modern English Association in Japan in 2015, which is gratefully acknowledged.

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particular, it is to be noted that each as a pronoun is equivalent to each as a determiner followed by one and to each as a determiner followed by a noun in sentences like the following: (a) Each of the states has its own flag. (b) Each one of the states has its own flag. (c) Each state has its own flag. A comparison of discussions of Present-​day English uses reveals that mostly attention is paid to the differences between the distributive determinatives each and every on the one hand and the universal determinatives all and both on the other (Huddleston and Pullum 2002, 374, 377). Thus, all and both express universal quantification, even though all is neutral with respect to the size of the set, whereas both is normally only applied to sets with two members. The differences between each and every, as outlined by Huddleston and Pullum (2002, 378–​79), are the following: (a) Each, unlike every, normally involves an identifiable set. (Cf. Last year each/​every student passed. and Each/​every philosopher admires Aristotle.) (b) The distributive meaning is stronger with each than with every. (e.g., I enjoyed each/​every minute of it.) (c) Every implies a set with more than two members, unlike each. (e.g., each side of the road) (d) Every can be used with abstract nouns with multal rather than universal meaning. (e.g., I have every reason to believe that …) (e) Each can be used as a fused determiner head (e.g., each (of them) was cut in two), but every cannot. (f) Every permits modification (e.g., almost every student passed), but each does not. (g) Every can occur as modifier following a genitive determiner (e.g., they scrutinized her every move), but each cannot. Each and every also differ (reflecting certain of the above contrasts) in the compounds into which they enter: each compounds with other in the reciprocal each other, every with body, etc., everybody, everyone, everything, everywhere. They can also coordinate for emphatic effect: Each and every contestant will win a prize (Huddleston and Pullum 2002, 379). According to Huddleston and Pullum (423), and several other scholars, everybody and everyone are both

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personal and “wholly equivalent,” whereas Bolinger (1976, 230) wants to see a semantic distinction between them, or at least a tendency towards such a distinction. According to him, the compounds in -​one may still reflect both the numerical and pronominal values of one. He writes: It is natural for pronouns to embody references to distance from the speaker, to selfness and otherness. This is the prime characteristic of the personal pronouns and the demonstratives. If my hypothesis is correct, it also characterizes the indefinites: one and its compounds [and here he also refers to any-​, some-​, and no-​compounds in addition to every-​compounds] are marked for closeness to the speaker and for individualization (the pronominal and numerical values of one respectively), whereas -​body is unmarked in these two senses. The -​body compounds therefore are more like indefinite plurals, less concerned with the speaker-​hearer’s sense of the identity of the referent. As the unmarked term, -​body can be used in most of the situations where -​one can be used, but not vice versa. (Bolinger 1976, 230)

According to Bolinger, the use of the -​one compounds in the partitive of-​ structures is a further example of individualization. In his article on the logics of quantification, Labov (1985) notes that each is almost entirely limited to formal speech and writing, and to the strict interpretation by which he means that the quantifier is applied to a set to designate exhaustively all members of the set, with no exceptions. When we try to follow the long path of EVERY and EACH in the history of English, we can first of all see that in Old English, differences between the two like those listed above are impossible to define, in spite of the great variety of constructions and words used in expressions for universal quantification. Different variables seem to regulate the usage, and both language internal and external factors are relevant. During the Middle English period, then, new variants appear, which reflect changes in phonology and spelling as well as in syntax and even external factors. Dialectal distribution is slightly easier to detect in ME than in OE, simply due to the availability of texts from different areas of the country. During the Early Modern English period, then, we can see the establishment of many of the features of Present-​day English, even though we can still see clear differences between these two modern periods. I have decided to approach the history of EVERY and EACH in a very down-​ to-​earth manner by illustrating the history with examples from the different periods of the Helsinki Corpus material. To keep the data manageable and comparable, I have made use of the HC data, as they represent, e.g., different types of text and dialectal distribution in as balanced a way as possible for the early periods of English. In the space available, full coverage of the topic is not possible, but I hope to be able to illustrate the long diachrony of EVERY and EACH

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by pinpointing the features that in my mind characterize each period and stand as evidence for change and variation through centuries.

Etymology In his Old English Syntax (1985, § 447), Bruce Mitchell has a lengthy list of items in the chapter dealing with what he calls “words conveying totality.” The list includes eall, ælc, æghwa, æghwæt, æghwæþer, ægþer, æghwilc, æthwa, gehwa, gehwæt, gehwæþer, gehwilc, welhwylc, and gewelhwylc. In addition to these, hwa and hwylc also appear in phrases conveying totality, even though it is often difficult to decide on the definite meaning of these words, as they can mean, in addition to their interrogative sense, “everyone, everything,” “anyone, anything” or “someone, something” depending on the context. We will restrict ourselves to what I would call “majority indefinites” (Kahlas-​Tarkka 2007), which also appear in the etymological accounts of each and every in the OED (s.vv. “each” and “every”). In addition to their forms, the etymologies attest processes of grammaticalization, as the words are mostly based on the same stem as the interrogative pronouns, but have developed separate uses with the addition of emphatic prefixes. The most extensive and insightful etymological description of Germanic words for “every” is that by Hermann (1940).2 A common Proto-​IE stem *kwo lies behind all Gmc simple forms, and the later formations came to be intensified forms of these. According to Hermann even the simple non-​intensified forms were already used as independent words indicating “every” and “each” (192). The simple forms were used as both interrogatives and indefinites in Proto-​Germanic, and later even in relative constructions. However, as it is difficult to see any direct link between an interrogative and a totality indefinite, Hermann claims that the meaning “every” must derive from that of the indefinite, both “every” and “any” being indefinite in their reference (187).3 Hermann also discusses the original meaning and function of the intensifying prefixes a-​, ge-​ and æg-​(188). With reference to earlier scholarship, he concludes that it is not possible to establish their definite meaning, even though it seems that from very early on they were added to the simple forms in an intensifying function. Ga > ge seems to have been the earliest prefix of the three and to have been used as an intensifier for “each” in 2 For a summary of the main developments, see also Kahlas-​Tarkka (1987, 13–​17). 3 “Da vom Fragefürwort her keine rechte Verbindung zu ‘jeder’ zu sehen ist, wird die Bedeutung ‘jeder’ aus der des Indefinitums herkommen, ist ‘jeder’ selber ja als ‘jeder beliebige’ auch unbestimmt” (Hermann 1940, 187).

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particular. Aiw, and also ā, “ever” is a later intensifying prefix, but it is difficult to decide whether it was added to words meaning “every” only at the stage when it was already used as a prefix and not as an independent lexical item. His general conclusion for OE is that the simple forms hwilc and hwa, as well as those combined with long a-​, tend to appear mostly in the indefinite sense “someone” or “something,” whereas those prefixed with ge-​and æg-​tend to emphasize the all-​ inclusive meaning “every.” Hermann’s important claim in conclusion is that it is the indefinite pronoun that stands even behind the Germanic words conveying totality, and not the interrogative. The added intensifying prefixes have emphasized the all-​inclusive but also distributive meaning “every/​each.” More recently, Bhat (2004, 251) states that grammarians generally derive indefinite pronouns from interrogative pronouns through the addition of disjunctive or conjunctive particles. Following Haspelmath (1997, 163), he questions the correctness of this derivation, as there cannot be any explanation for a derivational process that changes interrogatives into indefinites through the addition of disjunctive or conjunctive particles.

Forms A list of forms from OE to ME, as provided by the OED (s.v. each and every), tells us a lot about change: change in spelling, and obviously in pronunciation, as well as some lexical innovations due to needs of semantic developments. Some of the great variety of forms can be explained by dialectal differences. It is evident that every is a late-​comer, formed for adding emphasis to the simplex form ælc > æfre ælc literally meaning “ever/​always each.” The basic data for the present study have been retrieved from the Helsinki Corpus of English Texts, as it provides a manageable amount of data, as well as a set of texts as balanced as possible for different time periods. In the following are listed all the forms that appear in the HC data, including all different inflected forms (contrary to the OED entries): OE each (?): æghwa, æghwæm, æghwær, æghwæs, æghwæt, æghwam, eghwæs æghwelc, æghwelce, æghwelcere, æghwelces, æghwelcicum, æghwelcne, æghwelcum, æghwilc, æghwilce, æghwilces, æghwilc, æghwilcon, æghwylc, æghwylcan, æghwylce, æghwylces, æghwylcne, æghwylcum, eghuelc, eghuelcum, eghuoelc, eghwelce, eghweolcum, eghwylce, eghwylcere, æilwine ælc, ælcan, ælce, ælcen, ælcera, ælcere, ælcerre, ælces, ælcne, ælcon, ælcra, ælcre, ælcum, ylc gehwa, gehwæm, gehwæne, gehwære, gehwæs, gehwæt, gehwam, gehwane, gehware, gihuaes

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gehwelc, gehwelce, gehwelcere, gehwelces, gehwelcne, gehwelcre, gehwelcum, gehwilc, gehwilce, gehwilces, gehwilcne, gehwilcon, gehwilcum, gehwone, gehwylc, gehwylce, gehwylces, gehwylcne, gehwylcra, gehwylcre, gehwylcu, gehwylcum every: æfre ælc, æfre ælcne ME1 each: ach, æchere, æi, æie, æies, ælc, ælcan, ælce, ælcere, ælces, ælch, ælche, ælchere, ælches, ælcne, ælcon, ælich, ællche, alc, alce, alcum, ealc, ealch, ec, ech, eche, eches, elc, elch, elche, elchere, euc, euch, euch-​a, euchan, euchanes, euche, euches, ewilche, gehwylc, illc, iwhillc, uch, ulke, uwilc, uwilche, ylc, ylca, ylcæ, ylcæn, ylcam, ylcan, ylce every: æuerælc, æuere-​ælche, æuric, æurilch, eauer-​euch, efrec, efri ME2 each: æhc, ech, ech-​manere, ech-​on, eche, echedaye, echedayes, echon, ek, euch, euchan, euche, icha, ichon, il, vch, vuch every: æurihce, auerichedaye, euer-​ ech, euere-​ il, euere-​ ilc, euerech, eueri, euerich, eueriche, eueril, euerilk, euerilkon, eueruch, eueruche, eueruchon, euery, euerych, eueryche, euerychon, eurech, eureche, eurilc ME3 each: each, ech, eche, echedeyl, echone, ich, iche, il, vche, yche every: euere, euereche, eueri, euerich, euerilkane, euery, euerych, eueryche, euerychone, euerychonn, euerydel, euerydeyl, evere, everich, everiche, everichon, every, everyche ME4 each: each, ecchone, ech, eche, echedaies, echone, ich, iche, ichon, vche, ych, yche, ylke every: euere, eueri, euerich, eueriche, euerichon, eueriday, eueridayes, euerilkane, euerilke, euery, euerychone, euery-​dele, euerych, eueryche, euerychon, euerychone, euerychoon, euerylk, euyryche, euyrry, euyry, euyryche, ever, every, every-​ chon, everych, everyche, ev~y, ev~yche, ev~ye EModE each: each, ech, eche every: eueri, euerie, euery, euerye, evere, everie, every, everybody, everye, everyman’s, everything, ever~, evry, evrye, ev~y, ev~ych, ev~ye

The long list of variant forms deserves a few comments: the variety of EACH-​ forms/​simplex forms is great throughout the OE period and still in ME1 (up to 1250). After that the compound EVERY shows a much greater variety of forms. In fact, from ME2 onwards EVERY prevails as a lexeme, but this does not show clearly in the number of spelling variants, as the spelling is more and more regularized starting in late ME. As to the chronological development, the OE ælc with an l disappears by 1200. The simplex forms without the l element appear

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in many variant spellings throughout the ME period up to the present day. The northern i-​forms (ich, ych) survive at least until 1500. The compounds, on the other hand, are somewhat later, as we have seen. Everych types are established by ca. 1300, whereas the forms without the palatal element are not frequently used until almost a century later. A few instances to illustrate the forms: (1) & þrie Scottas comon to Ælfrede cyninge, on anum bate butan ælcum gereþrum of

(2)

(3) (4) (5)

(6) (7)

Hibernia, “And three Irishmen came to King Alfred in a boat without any oars,” (OE2 Chronicle MS A 82) To primsange syn þry sealmas gecwedene, ælc on sundron and nan under anum Gloria; “Let there be three psalms chanted at prime-​song, each to be sung separately and none during the praise;” (OE3 The Benedictine Rule 40) And ealle hi wæron anræde æt eallum þam ðingum, þe man on fruman on Nicea gesette, and ealle hi forbudon æfre ælc wiflac weofodþenum. (O3/​4 IR RULE POLITY 119) Elch pine is fremed on þre fold wise. “Every pain avails in three ways.” (ME1 Trinity Homilies 29) We hit clepieþ oure bread of echedaye, þet is to zigge of eche daye. uor þet is þe echedayes dol þet god yefþ to his wel wilynde: þet eche daye doþ his seruice “We call it our daily bread, that is to say the bread of each day, because it is the daily share that God gives to those who are loyal to him, those who serve him every day” (M2 Ayenbite of Inwyt I, 112) Denemark shal be þin euere-​ilc del “Every bit of Denmark will be yours” (M2 Havelok 41) yef eueriche of hem ane peny “give each of them a penny” (M2 Kentish Sermons 220)

My HC data comprise around 3000 instances of EVERY and EACH, divided quite equally between the traditional three main divisions of Old, Middle, and Early Modern English. The tables below give absolute figures as well as percentages of the recorded instances. (For the sake of comparison, for the OE period also frequencies covering practically the whole body of extant texts are given.) Old English “each” and “every”: HC ælc 588 (54 %) gehwylc 217 (20 %) æghwilc 157 (15 %) gehwa/​gehwæt 110 (10 %) æghwa/​æghwæt 11 (1 %) totals 1083 (100 %)

cf. Kahlas-​Tarkka (1987) 2891 (62 %) 828 (18 %) 544 (12 %) 316 (7 %) 62 (1 %) 4641 (100 %)

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Middle English ME1 ME2 ME3 ME4 totals

EACH 254 (94 %) 89 (63 %) 134 (48 %) 68 (33 %) 545 (61 %)

EVERY 16 (6 %) 52 (37 %) 144 (52 %) 140 (67 %) 352 (39 %)

totals 270 (100 %) 141 (100 %) 278 (100 %) 208 (100 %) 897 (100 %)

Early Modern English E1 E2 E3 totals

EACH 43 (15 %) 62 (16 %) 56 (22 %) 161 (17 %)

EVERY 244 (85 %) 325 (84 %) 197 (78 %) 766 (83 %)

totals 287 (100 %) 387 (100 %) 253 (100 %) 927 (100 %)

As the “real competition” seems to be that between the two variants EVERY and EACH in Present-​day English just as in EModE, and so even in ME, it is of interest to look at the frequencies of these two lexemes. In OE, on the other hand, the competition is more between the five distinct variants ælc, gehwylc, æghwilc, gehwa/​gehwæt, and æghwa/​æghwæt. Æfre ælc, the predecessor of ModE every, does not yet play a role in OE, as I have only recorded two latish instances (in Wulfstan and ChronE) of this new-​comer (­example 3 above). Various reasons for the differences in the absolute figures can be suggested: The most frequent variant ælc is short and flexible in use, close in form to eall but distributive in meaning. It is interesting to note that ælc rarely appears in expressions with strong individualizing force and has thus been the least distributive variant in OE. This is probably also the reason why æfre came to be added to express more distinctly the original sense, which had become obscured. Gehwylc and æghwilc go back to the same stem as other indefinites in OE as well as interrogatives (see above on etymology). The following examples illustrate their uses: (8) Eac is gehwilcum men his endenexta dæg near and near. “For everyone, his last day comes closer and closer.” (O3 ÆCHom i 602.26) (9) ic swaþe whilum /​mine bemiþe monna gehwylcum. “Sometimes I hide my track from everyone.” (OX/​3 Riddles 243) (10) æghwylce yfele fot swaðu him ongean cumende he forbugeþ “He avoids every evil foot-​swath that he comes across with” (O2 Lch i 318.23) (11) Gif he swa gestæððig ne staðolade /​ealla gesceafta, æghwylc hiora wraðe tostencte weorðan sceolden, /​æghwilc hiora, ealle to nauhte; weorðan sceoldon wraðe toslopena,

Revisiting EVERY and EACH from Old English to Early Modern English 141

“If he had not made all creatures so steadfast, each of them would be grievously destroyed, every one of them, all, would be dissolved to nothing,” (O2/​3 The Meters of Boethius 202) Gehwylc shows an earlier development, and it was later further intensified to give us æghwilc. Both are relatively common in OE, but somewhat unexpectedly the older formation is more frequent. The higher frequency of gehwilc can at least partly be explained by the fact that, having stress on the second syllable (contrary to æghwilc) after the unstressed prefix, it is more easily adjusted to the metrical rules of poetry, whereas æghwilc meets the demands of alliteration and meter with more difficulty (see also Kahlas-​Tarkka 1987, 117). The frequencies of gehwylc in poetry support this assumption. For other possible reasons see below on syntactic variation. Gehwa and æghwa do not compete in frequency with the other variants in the data. This again can be explained by the fact that they were both archaic in OE already (Kahlas-​Tarkka 1987, 117–​20). Limitations in their syntactic use, being only pronominal, also contribute to their low frequencies. The claim for their archaic nature is further supported by their frequency in poetry as compared to prose, e.g., (12) sylce ic maguþegnas mine hate /​wið feonda gehwone flotan eowerne “Moreover, I will order my young thanes to guard your ship honourably against every enemy” (OX/​3 Beow 11) (13) Forþon him nu ealles þonc æghwa secge “Therefore let everyone now utter thanks to him” (OX/​3 The Fortunes of Men 156)

The table above for the ME data shows us that we can establish a division between the older EACH paradigm and the later EVERY paradigm, even though the whole picture is far from uniform, due to the great number of spelling variants. What is striking is that EVERY increases in frequency at the cost of EACH, and is in the majority (52 %) from the third period of ME onwards. The wealth of spelling variants as well as inflectional forms (see above) also confirm this development. One obvious reason for the changes is certainly the fact that the etymologically more emphatic later EVERY paradigm gained weight because of the more established spelling of the word, which was thus not so easily confused with, e.g., the monosyllabic variant with its numerous spelling (and probably pronunciation) variants. A further source for confusion was OE ilca “same” and its manifestations in ME, which were easily confused with ilc/​ylc in the sense “each” (­examples 6 and 19). This problem was later solved by the Scandinavian loanword same.

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EVERY gains even more ground in EModE where its percentages are clearly higher than those in the earlier periods (see table above). Why the absolute figures in E3 are lower is difficult to say, but I see as one explanation the fact that there is no biblical text in E3 in the HC contrary to the earlier EModE sub-​ periods, which may skew the numbers. (14) and the Tyrannie of the tyme extended upon dyuers honest Persons for Religion, and wished it were lawfull for all of each Religion to liue safely according to their Conscience; (E1 The Trial of Throckmorton I, 70.C1) (15) Vntill the Scholer, by him selfe, be hable to fetch out of his Grammer, euerie Rewle, for euerie Example: So, as the Grammer booke be euer in the Scholers hand, and also vsed of him, as a Dictionarie, for euerie present vse. (E1 Ascham, The Scholemaster 184) (16) Besides, the Master for his encouragement, should have liberty to make what benefit he can by tabling in strangers; and every of the abler sort of inhabitants in the Town, should pay him (at least) 10s. (E3 Hoole, A New Discovery of the Old Art of Teaching Schoole 227)

Dialectal Trends In general, dialectal differences in the distribution of variant forms are difficult to detect in OE, due to the fact that we are at the mercy of the OE corpus of texts, mostly representing the WS variety. It has, however, been noted in earlier scholarship that some of the variants for EVERY and EACH may belong to, or at least be typical of, different dialects. In my early work (Kahlas-​Tarkka 1987, 127–​29), I also found some very tentative support for the Anglian colouring of æghwilc. A great majority of the instances in the Lindisfarne Gospels as well as in Rushworth are of æghwilc or eghuelc as in Matthew 19:29, whereas the WS gospels favor ælc: (17) ⁊ ælc þe forlæt for minum naman hys hus (WS) eghuelc seðe forletas hus (Li) æghwilc þonne ðe for-​leteþ hus (Ru)

In addition, the Anglian coloring (if we accept that this is what it is) can be clearly traced in the Blickling Homilies and the OE Martyrology, which are generally claimed to contain Anglian features. A discussion of its own would be needed for idiolectal usages, which are not always easy to separate from dialectal colorings (a brief account of these appears in Kahlas-​Tarkka 1987, 121–​26).

Revisiting EVERY and EACH from Old English to Early Modern English 143

In ME, dialects become even more detectable and relevant, thanks to a greater supply of texts from different areas. While probably working on the Linguistic Atlas of Middle English, Michael Samuels analyzed an interesting case of diversity and exception, that of euch(e), to the main division in the dialectal distribution between ech(e) in the south and uch(e) and ilk more to the north: The ME form euch(e) “each” is comparatively rare, occupying a belt running south of Hereford and Worcester, between vch(e) to the north and ech(e) to the south, and it might appear at first sight to be no more than a phonetic compromise between the two latter. Yet euch(e) has the OE etymon eghwilc (æghwilc) to which it is convincingly connected by the attested middle stage ewilc(h); and eghwilc is, for the OE period, a by no means obvious compromise to occur between ylc and ælc, the respective etyma of vch(e) and ech(e). We can only assume that eghwilc (æghwilc) was more widespread in OE and occurred in free or conditioned variation with other forms, but that it became obsolete everywhere except in the precise area where its ME reflex was suitable as a compromise; but also conversely, that its precise phonetic development (which was only one of a number possible) was due to the forms adjacent to the area to which it had become restricted. In other words, euch(e) is partly the product of its own history within its own system, and partly that of its geographical environment. (Samuels 1972, 99–​100)

 

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The HC material confirms the general division of the simplex forms of EACH and thus clearly shows that the East Midland dialect prevailingly favors ech(e), with initial e, with a few exceptions of ich in the Cloud of Unknowing and Boethius. Ilk is also relatively frequent in East Midland, and an interesting idiolectal feature of Julian of Norwich is that she only uses ilk or ylk, even compound forms euerylk and euerilke. The earliest ME sub-​period, not included in the LALME data, shows a number of more conservative instances of ælc and alch. As to the compound forms of the East Midland dialect, the prevailing forms are euery, eueri, every, or the somewhat more conservative longer euerich. West Midland is represented by fewer texts in the HC than the eastern dialect area. The special characteristic, the use of euch, as noted by Samuels, is frequently attested in Sawles Warde, Hali Meidhad, Ancrene Wisse, and the Katherine Group: (18) & demeð euchan his dom efter his rihte. fordret of hire nimeð his hird euch efter ðt he is warde to witene … & euch alswa of þe oþre wit ðt onont him ne schal nan unþeaw cumen in “and assigns everyone his sentence according to his deserts; for the fear of her, his retinue, each according to what he is, undertakes keeping watch … each just as the other senses, so that, as regards him, no sin would enter him” (M1 Sawles Warde 168)

Southern dialects seem to favor conservative forms. The North, understandably represented by relatively few texts, shows a prevalence of the i-​ or y-​forms, e.g., (19) ⁊ all he seþ nuȝȝu /​Whatt illc an mann shall finden, /​Whatt mede illc an shall underrfon /​Att Godd forr hise dedess. (M1 Orm 17688)

In the Early Modern period, regional dialects do not seem to play a role in the choice of the variants. More interesting is their syntactic behavior, e.g., (20) and the Tyrannie of the tyme extended upon dyuers honest Persons for Religion, and wished it were lawfull for all of each Religion to liue safely according to their Conscience; (E1 The Trial of Throckmorton I, 70.C1) (21) First the childe is to be taught, how to call every letter, pronouncing each of them plainely, fully and distinctly; I meane, in a distinct and differing sound, each from others, (E2 Brinsley, Ludus Literarius, or the Grammer Schoole 15) (22) Besides, the Master for his encouragement, should have liberty to make what benefit he can by tabling in strangers; and every of the abler sort of inhabitants in the Town, should pay him (at least) 10s. (E3 Hoole, A New Discovery of the Old Art of Teaching Schoole 227)

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Expressions for human reference in the development of everybody and everyone are of particular interest in the EModE period (see below).

Observations on Syntactic Variation and Collocations In my earlier study on OE uses (Kahlas-​Tarkka 1987, 23) my attention was particularly drawn to the fact that ælc, æghwilc, æghwa/​æghwæt, gehwilc, and gehwa/​ gehwæt clearly favored different syntactic structures. By this I mean especially that there was a striking difference between determiner uses and those, very similar in meaning but constructed with the genitive plural form of the semantic head of the phrase (a kind of “partitive genitive,” corresponding to the of-​structure in later English). The genitive structures were, according to Hermann (1940, 178) again, very typical of early Gmc, and OE thus continues this trend (cf. ­examples 9 and 11 above). Ælc is by far the most frequent indefinite in adjectival determiner function (78 % of all adjectival phrases), whereas æghwa/​æghwæt and gehwa/​gehwæt appear predominantly as pronouns proper, due to the fact that hwa/​hwæt appears only as a pronoun. Interestingly, in only 32 % of the instances recorded for the study does gehwilc appear in adjectival/​determiner uses, whereas the adjectival use of æghwilc accounts for 68 % of all its recorded instances. In a small minority of cases, ælc, æghwilc, and gehwilc appear in the plural. The ca. 100 instances of gehwilc in the plural may be sufficient for considering this as a genuine usage. We only need to think of Present-​day English usage where there is fluctuation as to the number (*Everyone have their problems). Three-​part syntactic division of the five OE variants, percentages ælc æghwa æghwilc gehwa gehwilc totals

pronoun 45 8 14 25 7 100 (13)

+​ gen.mod. 36 1 7 13 43 100 (26)

determiner 78 -​ 13 0.2 9 100 (61)

(100)

“Syntactic character” of the five OE variants, percentages determiner +​ gen.mod. pronoun totals

ælc 76 15 9 100

æghwa -​  23  77 100

æghwilc 68 16 16 100

gehwa 2 50 48 100

gehwilc 32 63 5 100

totals 61 26 13 100

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Pronominal uses of EACH and EVERY EACH EVERY totals

M1 50 98 % 1 2% 51

M2 34 76 % 11 24 % 45

M3 21 44 % 27 56 % 48

M4 34 49 % 35 51 % 69

totals 139 65 % 74 35 % 213

M4 34 24 % 105 76 % 139

totals 406 59 % 278 41 % 684

Determiner uses of EACH and EVERY EACH EVERY totals

M1 204 93 % 15 7% 219

M2 55 57 % 41 43 % 96

M3 113 49 % 117 51 % 230

Keeping in mind that the transition from OE to ME is slow and proceeds at a different pace in different areas, we can roughly summarize the ME situation as to the syntactic behavior of the EACH paradigm and EVERY paradigm in the following way: As in OE, it is impossible to detect any consistent division between the determiner function and pronoun function of the variants. The differences between Present-​day English each and every, referred to in the very beginning, do not apply to ME in the same way. There is, however, a slight difference in the frequencies of the two types in each function: the pronominal use of EACH is far more frequent than that of EVERY. Tentatively we might suggest that this difference points toward later development and the distinctions in the present-​ day usage, but this of course is not conclusive, as the data is somewhat limited. EVERY appears in the majority of instances in the EModE data, where adjectival uses are more frequently construed with EVERY than EACH. The tendency towards later developments is obvious. An interesting syntactic detail is the rise of the of-​constructions like each of us, to take over from the OE structures with a genitive plural, e.g., manna gehwilc or æghwilc hiora (as in e­ xamples 9 and 11 above). Contrary to the present-​day usage, where only each is possible, this ME innovation appeared both with the simplex forms and with the compounds: (23) So þat hii founde kniȝtes . ech of hom on . To witie him in prison . & ȝut uor echon . He of scapede to churche “He there encountered knights; each of them was there to guard him in prison. Yet, he escaped from everyone into the church” (ME2 Robert of Gloucester 721)

Revisiting EVERY and EACH from Old English to Early Modern English 147 (24) Now soth it is that eche of thyse thre rehercyd was in his tyme an helper or sauer of the people “Now it is true that each of these three mentioned here was in his time a helper and savior of the people” (ME4 Fitzjames, Sermo Die Lune A2V) (25) for so as every of thise forseide thinges is the same that thise othere thynges ben “as each of these afore-​mentioned things is the same as these other things are” (ME3 Chaucer, Boethius 430) (26) they a-​non wente thoroughe owte alle the towne of Shyrborne an toke to every man, woman, and chylde that was above xij yere age and iij chore, everyche of hem hadde vjd; “they immediately went through all the remaining part of the town of Sherborn and went to every man, woman and child of twelve years and three scores of age; each of them got a sixpence” (M4 Gregory, The Historical Collections of a Citizen of London 195)

In (26), it is worth noting that we also have two variant spelling forms of the complex every, probably due to the difference in syntax and the fact that everyche still carries some of its original emphatic and individualizing tone (cf. OE æfre ælc). What is most striking about every as an independent pronoun, though, is that it only appears in of-​constructions, never alone on its own (25). It is also worth noting that the addition of ONE in the of-​constructions in the recorded ME data is rare, only five recorded instances: (27) and I preye euerichon of you to conceyue and knowe þat oure Lorde God at þe Day of Dome shall shewe ryght with-​oute mercye, full rygorysly, full sturnely, and aske of vs howe þat we haue spende þe … (M3/​4 IR SERM ROYAL 18:Heading)

The EModE period shows new developments. Trying to determine whether new formations like every one or everybody or older every man represent adjectival uses vs independent or pronominal uses becomes more difficult and less relevant, as the spelling of, e.g., everybody as one word or two varies and would thus force us to treat every body as adjectival and everybody as pronominal. More interesting is to follow the development of universal “everyone” with human reference as can be seen in the figures below (Raumolin-​Brunberg 1994, 319): Universal “everyone” each every/​each man every body every one totals

E1 0 28 1 4 33

% -​  85   3  12 100

E2 0 15 0 15 30

% -​  50 -​  50 100

E3 2 4 5 17 28

% 7 14 18 61 100

If we compare every man and every one, we can see that the very common early phrase every man with universal reference, not gender-​bound, gives way to every one, starting in LME but reaching its peak towards the latter part of the EModE

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period. The Bible translations of the EModE period favor every man to preserve the archaic and solemn style. (28) For every man that evyll doeth, hateth the light (E1 XX BIBLE TYNDNEW VI, 40) (29) Trewly, D. Medcalfe was parciall to none: but indifferent to all: master for the whole, a father to every one, in that Colledge. (E1 IS/​EX EDUC ASCH 278)

There are eighteen instances of everybody in the HC EModE material as against sixty-​one of every one. Body with reference to “person” or “one” is still in relatively frequent use in EModE (the earliest instances being from the late thirteenth century). Claims have been made that even as late as in Shakespeare’s time, the compounds in -​body were not yet felt to be real compounds. I have found only one instance in the HC where everybody is written as one word (followed by else), which may support this claim: (30) to make them capable to deserve the favour of their parents and the esteeme of everybody else. (E3 IS EDUC LOCKE 55) (31) Basset, as the Q. her predecessor us’d to do: smiled upon & talked to every body; so as no manner of change seem’d in Court, (E3 NN DIARY EVELYN 902)

The earliest instance: (32) and after masse they had a bryd cupe and wafers and epocras and muskadyll plente to hevere body: (E1 The Diary of Henry Machyn 199)

In documentary and legal texts (Statutes), some inclusive phrases deserve special mention: Inclusiveness seems to be emphasized in phrases like all and every Person and Persons or all and every Parishe and Parishes (Statutes). If we want to find the point in time when the dichotomy between every and each, as we can see it in the present-​day use, was clear-​cut and observed consistently, one would need to extend the study beyond the time scope of the HC. But there are signs of this in very few instances: (33) Bytwixt the bridge and the south gate of Bath I markid fair medows on eche hand, but especially on the lift hond, (E1 Leland, The Itinerary of John Leland I, 140)

From an/​anra to one The use of an/​anra in OE is an interesting chapter in the history of EVERY and EACH. It appears as an intensifier with the OE words, apart from aeghwa. An appears either in agreement with the form of the indefinite or as a modifier in the genitive plural form, e.g.,

Revisiting EVERY and EACH from Old English to Early Modern English 149 (34) Ælc heora an is Ælmihtig God, ac na swa-​ðeah-​hwæðere þry Godas, ac hi ðry sind an Ælmihtig God. “Every one of them is Almighty God, but still not three individual Gods, but the three of them are one Almighty God.” (OE3 ÆCHom ii 604.33) (35) þonne on þreo dæleð in fyres feng folc anra gehwylc, þara þe gewurdon … “Then he will divide into three, in the clutches of the fire, each single nation of those that were …” (OX/​3 Elene 101) (36) Sceal þonne anra gehwylc //​fore Cristes cyme cwic arisan, (OX/​3 ChristC 1029)

an/​anra in OE (Kahlas-​Tarkka 1987, 108), absolute figures an anra totals

gehwilc 18 98 116

gehwa -​ 10 10

æghwilc 13 5 18

æghwa -​ -​ -​

ælc 7 1 8

totals 38 114 152

According to Hermann (1940, 174–​76), the origin of the form anra gehwilc is to be found in the general OE or even Prim. Gmc tendency to favor the “partitive” genitive. He also believes that the order of appearance has been from an to anra, both adding individualizing force to the collocations. Einenkel (1904, 54–​ 55) for his part suggests that the use of anra is due to the attraction of a nominal or pronominal modifier which is combined with the indefinite pronoun. Both explanations are possible, but it is true that both an and anra appear in structures with and without other elements in a phrase (as in e­ xamples 35 and 36 above). The genitive plural form anra was more frequent in OE than an in agreement. The assumption that the addition of an/​anra is an old Gmc feature is verified by the OE data where the older formations gehwilc and gehwa clearly favor this collocation. Several factors can influence the choice of the form, metrical demands are often of importance, but space does not allow us to go deeper into details. It must suffice to say that here again the OE usage clearly differs from that of later periods, where ONE has adopted a different pronominal role. It is not easy to detect the exact point where an/​anra lose their old intensifying function in these phrases. (For an extensive study on ONE in OE, see Rissanen 1967; a brief survey of EME developments Kahlas-​Tarkka 1987, 151–​70.) In ME on “one” is combined with both EACH and EVERY. It seems to serve a double function by preserving the old intensifying role as well as fulfilling metrical demands in rhymes, so common in ME texts. In addition, ONE has adopted a pronominal role indicating later developments towards “everyone/​everybody,” e.g. (also 23 and 27 above):

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(37) þo þe kyng of fraunce y-​herde þis, anon assembled he is douse pers eueruchon, “When the king of France heard this, he immediately gathered his twelve peers, each one (of them),” (ME2 Historical Poems (3) 11) (38) For ase þis child ȝeode a day: in a Mede to pleie, his felawes he bi-​ lefde ech-​on : and ȝeode bi-​ side þe weiȝe, (M2 NN BIL SLEG 433:Heading) (39) Euery oon shalle falle, whan he comyth into the lond! “In spite of all idolatry, everyone will perish, when he comes into the country!” (ME4 Digby Plays 104)

Pronominal “each” and “every” used alone or supported by “one,” absolute figures “each” “each one” “every” “every one” totals

M1 17 21 -​ -​ 38

M2 10 21 3 6 40

M3 8 8 4 7 27

M4 5 6 3 9 23

totals 40 56 10 22 128

For EModE, see the discussion on every man, everyone, and everybody above. The following normalized figures based on the HC data illustrate the different phases in the chronology of “everyone” from the earliest OE documents to the eighteenth century (Raumolin-​Brunberg and Kahlas-​Tarkka 1997, 31): Indefinite pronouns with singular human reference (occurrences per 100,000 running words)

EACH/​EVERY -​MAN EACH/​EVERY ONE EVERY BODY totals

OE –​1150 N % 46.5 65 24.9 35 0

ME1–​2 1150–​1350 N % 19.5 33 20.0 34 19.5 33

ME3–​4 1350–​1500 N % 15.6 39 16.8 42 7.3 19

EmodE1–​2 1500–​1640 N % 7.1 24 14.2 49 7.6 26

EmodE3 1640–​1710 N % 8.8 34 2.9 11 11.1 42

0 71.4

0 59.0

0 39.7

0.3 29.2

3.5 26.3

1

13

Concluding Remarks The above brief survey deals with one detail in the history of English, but covers a long time span from Old English to Early Modern English. The development shows that a great variety of words, not to forget spelling variants, have been used to convey EVERY and EACH and that economy as to the number of variants has

Revisiting EVERY and EACH from Old English to Early Modern English 151

come to the fore only in the latter part of the covered time span. Different syntactic features like the use of genitive plural constructions in OE and OF-​phrases in LME and EModE, an/​anra in OE and the rise of pronominal ONE in ME, differences between adjectival and pronominal uses justify the traditional way of treating the three main periods of English separately. In the space allowed it has been possible only to make a selection of features for discussion, but I hope it, as well as the corpus material, has been representative enough to give an idea of the relevant characteristics and changes in the indefinite paradigm conveying totality in the long history of English.

References Bhat, D. N. S. 2004. Pronouns. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bolinger, Dwight L. 1976. “The in-​group: One and Its Compounds.” In The Second LACUS Forum 1975, edited by P. A. Reich, 229–​ 37. Columbia, SC: Hornbeam Press. Einenkel, Eugen. 1904. “Das englische Indefinitum, II.” Anglia 27: 1–​204. Haspelmath, Martin. 1997. Indefinite Pronouns. Oxford Studies in Typology and Linguistic Theory. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Hermann, Eduard. 1940. “Jeder einzelne in den germanischen Sprachen.” Nachrichten aus der neueren Philologie und Literaturgeschichte, 3, Nachrichten der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, Philologisch-​historische Klasse, Neue Folge, Fachgruppe 4: 173–​206. Huddleston, Rodney, and Geoffrey K. Pullum. 2002. The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kahlas-​Tarkka, Leena. 1987. The Uses and Shades of Meaning of Words for “Every” and “Each” in Old English, with an Addendum on Early Middle English Developments. Mémoires de la Société Néophilologique de Helsinki 46. Helsinki: Modern Language Society. —​—​—​. 2007. “Verging on Totality? On ‘Minority Indefinites’ Conveying Totality in Old English.” In Change in Meaning and the Meaning of Change: Studies in Semantics and Grammar from Old to Present-​Day English, edited by Matti Rissanen, Marianna Hintikka, Leena Kahlas-​Tarkka, and Rod McConchie, 253–​ 77. Mémoires de la Société Néophilologique de Helsinki 72. Helsinki: Société Néophilologique. Labov, William. 1985. “The Several Logics of Quantification.” In Proceedings of the Eleventh Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistic Society, edited by Mary Niepokuj, Mary Van Clay, Vassiliki Nikiforidou, and Deborah Feder, 175–​95. Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Linguistic Society.

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Mitchell, Bruce. 1985. Old English Syntax. Oxford: Clarendon. Quirk, Randolph, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech, and Jan Svartvik. 1985. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman. Raumolin-​ Brunberg, Helena, and Leena Kahlas-​ Tarkka. 1997. “Indefinite Pronouns with Singular Human Reference.” In Grammaticalization at Work: Studies in Long-​Term Developments in English, edited by Matti Rissanen, Merja Kytö, and Kirsi Heikkonen, 17–​85. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Rissanen, Matti. 1967. The Uses of one in Old and Early Middle English. Mémoires de la Société Néophilologique de Helsinki 31. Helsinki: Modern Language Society. —​—​—​. 2001. “Variation, Change and New Evidence in the Study of the History of English.” In Innovations and Continuity in English Studies: A Critical Jubilee, edited by Herbert Grabes, 267–73. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Samuels, M. L. 1972. Linguistic Evolution, with Special Reference to English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kousuke Kaita

Sentence-​Initial Modals in Old English: Speaker’s Intention and Adhortative Power* Keywords: Word order, Old English, verb-​initial sentence, modal verb, adhortative

1. Introduction Word order in Old English is relatively free compared to Middle English and Modern English. The usual declarative type has the order “subject +​verb” even in OE, and the inverted “verb +​subject” order is found in interrogative and imperative sentences. However, a verb can be placed at the sentence-​initial position even though it is a declarative. I define this as “V1-​position,” where V stands for a finite verb, and 1 the first, i.e. sentence-​initial, slot. This special word order has attracted much scholarly attention. Quirk and Wrenn (1955, § 146) briefly mention “V [Verb] in initial position” for “special declarative effect” and also ascribe this style to individual writers’ preference. Campbell (1970) argues that such a word order in prose may reflect the influence of verse style. Mitchell (1985, § 3933) remarks that this ordering may “mark a turning-​point, a transition, or a change of pace.” Ogawa (2000) analyzes the inverted order in the Vercelli Homilies and the Blickling Homilies, and states that the inverted order “opens a new paragraph” or “marks transition from one speaker to another or from action to action” (239). Verbs in V1-​position are said to highlight the topic of the text (see also Fortson 2010, 159–​60; Ringe and Taylor 2014, 407–​08). When this inverted order has the first-​person subject in the plural we “we” or dual wit “we two” including the speaker (addressor), it is possible to discern an adhortative reading “let us.” There are several studies that analyze the structure of adhortative contexts, both synchronically and diachronically (e.g. Mitchell 1985, § 885; Traugott 1995; Krug 2009; van Bergen 2013). An adhortative sentence expresses the speaker’s intention. The addressor (speaker) proposes that the addressee (hearer[s]‌) realize the proposition together (e.g. “to go” as in ModE Let’s go) because the speaker intends to do so. In OE, the adhortative can be expressed by a finite verb in the subjunctive mood in V1-​position with the 1st

* This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP19K13227.

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person plural subject or an auxiliary uton1 “let us” with or without its subject plus an infinitive, which was supplanted by let us > let’s from ME on (see Mustanoja 1960, 475). According to Behre (1934, 19), uton is equivalent to “the adhortative subjunctive, i.e. the 1st pers. pl. [person plural] of the hortative subjunctive.” Uton takes a bare infinitive, and so do the OE preterite-​present verbs cunnan “to know how to,” durran “to dare,” magan “can,” mōtan “to be allowed to,” sculan “must,” and þurfan “to need,” and an anomalous verb willan “to wish.” I regard them simply as modals in OE, as most of them survive as the modal auxiliaries of ModE (cf. Mitchell 1985, §§ 990–​1024). They may also come to the V1-​position with we/​wit, for which this paper terms such a modal in the V1-​position a “V1-​modal.” Ogawa’s (2000) discussion of the inverted order includes magan and sculan. Moreover, several studies discuss modals in relation to uton. Behre (1934, 19–​25) discusses uton with sculan and now obsolete þurfan. Warner (1993, 94–​95, 140–​43) groups uton among the modal auxiliaries. My previous studies discussed the adhortative reading of OE sculan (Kaita 2015) and magan (Kaita 2018) with uton. Extending these remarks, this paper proposes that (i) the V1-​ modals are often used to foreground the speaker’s sense of intention to carry out the propositional content, and (ii) this sense of intention sometimes stretches to include an adhortative reading of the modals examined.

2. Analysis of V1-​modals Using the Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus, examples of V1-​modals have been retrieved as follows. The pronouns we/​wy/​wi for the 1st person plural and wit/​wyt for the dual were entered into the search window (whole words). I then focused on the verse and prose examples in which the pronouns are preceded by conjugated forms of cunnan, durran, magan, mōtan, sculan, þurfan, and willan together with uton. Both affirmative and negative cases are relevant (e.g. ne magon, nelle < ne wille, and so on). Particular cases accepted are those (i) with the infinitives unexpressed, (ii) immediately preceded by an address term because it does not affect the word order of the following elements, and (iii) immediately preceded by verbs of saying in the main clause, often separated by a colon because the following clause containing a modal is an independent one. The interrogative sentences to which the DOEC appends a question mark are excluded, as well as examples preceded by a conjunction or another clause 1 Uton is considered to have derived from OE wītan “to go” (see Quirk and Wrenn 1955, §§ 135, 214; Traugott 1992, 185; Ogura 2000; van Bergen 2013). It survived until the Early ME period (see OED, s.v. “ute”).

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because that may affect the word order of the following elements. The search results are summarized in table 1, which lists the modals in descending order of occurrence, with uton at the bottom. Cunnan was not found in the survey. In each of the affirmative and negative columns, the upper-​right figure represents the occurrences in verse texts, and the lower-​right those in prose texts. The left figure within each column is their sum: Table 1.  V1-​modals and uton magan

Total 33 (100 %)

affirmative 14 (42.4 %)

sculan

19 (100 %)

7 (36.8 %)

willan þurfan

10 (100 %) 7 (100 %)

1 (10.0 %)

durran mōtan uton

2 (100 %) 2 (100 %) 70 (100 %)

Total

143

1 (50.0 %) 70 (100.0 %)

1 (3.0 %) 13 (39.4 %) 3 (15.8 %) 4 (21.1 %) 1 (10.0 %)

1 (50.0 %) 2 (2.9 %) 68 (97.1 %) 93

negative 19 (57.6 %) 12 (63.2 %) 9 (90.0 %) 7 (100.0 %) 2 (100.0 %) 1 (50.0 %)

6 (18.2 %) 13 (39.4 %) 12 (63.2 %) 9 (90.0 %) 3 (42.9 %) 4 (57.1 %) 2 (100.0 %) 1 (50.0 %)

50

2.1. Magan Magan usually means “to be able to” (ability). When used in V1-​position, as for its contextual function, it can express the homilist’s will to realize the proposition. Example (1) below is placed at a section end (see Godden 1979, 295). (1) ÆCHom II, 39.1 295.2662    Ne mage we awritan ealle his wundra on ðisum scortan cwyde. mid cuðum gereorde. ac we wyllað secgan hu se soðfæsta gewat3     “We cannot write all of his miracles in this short narration with well-​known language, but we wish to tell how the righteous one departed”

Ne mage in (1) marks a topic change and at the same time the homilist’s intention not to continue the ongoing narration so as to move on to another story. 2 The OE texts and their short titles used in this article are based on those used in the DOEC, and emphases and translations are mine unless otherwise noted. 3 Ne mage we awritan is also found in ÆLS (Book of Kings) 473 and ÆLS (Swithun) 424.

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Even though a single author “writes” the record, its subject is plural. Using the plural subject appears to have the narrative effect that the audience or readers are included to share the context. Magan also exhibits an adhortative use, as in (2). Stevick (1992, 160) applies the “let us” interpretation to Magon we here. (2) HomU 20 (BlHom 10) 98    Magon we nu geheran be & worldricum     “We may now hear told the story of a certain rich and influential man”

This sentence appears, in Morris’s edition (1874–​80, 113), in the middle of a paragraph, yet it tells us that the homilist is able to and intends to go on to the next topic. Ogawa (2000, 249) refers to this passage and states that “the homilist turns from general discourse to a parable to illustrate the transitoriness of earthly riches, and the initial VS [Verb-​Subject] continues into the next sentence which starts the parable.” Thus, magan in V1-​position makes the audience aware of the topic to follow. In my corpus, six cases of magan in V1-​position take a verb of saying meaning “to say, tell, narrate.” Following Roberts’ (1979, 131) comment, quoted in Kaita (2018, 247), example (3) marks the starting point of a new section or topic as intended by a poet, for which I previously gave the “let us”-​reading. (3) GuthA 93    Magun we nu nemnan þæt us neah gewearð     þurh haligne had gecyþed,     hu Guðlac his in godes willan     mod gerehte, man eall forseah,     eorðlic æþelu, upp gemunde    ham in heofonum.4     “Now let us tell what was lately made known to us in a holy manner, how Guthlac directed his mind according to God’s will, rejected all the evils, earthly excellencies, remembered the home up in heaven.” (Kaita 2018, 247)

A type of this example (3) is a special form of an adhortative sentence. When the infinitive is a verb of saying, the context needs careful analysis. A typical adhortative expression, as in ModE Let’s go, has two aspects: (i) At least two participants are involved in the context. An addressor proposes an addressee to realize the proposition together (to go in Let’s go) because the speaker intends

4 Text is cited from the DOEC, but the verse lines are arranged according to Roberts (1979, 86).

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to do so; and (ii) The infinitive refers to a proposition which can be carried out by the participants involved. Most of the infinitives accompanying uton in my survey show this (e.g. geþencan “to think,” (ge)biddan “to pray”). The subject we in (3) embodies the first aspect.5 The infinitive nemnan may disagree with the second point because it literally indicates that a single subject will speak about something. With respect to the narrative characteristic in (3) similar to Ne mage we awritan in (1), the proposition can be expanded to an interactional implication: “to talk about something together.”

2.2. Sculan Sculan often expresses the obligation “must” in OE, even in V1-​position. Such is the case with verse example (4), the speech of a man’s soul to his body. The dual pronoun wit refers to both of them. (4) Soul I 101    Sculon wit þonne eft ætsomne siððan brucan     swylcra yrmða, swa ðu unc her ær scrife6     “We two, then, must experience again together afterwards such miseries as you imposed on us here earlier”7

There is a sense of obligation for “us” (i.e. soul and body) to suffer from hardship. This follows the soul’s question Ac hwæt do wyt unc? “[b]‌ut what will we two do for ourselves …?” (Moffat 1990, 58). The initial sculan marks the consequence that both soul and body will be obliged to suffer miseries. In the other cases collected, the proposition with sculan can be something desirable, from which an adhortative interpretation of sculan can be developed. In the first person, sculan with obligation can be synonymous with willan with volition, according to Standop (1957, 123). Regarding the adhortative reading, Behre (1934, 19–​20) treats sculan with an infinitive as an “equivalent of the hortative subjunctive (and the imperative respectively),” being “used to express a volitional attitude on the part of the speaker.” Its function is, according to Behre, “more or less equivalent to a command and occasionally, also, to an exhortation.”

5 Kaita (2018, 247–​48) had separated this example from the obvious adhortative case based on the accompanying infinitive type. 6 The verse lines are arranged according to Moffat (1990, 59). 7 Orton (1979a) takes this example as an interrogative sentence “[s]‌hall we then together suffer afterwards such miseries as you previously appointed for us here?” (459; see Orton 1979b for further discussion). With respect to the context and the verse parallelism with (9) and (15), the present study disagrees with this view.

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Behre gives two examples with “let us”-​interpretation: (i) Christ II 766 Forþon we fæste sculon wið þam færscyte symle wærlice wearde healdan “[t]‌herefore we must (or: let us) firmly and aye warily keep watch against the sudden shot”; (ii) OrW 31 we sculon þoncian þeodne mærum awa to ealdre “[l]et us (we should) thank the great Lord for ever and ever.” We may add Ne sculon we in CP 26.183.23 Ne sculon we eac forgietan hu hit wæs be Saule ðæm kyninge “we must also not forget how it was for the king Saul,” which Ogura (1988, 95) regards as an equivalent to an imperative sentence with the first person “let us not.” Furthermore, example (5) illustrates the adhortative tone of sculan. Ne sceole is included with other adhortative elements to make up an exhortative group. (5) HomU 1 (Irv 5) 162–​66    Uten gemunen hu þe us munede and tæhte and lærde, and þus cwæð: Nu is þe anfenge tid, and nu beoð þe halwende dages, þæt ælc mon mæg him seolfen þæt ece lif earniæn mid ure Drihtne gif he his lif rihtlice libbæn wule æfter larþeowæs tæcinge. Ne sceole we nenne mon bylgen læs þe ure bene ne beo noht; ac on alle þinge gearwie we us sylfe swa swa Godes þeines, þæt is ærest on mucele þulde, and on dræfednesse, and on halige wæcce, and on festene, and on clænnesse, and on þolemodnesse, and on clæne þonce, and on soðe lufe Godes and monnæ.     “Let us remember how the apostle admonished us and taught and instructed, and said thus: ‘now is the acceptable time and now are the Salvation days, that each one can earn eternal life for himself with our Lord if he wishes to live his life rightly according to the teacher’s teaching.’ We must not offend anyone lest our prayer be for nothing. But let us make ourselves ready for all things just as God’s servants, that is first in much patience, and in trouble, and in holy vigils, and in fasting, and in chastity, and in endurance, and in pure thought, and in true love of God and men.”

Belfour (1909, 105–​07) translates Uten gemunen as “[l]‌et us remember” and gearwie we us sylfe as “let us make ourselves ready,” while Ne sceole we as “[w]e must not.” These three elements likewise function as exhortative devices of what the homilist believes to be proper. Sculan here seems to work as a negative counterpart of the affirmative periphrasis with uton. The infinitive with sculan can also be a verb of saying. There are six cases found in my survey (secgan, reccan, areccan, tellan), one of which is the following (6). Scragg (1992, 267) places this at the beginning of a paragraph. Ogawa (2000, 238) cites this passage to describe sculan in the V1-​position, with Men þa leofestan, as marking the opening of a homily. We in (6) indicates the narrator (homilist) and the audience. The narrator’s sense of intention is emphasized, as the content is what he thinks important and wishes to achieve together with the audience.

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(6) HomS 2 (ScraggVerc 16) 1    Men þa leofestan, sceolon we nu wordum secgan be ðære arweorðnesse þysse halgan tide & þysses halgan dæges.     “Dearest men, we must now tell you with a few words about the holiness of this holy time and this holy day.”

2.3. Willan Willan expresses “to wish,” i.e. the volition of the subject to carry out the proposition. One affirmative case is found in the set phrase Wylle we. nelle we (ÆCHom I, 16 [App] 534.42), meaning “whether we will or no” (Quirk and Wrenn 1955, § 159; although they do not exactly refer to this example).8 The other cases of willan are in the negative (often in the contracted form nelle). There is an illustrative example of negative willan meaning “let us not,” which is (7a) below. This context is based on John 19:24 (see Scragg 1992, 34), for which I add in (7b) the relevant passage from the OE West-​Saxon Corpus version and the Early ModE King James Version (KJV) to clarify the context. (7) a. HomS 24.1 (Scragg) 311    Þa cwædon heo: Nelle we na slitan þas tunecan, ac uton hleotan to hwylc ure heo age     b. Jn (WSCp) 19.24     Ða cwædon hi him betweonan, ne slite we hy ac uton hleotan hwylces ures heo sy     [Jn 19:24 (KJV): They said therefore among themselues, Let not vs rent it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall bee]

The context of (7) is the crucifixion of Christ. Soldiers talk with each other about who will get Christ’s garment after his death. A soldier proposes not tearing apart the garment. The proposition of tearing apart concerns all the participants there. In (7a), Nelle we is coupled with uton to express negative and affirmative intention, respectively. This can be confirmed by synthetic ne slite we in (7b), and two more analogous texts, in which Nelle in (7a) corresponds to Uton … ne and Ne slitan we below: HomS 24 (ScraggVerc 1) 2189: Uton, la, ne toslitan þa tunecan, ac utan hleotan hwylc ure hie agan scyle; HomS 24.2 (Schaefer) 309: Ne slitan we þas tunecan, ac uton hleoton hwilc ure hi age. Mitchell (1985, § 916) points out that uton followed by ne is rare. Ogura (1988, 96) accepts Mitchell’s remark and mentions that the negative uton “might give room for “nelle we +​Inf [Infinitive]” to be used as a negative imperative equivalent.” Indeed, nelle and uton share 8 See also Kaita (2020, 80–​82). 9 Mitchell (1985, §916a) and van Bergen (2012, 488) cite this example when discussing uton followed by ne.

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morphological, syntactic, and semantic features: (i) a single form (note that nelle is a contracted form), (ii) the V1-​position, and (iii) the volitive meaning “to wish.” For (iii), the former part of (7ab) “Let us not tear apart the garment” can be paraphrased as “we wish not to tear apart the garment,” and the latter “Let us cast lots” as “we wish to cast lots.”10 For the negative of willan, there are three cases in which the infinitive is a verb of saying. If the discussion for (3) of magan is valid, the following (8) with nelle followed by sprecan would allow an adhortative analysis as well. (8) ÆIntSig 69.509    Nelle we na swiðor embe þis sprecan, forþan þe we habbað þa nydbehefestan axunga nu awritene     “We do not wish to speak about this any further, for we have now written the most necessary questions” (Fox 2012, 34)

Fox (2012, 34) comments regarding the context of (8): “Ælfric translates 69 of Alcuin’s 281 questions and breaks off his efforts suddenly and with a flourish.” As this remark suggests, we refers to Ælfric and his audience. After this sentence, a new topic continues. Works connected to Ælfric often use phrases similar to (8). See, for example, ÆJudgEp 12: Nelle we secgan na swiðor be þisum, which Ogura (1988, 95) cites with the reading “let us not.” There are otherwise ÆCHom I, 5 223.183: Nelle we ðas race na leng teon “we do not wish to prolong this story any longer,” and ÆGram 222.10: Nelle we na swyðor her be ðam worde sprecan “we do not wish to speak about this word any further here.” These may reflect Ælfric’s communicative concern for the hearers. The verbs of saying here would mean “to talk about a certain topic together.”

2.4. Þurfan Þurfan “to need” (obligation) is found with the negative. For the negative occurrence, þurfan is often discussed in light of understatement or litotes. Behre (1934, 20) explains that negative þurfan can have a prohibitive meaning. According to Bracher (1937, 915), “[t]‌he common type of understatement in Old English is achieved by the use of a negation: the denial of the opposite.” Bracher’s several examples contain þurfan. In (9), although not included by

10 This paraphrase is in harmony with Quirk et al.’s (1985, § 10.67) analysis of ModE will. Don’t worry. I won’t interfere means either “I don’t intend to interfere” (“auxiliary negation” in their term) or “I intend not to interfere” (“main verb negation”).

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Bracher, understatement seems to apply.11 This is the address of the soul to the body, as in the case of (4) using Sculon wit. The soul tells the body euphemistically that “we” should not be anxious. The V1 order establishes the soul’s intention not to be troubled. (9) Soul I 160    Ne þurfon wyt beon cearie æt cyme dryhtnes,     ne þære andsware yfele habban     sorge in , ac wyt sylfe magon     æt ðam dome þær dædum agilpan,     hwylce earnunga uncre wæron.12     “We two need not be anxious at the Lord’s coming, nor have grievous sorrow in heart for the answer, but we two ourselves can exult in deeds at the Judgment there, which were our merits.”

Ne þurfe in the following (10) pertains to understatement too, and its implied meaning is volition. This is the Viking herald’s speech to Byrhtnoth’s army at Maldon in Essex before they go into battle. The herald profiles the Viking’s intention not to fight, but to secure peace. Willað in the next line implies this. (10) Mald 34    Ne þurfe we us spillan, gif ge spedaþ to þam;     we willað wið þam golde grið fæstnian.13     “We need not kill us, if you are prosperous to that extent;14 we wish to confirm peace for the gold.”

Understatement can be seen also in some prose examples that allow a euphemistic reading for negative þurfan, as in (11). The whole context refers to (negative) obligation. In short, the homilist implies that “we should” appreciate God’s rewards.

11 Bracher (1937, 929n31) mentions this passage (without any explanation) in reference to his discussion of Old High German Muspilli 65: nidarf er sorgen, denne er ze deru suonu quimit “he does not need to be anxious, when he comes to the Judgment” (my text here is from Steinmeyer 1963, 69). Bracher notes that “[t]‌his is said in reference to the righteous man, who, in sharp contrast to the wicked, may rejoice at the last judgment.” Bracher probably aims to exhibit the functional similarity between OE þurfan and Old High German durfan when negated. 12 The verse lines are arranged according to Moffat (1990, 64). 13 The verse lines are arranged according to Gordon (1971, 44–​45). 14 Phrase gif ge spedaþ to þam literally means “if you are rich to that extent” (Klaeber 1905, 32). My translation is based on Gordon’s (1971, 44) remark.

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(11) HomS 40.3 (ScraggVerc 10) 200–​0115     Hwæt, we nu magon be þysan ongitan & oncnawan þæt se ælmihtiga God nele þæt his gifena man þanc nyte. Ne ðurfon we þæs wenan þæt he us nelle þara leana gemanigan þe he us her on eorðan to gode forgifeð.     “What, now we can perceive and understand by this that the Almighty God does not wish that one does not know [to offer] thanks for His gifts. We need not think that He does not wish to remind us of those rewards which He gives us here on earth as a benefit.”

There is room to discuss the adhortative reading of þurfan. Ogura (1988, 95) cites ÆLet 2 (Wulfstan 1) 96: Ne þurfan we us ondrædan þa deoflican costnunga16 with the reading “let us not.” For (9)–​(11), there are four relevant aspects. (i) According to Behre (1934, 20–​25), þurfan is an element for hortatory expressions beyond those using uton and sculan, although he lists no examples for þurfan with first person subject. (ii) Sculan and þurfan denote obligation “must” or “to need.” (iii) Negative þurfan “need not” in understatement implies “must not” (prohibition), just as negative sculan does. Through understatement, the speaker’s sense of obligation or volition is connected to the intention to realize the proposition. (iv) The infinitives of þurfan, found seven times, indicate what the participants can share: beon cearie for (9), ondrædan “to be afraid” for ÆLet 2, spillan for (10), þencan “to think,” and wenan three times, including (11). The aforementioned (9)–​(11) then appear to qualify as adhortative statements: “let us not be anxious” for (9), “let us not kill us each other” for (10), and “let us not think” for (11). Regarding the previous example (7a), it has been discussed that nelle can be a negative counterpart of uton. The negative þurfan may serve the same purpose through understatement.

2.5. Durran There are two cases of durran “to dare,” which denotes boldness. Both are in the negative and function as topic markers. In example (12), the context is a conversation between St. Nicholas and sailors in an Adriatic harbor. The sailors’ ships are laden with wheat. Nicholas asks them to share it with the starving people of the port. The sailors turn down this opportunity. Ne durre we here simply refers to the sailors’ intention not to proffer the load, which is a new topic as a reply, rather than an adhortative marker. 1 5 See Di Sciacca (2008, 117–​18) for the detail of this context. 16 Fehr’s German translation is quite literal: “[w]‌ ir brauchen uns nicht vor den Versuchungen des Teufels zu fürchten” (1914, 107; “We do not need to be afraid of the Devil’s temptations”).

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(12) LS 29 (Nicholas) 247     Eala þu arwurþe fæder, ne durre we na wanian hwæte forþon þe me hine mæt swiðe nærulice us an hand æt Alexandria, & we hine sculon ealswa nærulice ongemeten þæs caseres þeningmannum.     “Alas, venerable father, we dare not lessen the amount of this wheat because it was measured very closely at Alexandria, and we have [sic] shall have it measured just as closely by the serving-​men of the emperor.” (Treharne 1997, 108)

The other case of ne durran is in (13). This is similar to (1) with magan (Ne mage we awritan). Just as in the case of magan, the homilist does not wish to continue the book here. Indeed, between (1) and (13), there is the story of St. Martin’s death. (13) ÆCHom II, 39.2 297.2    Ne durre we ðas boc na miccle swiðor gelengan. ði læs ðe heo ungemetegod sy. and mannum æðryt þurh hire micelnysse astyrige     “We dare not lengthen this book any more, lest it be excessive and rouse boredom for people through its lengthiness”

2.6. Mōtan Mōtan, meaning “to be allowed to” (permission) or “must” (obligation), is found twice with the dual subject wyt, as in (14) and (15). Example (14) is a case of negation. This is a passage based on Genesis 19:22 (see Doane 2013, 258–​59). The subject wyt refers to two angels who came to Lot to destroy Sodom through God’s will. The angels order Lot to leave the city for Zoar before the destruction. It is therefore irrelevant to apply an adhortative interpretation here, under which two angels would have to speak to each other. (14) GenA 2531       Ne moton wyt     on wærlogum wrecan torn godes,     swebban synnig cynn, ær ðon þu on Sægor þin     bearn gelæde and bryd somed17     “Both of us are not allowed to avenge God’s anger for traitors, kill the sinful people, before you arrive at Zoar together with your child and wife”

For (15), on the other hand, the adhortative reading seems possible. This is a speech of the soul to the body. Brucan lacks an object.

17 The verse lines are arranged according to Doane (2013, 259).

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(15) Soul I 158    Moton wyt þonne ætsomne syþan brucan     ond unc on heofonum heahþungene beon.18     “We two, then, must enjoy together afterwards and be of high rank in heaven.”

Grein (1857, 204) suggests “svylcra ârna, swâ þu unc her ær scrife” between these two lines, which can be translated as “such dwellings, as you imposed on us here earlier.” This sentence is thus comparable to (4) with sculan (Sculon wit … brucan), but the meaning of brucan in (15) seems slightly different. While brucan in (4) means to experience something inevitable (and probably unpleasant), that in (15) indicates awaiting something pleasant, even though the object is not mentioned. The meaning of Moton is ambiguous. Moffat’s (1990, 63) interpretation is “must,” which I follow with respect to the subject’s intention. Van Herreweghe’s (2001, 224) translation is “[a]‌fterwards we two will be able to enjoy ourselves together and be of high rank in heaven.” This sense seems derived from the permission of mōtan, as van Herreweghe’s rendition is based on Goossens (1987). Taking the meaning of permission, obligation, and ability, moton here would permit a “let us”-​reading, referring to the soul’s subjective intention to experience something desirable together with the body in heaven. The passage (15) seems like that in example (9) with Ne þurfon. If the adhortative reading is applied to Ne þurfon, moton in parallel is possibly valid here as well.

3. Conclusion This paper has discussed OE modal auxiliaries found in V1-​position, i.e. placed at the sentence-​initial position of declarative sentences, with the first person plural or dual subject. It addresses the contextual function of the OE modals magan, sculan, and willan and the rarely attested þurfan, durran, and mōtan. As many studies suggest, verbs in V1-​position can be used to indicate a change of topic. The present study initially proposed that the speaker of the V1-​modals marks the topic transition with the intention of realizing what its accompanying infinitive denotes. The analysis extended this reading to the adhortative statement. The speaker addresses the hearer(s) included in the first person plural or dual to achieve together certain propositions because the speaker finds it desirable. The utterance refers to something the speaker and audience can do together. A typical auxiliary conveying the adhortative utterance is uton. The V1-​modals 18 The verse lines are arranged according to Moffat (1990, 63), although Moffat’s edition embeds this sentence in the preceding one starting from line 157 (Wolde ic þe). Through my interpretation of the context, I regard the sentence as beginning from Motan.

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except for durran examined here can work as alternatives to uton, sometimes to offer its negative counterpart. Overall, this study hopes to have shown that the speaker’s intention to realize the propositional content is at work within the context. To carry this intention, the special word order is coupled with such narrative devices as topic transition, adhortative intention, and understatement. The V1-​order is thus an effective syntactic device that contributes to a deeper insight into OE contexts.

References Behre, Frank. 1934. The Subjunctive in Old English Poetry. Göteborg: Elanders. Belfour, Algernon O., ed. 1909. Twelfth Century Homilies in MS. Bodley 343. EETS os 137. London: Oxford University Press. Bergen, Linda van. 2012. “Ne +​Infinitive Constructions in Old English.” English Language and Linguistics 16: 487–​518. —​—​—​. 2013. “Let’s Talk about Uton.” In Meaning in the History of English: Words and Texts in Context, edited by Andreas H. Jucker, Daniela Landert, Annina Seiler, and Nicole Studer-​Joho, 157–​83. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Bracher, Frederick. 1937. “Understatement in Old English Poetry.” PMLA 52: 915–​34. Campbell, Alistair. 1970. “Verse Influences in Old English Prose.” In Philological Essays: Studies in Old and Middle English Language and Literature in Honour of Herbert Dean Meritt, edited by James L. Rosier, 93–​98. The Hague: Mouton. Di Sciacca, Claudia. 2008. Finding the Right Words: Isidore’s Synonyma in Anglo-​ Saxon England. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Doane, A. N., ed. 2013. Genesis A: A New Edition, Revised. Tempe: ACMRS. Fehr, Bernhard, ed. 1914. Die Hirtenbriefe Ælfrics: in altenglischer und lateinischer Fassung. Hamburg: Henri Grand. Fortson, Benjamin W. 2010. Indo-​European Language and Culture: An Introduction. 2nd ed. Chichester: Wiley-​Blackwell. Fox, Michael. 2012. “Ælfric’s Interrogationes Sigewulfi.” In Old English Literature and the Old Testament, edited by Michael Fox and Manish Sharma, 25–​63. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Godden, Malcolm, ed. 1979. Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies: The Second Series. EETS ss 5. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Goossens, Louis. 1987. “Modal Tracks: The Case of Magan and Motan.” In Studies in Honour of René Derolez, edited by A. M. Simon-​Vandenbergen,

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216–​36. Gent: Rijksuniversiteit, Seminarie voor Engelse en Oud-​Germaanse Taalkunde. Gordon, E. V., ed. 1971. The Battle of Maldon. London: Methuen. (Orig. pub. 1937.) Grein, C. W. M., ed. 1857–​58. Biliothek der angelsächsischen Poesie. 2 vols. (vol. 1, 1857; vol. 2, 1858). Göttingen: Georg H. Wigand. Herreweghe, Mieke van. 2001. “*Motan in The Anglo-​Saxon Poetic Records.” In Modal Verbs in Germanic and Romance Languages, edited by Johan van der Auwera and Patrick Dendale, 207–​39. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Kaita, Kousuke. 2015. Modal Auxiliaries from Late Old to Early Middle English: With Special Reference to Āgan, Sculan, and Mōtan. München: Herbert Utz. —​—​—​. 2018. “Old English Magan: An Expression of Adhortative Wish.” In Aspects of Medieval English Language and Literature, edited by Michiko Ogura and Hans Sauer with Michio Hosaka, 239–​56. Berlin: Peter Lang. —​—​—​. 2020. “On Some Formulaic Uses of the Old English Modal Auxiliary Willan.” In Ihr werdet die Wahrheit erkennen: zum Gedenken an den Philologen Ewald Standop, edited by Hans Sauer and Rüdiger Pfeiffer-​Rupp, 73–​84. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier. KJV =​Hendrickson Publishers. 2005. The Holy Bible, King James Version: A Reprint of the Edition of 1611. Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers. Klaeber, F. 1905. “On Certain Passages in Old English Historical Poems.” Modern Language Notes 20: 31–​32. Krug, Manfred. 2009. “Modality and the History of English Adhortatives.” In Modality in English: Theory and Description, edited by Raphael Salkie, Pierre Busuttil, and Johan van der Auwera, 315–​47. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Mitchell, Bruce. 1985. Old English Syntax. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Moffat, Douglas, ed. 1990. The Old English Soul and Body. New Hampshire: D. S. Brewer. Morris, Richard, ed. 1874–​80. The Blickling Homilies of the Tenth Century. EETS os 58, 63, 73. London: Trübner. Mustanoja, Tauno F. 1960. A Middle English Syntax. Helsinki: Société Néophilologique. Ogawa, Hiroshi. 2000. Studies in the History of Old English Prose. Tokyo: Nan’un-​do. Ogura, Michiko. 1988. “Ne Ondræd Þu and Nelle Þu Ondrædan for Noli Timere.” Studies in English Literature, English Number, 1988: 87–​101. —​—​—​. 2000. “‘Gewat +​Infinitive’ and ‘Uton +​Infinitive’.” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 101: 69–​78.

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Orton, Peter R. 1979a. “Disunity in the Vercelli Book Soul and Body.” Neophilologus 63: 450–​60. —​—​—​. 1979b. “The OE ‘Soul and Body’: A Further Examination.” Medium Ævum 48: 173–​97. Quirk, Randolph, and C. L. Wrenn. 1955. An Old English Grammar. London: Methuen. Quirk, Randolph, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech, and Jan Svartvik. 1985. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman. Ringe, Don, and Ann Taylor. 2014. The Development of Old English. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Roberts, Jane, ed. 1979. The Guthlac Poems of the Exeter Book. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Scragg, D. G., ed. 1992. The Vercelli Homilies and Related Texts. EETS os 300. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Standop, Ewald. 1957. Syntax und Semantik der modalen Hilfsverben im altenglischen Magan, Motan, Sculan, Willan. Bochum-​Langendreer: Pöppinghaus. Steinmeyer, Elias von, ed. 1963. Die kleineren althochdeutschen Sprachdenkmäler. 2nd ed. Berlin: Weidmann. Stevick, Robert D. 1992. A Firstbook of Old English. Tokyo: Kenkyusha. Traugott, Elizabeth C. 1992. “Syntax.” In The Cambridge History of the English Language, edited by Richard M. Hogg. Vol. 1, The Beginnings to 1066, 168–​ 289. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —​ —​ —​ . 1995. “Subjectification in Grammaticalisation.” In Subjectivity and Subjectivisation: Linguistic Perspectives, edited by Dieter Stein and Susan Wright, 31–​54. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Treharne, E. M., ed. 1997. The Old English Life of St Nicholas with the Old English Life of St Giles. Leeds: Leeds Studies in English. Warner, Anthony R. 1993. English Auxiliaries: Structure and History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Matti Kilpiö

The Encroachment of the Inflection -​est on the Past Subjunctive 2nd Person Singular Forms wolde and sceolde of Old English willan and *sculan: Syntactic, Morphological and Semantic Variation Keywords: Old English, verb inflection, morphology, willan, sculan, pre-​modal

Esse vis, vivere et intellegere

1.1 Introduction The purpose of this article is to chart the development whereby the paradigms of two Old English (OE) verbs increasingly replace the inherited past subjunctive second person singular inflection -​e by -​est, which originally is the 2nd person inflection in the past indicative paradigms of these verbs. From the point of view of the long diachrony, this development appears to be unidirectional and seems to result in a new, syncretic paradigm. The encroachment of -​est upon the ‘tidy’ past subjunctive paradigm can be seen as a gradient phenomenon. Attention will be paid not only to the morphological change but also to the syntactic structures and types of modality found in the data. The verbs chosen for analysis both belong to a set of OE pre-​modal verbs which, according to Traugott (1992: 186) “had several characteristics of the PDE auxiliaries in certain contexts.”

1.2 Earlier observations on the -​e/​-e​ st variation To my knowledge there has so far been no systematic corpus study of the variation discussed here but the phenomenon has received a number of comments in the literature: see e.g. Campbell (1959: 325, § 752) in his discussion of the 2nd person past subjunctive of weak verbs, Visser (1963–​73: § 834) with references to previous scholarship, Fischer (1992: 247) and Jespersen, Christopherson, Haislund and Schibsbye ([1954] 2007: 11). The last-​mentioned scholars comment on the seeming discrepancy between the subjunctive mood and the inflection -​est as follows: “These forms witness to a conflict between the feeling for the subjunctive and that for the pronoun thou and the ending -​est as belonging

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together, in which the latter gained the upper hand.” (Jespersen et al. [1954] 2007: 11).

1.3 The data The data for this study have been drawn from the Dictionary of Old English Corpus (DOEC). I am well aware that a structured corpus of the type of the Helsinki Corpus (HC) would have been more useful from the point of view of quantification but, on the other hand, the combination of variables here chosen for the searches, person (2nd pers.sg.), tense, mood and inflection effectively precludes the possibility of gaining data of considerable size even with the biggest available OE corpus. In this study, the subjective judgment of the researcher has a bigger role than is normally the case in computer-​assisted corpus studies. Intuition played an important role when I picked the -​est forms that I judged to have ‘subjunctival’ function from among a large number of verb forms ending in -​est. That is why I have added an appendix where, for the sake of transparency and replicability, I have listed all the instances included in my data under those spellings that yielded relevant results. As the DOEC does not give datings for the texts included in the corpus, I have allocated them dates. The main sources consulted have been Gneuss and Lapidge (2014), Ker (1957), Kytö (1996), the manual of the York-​Toronto-​Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English (YCOE) as well as the following individual articles: Bately (2018), Kitson (2010), and Möhlig-​Falke (2016). The fact that OE manuscripts typically postdate the (known or assumed) date of writing of the original works causes a problem in a study which strives to chart a diachronic development from Early Old English (eOE) to Late Old English (lOE). That is why an effort has been made to identify those texts whose originals have generally been considered to represent eOE. In the HC classification, this term covers texts whose originals are considered to have been written earlier than the year 950. With the help of the sources listed above the following texts have been classified as representing eOE: Bede’s Ecclesiastical History (Bede 4) Boethius (Bo) Meters of Boethius (Met) Gregory’s Dialogues (GD 1 (H)) Gregory’s Dialogues (GD 1 (C)) Gregory’s Dialogues (GDPref and 3 (C)) Bald’s Leechbook (Lch II (1))

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Psalter Gloss A (PsGlA (Kuhn)) Psalter Gloss D (PsGlD (Roeder)) Kentish Psalm 50 (KtPs) St. Augustine’s Soliloquies (Solil 1–​3) Beowulf (Beo) Christ (ChristA,B,C) Daniel (Dan) Guthlac (GuthA,B) Azarias (Az) Juliana (Jul)

2.1 Willan The verb willan provides the largest number of instances in my data, 96 in all; 64 of them are found in the eOE data and 32 in the lOE data. In the following discussion, attention will first be drawn to syntactic structures willan enters as a lexical verb and as a pre-​modal auxiliary. In the discussion, the spellings woldost, woldes, woldyst, noldest and noldes have been subsumed under woldest and walde under wolde.

2.1.1 Syntactic structures with lexical and pre-​modal wolde/​woldest Lexical wolde/​woldest is very rare in the data studied. It is attested in twelve eOE and twelve lOE instances. The number could be further reduced if we excluded ten psalter glosses of one and the same Latin verse, 50.18 (50.17). They all have a direct NP object glossing an NP object in the source. Two of the glosses occur in the eOE data and eight in the lOE data. If they were left out of consideration, only ten eOE, and four lOE instances of the use of lexical willan would remain. One example of each syntactic structure found in the lexical verb category may suffice: (1) ÆHom 20 (161) Hwæt woldest þu nu æt me? ‘What would you now like [to get] from me?’ [noun phrase as direct object] (2) Lch II (35.2.13) Gif þu wolde þæt sio sealf swiðre sie ‘If you would like the ointment to be stronger’ [noun clause as direct object] (3) HomS 19 (Schaefer) (64) Fæder, gif þe ieðe si, gewite þeos þrowung fram me, si swa þeah swa þu wolde, næs swa ic wolde. ‘Father, if it is more agreeable to you, let this suffering leave me; however, let it be as you would like, not as I would’.

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Matti Kilpiö Matt 26:39 Pater, si possibile est transeat a me calix iste verumtamen non sicut ego volo sed sicut tu. ‘Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; not, however, as I wish but as you [wish]’. [wolde has no expressed object]

The predominant syntactic structure found in the present data is one where wolde/​woldest receives an infinitive as its complement. This is evidence of the degree which the auxiliation, and the concomitant grammaticalization of wolde/​ woldest has already reached. In eOE this type is found in 52 instances (81.3 %), in lOE in 20 instances (62.5 %), cf. examples (4) and (5): (4) Dan (315) Þu him þæt gehete þurh hleoðorcwyde, þæt þu hyra frumcyn in fyrndagum ican wolde ‘You promised them prophetically that you would increase their tribe in days of yore’ (5) LS 7 (Euphr) (229) Se abbod þa efensargiende him cwæð, woldest þu spræcan mid anne broðor se com of þæs cynges hirede Theodosies? ‘The abbot then sympathizingly said to him: “Would you like to talk to a brother who has come from the retinue of king Theodosius?” ’

In three Boethius instances, Bo (20.48.14), Bo (20.48.15), and Bo (34.89.26), which are near-​identical, the complement is a perfect infinitive formed with the auxiliary habban, cf. (6): (6) Bo (34.89.26) Mid hu micle feo woldest þu nu habban geboht þæt þu meahte ongitan hwæt þæt soðe god wære ‘With how much money would you now have bought [the skill] that you could have been able to recognise what the true good is’1

In two lOE instances, both in BoGl (Hale) (P.3.324), the infinitive complement is part of an accusative and infinitive construction in imitation of the Latin source. In the willan +​infinitive category I have also included three instances, Solil 1 (34.14), Solil 2 (58.20) [eOE] and ÆGram (262.10), [lOE] in which the infinitive complement has been ellipted as in the following example where habban is implied but ellipted, cf. (7): (7) Solil 1 (34.14) Forðam þu næfst swilce hæle swilce þu hæfdest, ne þine freond myd ðe næfst æalle þe swa gemode and swa þwere swa swa þu woldest;

1 For the overall rarity of this emergent syntactic structure, see my comments in the DOE, s.v. habban, IV.C.3.

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‘Because you do not have such health as you used to have nor do you have all your friends in your company as unanimous with you and as compliant as you would like [to have]’

In drawing a line between independent use, as in (3), and ellipsis, I follow Wischer (2019: 118).

2.1.2 Breakdown of wolde and woldest In eOE, there are 19 instances of wolde and 45 of woldest. The percentage of wolde is 29.7 % of the total of 64 instances. In lOE, the corresponding figures are 4 instances of wolde and 28 of woldest. The share of wolde has gone down to 12.5 %.

2.1.3 Modality and time reference Dynamic modality characterises all the 62 eOE and 32 lOE instances to various degrees. The full verb status of wolde/​woldest can be seen in instances where wolde/​woldest is followed by a noun/​pronoun object as in (1) or a clausal object as in (2). When there is no complement as in (3) we also have an example of the independent use of the verb while in (7) there is ellipsis of habban which would have been suggested by næfst in the preceding context. This indicates that woldest could with some justification be called an auxiliary here.

2.1.4 Non-​past time reference The degree to which the original past time reference of wolde/​woldest is replaced by non-​ past reference in the present data is striking and anticipates later developments through which would completely loses the option of referring to past time. The contrast between past and non-​past reference is indeed one of the focal areas of interest in the present study. In the eOE data, non-​past reference preponderates with 51 instances out of a total of 64 instances, while past reference is found in 13 instances. The corresponding figures for lOE are twelve for non-​past as opposed to twenty for past reference. These proportions are interesting for two reasons. First, in the lOE data the proportion between non-​past and past compared to the situation in eOE is against expectations. Secondly, the proportions for both periods suggest a much higher share of non-​past reference than Wischer’s findings in her OE poetry data: she reports the percentage of non-​past reference as 12.7 % (2019: 125). Variation on this scale within a dataset or between two datasets can at least partly be explained by taking into account the text types found in the material studied. To take an example, in my eOE

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data there are two major works which are dialogic in structure, Boethius and the Soliloquies. In the former, the participants are Boethius and Wisdom, in the latter Augustine and his reason. Both works are philosophical which means that the discussion deals with hypotheses rather than bare fact. The lOE texts in my data lack this text type. The following passage from the Soliloquies contains a remarkable concentration of instances of non-​past woldest, ten in all. It is an excellent example of the kind of philosophical argumentation found in this work: (8) Solil 2 (57.9) Đa cwæð heo: Nu ic wot æall hwæt þu woldest. An is, þu woldest beon; oðer, þæt þu woldest lybban; ðridde, þæt þu woldest witan, and ic wat æac for hwi þu ða þreo þingc woldest: Forðam þu woldest beon þe þu woldest lybban, and forði woldest þu lybban þe þu woldest witan; … and ðu wost þæt tu lufast, and æac þæt wost þæt þu hwæthwugu wast, þeah eall nyte þæt þu witan woldest. ‘Then she said: “Now I know all that you would like to have. One is that you would like to be; the second that you would like to live; the third that you would like to know; and I also know why you would like to have those three things: because you would like to be because you would like to live, and therefore you would like to live as you would like to know; … and you know that you love and you also know that you know something although you do not know everything you would like to know.” ’ Iam video totum quod cupis … esse vis, vivere et intellegere, sed esse ut vivas, vivere ut intellegas. Ergo esse te scis, vivere te scis, intellegere te scis. ‘I already see all that you desire … you want to be, live and understand, but to be in order to live, live in order to understand. To sum up: you know that you are, you know that you live, you know that you understand.’ (Latin original with translation from Watson [1990] 2008)

Note the replacement of Latin pres.ind.2nd p.sg. vis ‘you want to’ by the polite non-​past pre-​modal woldest ‘you would like to.’ A similar replacement can be seen in example (3). For the close interaction of speaker and addressee seen here, see below (section 4). Further examples of the polite use of wolde/​woldest can be found in the next two subgroups. There is one instance in my data of the use of woldest +​infinitive expressing a wish couched in the form of an exclamation: (9) ÆCHom I, 38 (513.188) Eala gif þu witan woldest þære halgan rode gerynu ‘Oh, if only you would want to know the mysteries of the holy cross’

Wischer (2019: 121) gives a similar example from The Meters of Boethius with 3rd p.sg. he as the subject and points out that in this type of construction the volitional sense gives way to an epistemic reading with an optative sense.

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Polite requests and suggestions form another group. Semantically, the three eOE and four lOE instances are close to example (8) in that ‘face’ is present and that we are dealing with a ‘friendly interaction’ (cf. Kohnen 2011, 246) between addressor and addressee. Three examples have already been cited: see (2), (3), and (5). Example (2) is a polite suggestion to the user of a recipe; it is closely paralleled by Lch II (4.2.3). Example (5) contains a polite request where woldest … spræcan is the predicate verb of a main clause. Examples (2) and Lch II (4.2.3) share a syntactic feature with (10) and (11): in all four, the pre-​modal wolde/​woldest occurs in a conditional gif-​clause: (10) Bo (40.137.15)   Swa hit is swa þu sægst; ac ic wolde, gif ðu wolde, ðæt wit unc wenden sume hwile to þises folces spræce ‘It is as you say; but I would like us, if you are willing, to turn ourselves for a while to the talk of the common people’ (translation from Godden and Irvine 2009) (11) LS 34 (SevenSleepers) (499)   Ic wolde georne æt ðe gewitan þissere byrig rihtnaman, gif þu me woldest gewissigan. ‘I would keenly like to learn from you the name of this city, if you would like to instruct me’.

In example (3) and HomS 19 (Schaefer) (72), the polite phrase occurs in a comparative clause: here addressor and addressee are pitted against each other in a way that leaves free the question of whose will is to be followed. Example (10) has the same kind of juxtaposition between the participants. The close connection between addressor and addressee suggests the presence of intersubjectification (see section 4 below). Whether there are examples of epistemic wolde/​woldest in the present data receives no straightforward answer. There is no question about epistemic modality being quite widespread with the present tense forms of willan (see Lowrey 2012: 11), but the situation with the past tense forms is slightly problematic. The only obvious instance in my data is the one given as example (9), which is similar to an instance Wischer interprets as epistemic.

2.2 Past time reference of wolde/​woldest 2.2.1 Future in the past There are five eOE and six lOE instances in the present data. Let us quote two examples, one from each period: (12) Jul (191) Gen ic feores þe unnan wille, þeah þu ær fela unwærlicra worda gespræce, onsoce to swiðe þæt þu soð godu lufian wolde.

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Matti Kilpiö ‘Yet I want to spare your life although you formerly spoke many unwary words and strongly resisted the idea that you would love the true gods’.

(13) HomS 24.1 (Scragg) (67) Efne swa he cwæde, Þu beotadest ær þæt ðu woldest þin feorh for me settan ‘As if he had said, You boasted formerly that you would give your life for my sake’

The remaining instances are eOE Bo (33.78.9), Bo (33.78.31), Az (32), Dan (315), GuthA,B (451), KtPs (120) and lOE LS 10.1 (Guth) (8.15), LS 10.1 (Guth) (17.49), HomS 24.2 (Schaefer) (68), HomS 40.1 (Nap 49) (77), HomS 40.3 (ScraggVerc 10) (69) ApT (22.15), and ÆHom 24 (97).

2.2.2. Counterfactuality A counterfactual meaning is rare and lopsidedly represented in my data: out of a total of four eOE and fourteen lOE occurrences two eOE instances and eight lOE instances represent glosses of one and the same psalm verse 50.18/​50.17. Examples: (14) PsGlA (Kuhn) (50.17)   Forðon gif ðu walde onsegdnisse ic salde gewislice Quoniam si uoluisses sacrificium dedissem utique. ‘For if you had wanted a sacrifice I would certainly have given [it]’ (15) LS 29 (Nicholas) (362)   forþon gif þu þær wære, þonne noldest þu naht geþafian þæt hit swa gewurðe. ‘for if you had been there, you would not have allowed it to happen like that’.

In addition to the above instances, there are three counterfactual eOE examples in which the time reference of woldest is non-​past in a hypothetical question but the perfect infinitive complement of woldest places the unrealised activity to the past, see (6).

2.3 Syntactic structures in relation to variation between non-​ past and past reference and between -​est and -​e Tables 1, 2, 3, and 4 give an overview of the interplay of syntactic structures, time reference and choice between -​est and -​e.

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Table 1.  Types of clause with -​est and distribution of non-​past and past time reference in eOE Type of clause No. of instances main clause, affirmative 5 statement main clause, yes/​no question 4 main clause, wh-​question 6 noun clause, wh-​question 8 noun clause, yes/​no question 1 noun clause introduced by 5 þæt relative clause 4 conditional clause 2 causal clause 4 concessive clause 1 clause of comparison 3 clause of result 1 negative clause of purpose 1 Totals 45

Time reference of the verb

non-​past in all the instances

Table 2.  Types of clause with -​est and the distribution of non-​past and past time reference in lOE Type of clause main clause, affirmative statement main clause, negative statement main clause, direct question main clause, wh-​question noun clause, wh-​question noun clause introduced by þæt conditional clause clause of comparison clause of purpose Accusative and infinitive Totals

No. of instances 3

Time reference of the verb non-​past 2, past 1

1

past 1

1 1 2 6

non-​past 1 non-​past 1 past 2 non-​past 2, past 4

10 1 1 2 28

non-​past 3, past 7 non-​past 1 past 1 past 2 non-​past 10, past 18

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Table 3.  Types of clause with -​e and the distribution of non-​past and past time reference in eOE Type of clause main clause, wh-​question noun clause introduced by þæt conditional clause clause of comparison relative clause Totals

No. of instances 2 6

Time reference of the verb non-​past 1, past 1 past 6

8 2 1 19

non-​past 3, past 5 non-​past 1, past 1 non-​past 1 non-​past 6, past 13

Table 4.  Types of clause with -​e and the distribution of non-​past and past time reference in lOE Type of clause conditional clause clause of comparison Totals

No. of instances 2 2 4

Time reference of the verb past 2 non-​past 2 non-​past 2, past 2

The distribution of clause types in Tables 1–​4 does not allow drawing any straightforward conclusions. Some observations can, however, be made on the basis of the statistics. One area where there is interesting variation is the relative share of adverbial clauses in the two periods studied. In eOE, adverbial clauses represent 26.7 % of the instances with -​est; in lOE these clauses cover 50 % of the total of clause types. With -​e, the share of adverbial clauses is 52.6 % in eOE while in lOE all four instances represent adverbial clauses. A problem with a small dataset is that fortuitous clusters of a certain type of example can easily give a misleading picture of the overall situation. A case in point are the ten glosses of one and the same psalm, where -​est and -​e are represented in a conditional clause in two eOE instances (both -​e) and eight lOE instances (-​est in six and -​e in two instances) see example (14) in section 2.2.2. Therefore, the information found in Tables 1–​4 has to be interpreted with care. The results seen in Table 1, however, are easy to account for. The time reference of all the 45 instances is non-​past: a striking situation which can be explained by the text type dominating the eOE data: all the 45 instances occur in Boethius and the Soliloquies, two philosophical works in which there is a close

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relationship between addressor and addressee and the dialogue takes place at a hypothetical level.

3. *Sculan With eleven eOE and twenty lOE instances *sculan is considerably less common in my data than willan. The profile of sceolde/​sceoldest differs from wolde/​woldest syntactically and semantically as well as with regard to the text types in which it occurs. In the discussion, the spellings scoldest and sceoldes have been subsumed under sceoldest.

3.1 Syntactic structures with sceolde/​sceoldest Unlike with wolde/​woldest, there are no instances of *sculan as a lexical verb in my material. This points to an advanced stage of grammaticalization. The only syntactic construction found here is sceolde/​sceoldest followed by an infinitive complement, as in (16): (16) Beo 2053 ond þone maðþum byreð, þone þe ðu mid rihte rædan sceoldest. ‘and carries the treasure which you rightfully ought to possess’.

There is one instance in which the complement is a passive infinitive: (17) Nic (A) (1.4.12) se dema þe het þæt ðu sceoldest beon ingeclypod. ‘the judge ordered that you should be called in’.

In contrast to the wolde/​woldest data, there are no instances here in which the infinitive would have been ellipted.

3.2 Breakdown of sceolde and sceoldest In the eOE data, sceolde is found in four instances representing 36 % out of the total of eleven instances. In the twenty instances of the lOE data, only sceoldest is found. The difference in the proportions of -​e and -​est is here more dramatic than is the case with wolde/​woldest, where the percentage of wolde is 30.6 % in eOE and still 12.5 % in the lOE data.

3.3 Time reference In contrast to wolde/​woldest, the time reference of sceolde/​sceoldest is almost exclusively past: out of the eleven eOE instances only two have non-​ past

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reference as in (16); of the twenty lOE instances non-​past reference is found in two instances, cf. (18): (18) ÆLS (Thomas) (102) þu eart æþela cræfta and cynegum þu sceoldest wyrcan. ‘you are a skilled craftsman and you ought to work for kings’.

The remaining instances with non-​past reference are Solil 2 (15.11) and ÆCHom II, 38 (283.111). The few non-​past instances all occur with sceoldest; there are none with sceolde.

3.4 Modality The modality that here forms the starting point for further grammaticalization is deontic but epistemic modality is found, particularly in the eOE material. The different modal uses of sceolde/​sceoldest will be discussed below.

3.4.1 Deontic modality The sense of obligation characterizes deontic modality. In most of the instances where deontic modality occurs in my data, there is an additional feature: sceolde/​ sceoldest has a time reference to future in the past (see 3.4.3 below). Deontic modality without any obvious future in the past reference can be seen in example (17). Here are a couple of further examples: (19) Solil 2 (15.11) Þu sceoldest witan hwenne þe genoh þuhte ‘You should know when it would seem enough for you’ (20) Bo (7.18.25) Hu meahtest þu sittan on middum gemænum rice þæt ðu ne sceolde þæt ilce geþolian þæt oðre men? ‘How could you sit in the midst of the kingdom that is common to all so that you should not suffer the same as other people?’ (translation by Godden and Irvine 2009, slightly modified)

3.4.2 Epistemic modality Epistemic modality is “the speaker’s assessment of probability and predictability” (Halliday 1970: 349). The truth-​value of the verb phrase with sceolde/​sceoldest is dependent on the assessment of the addressor. The sense of obligation recedes to the background. Two examples have already been cited (16 and 18). Here are four more examples:

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(21) Jul (425) Wende ic þæt þu þy wærra weorþan sceolde swylces gemotes ond þy unbealdra ‘I expected that you would have become the more cautious and timid by such an encounter’ (22) Bo (5.13.25) Eac þæt wæs swiðe micel pleoh þæt swa wenan sceoldes; ‘That was also a very great risk that you would think so’ (23) ÆCHom I, 38 (516.253) Ic wende þæt ðu on nihtlicere smeagunge sceoldest þin mod fram dwæsnysse awendan ‘I expected that during nocturnal meditation you would have turned your mind away from foolishness’ (24) Nic (A) (1.4.1) Þa Iudeas þa cwædon to þam rynele: þa cnyhtas wæron Hebreisce; þa spræcon hig eac on Ebreisc and hwanone sceoldest þu specan on Hebreisc and eart þe sylf Grecisc? ‘The Jews then said to the messenger: “the boys were Hebrews; then they also spoke in Hebrew; but why should you speak in Hebrew while you are a Greek yourself?” ’

The difference between (16) and (18) on the one hand and (21)–​(23) on the other is that in the former pair the addressor, within the framework of non-​past time reference, states what would be the morally or ethically acceptable state of things. In (21)–​(23), sceoldes/​sceoldest has past time reference; in the formulation of Wischer (2019: 124) particularly after verbs like wenan the pre-​modal conveys “a hypothesis or a presumption or strong belief that something happened in the past.” Deontic modality has receded to the background in (16) and (18) as the obligation does not rest on the 2nd person subject of sceoldest but on people responsible for the situation. Deontic meaning has been fully replaced by epistemic meaning in (21)–​(23). Example (24) represents a different type: in the terminology of Bongelli et al. (2018) it exemplifies the “unknowing epistemic position.” This type of wh-​question with *sculan, and later with shall, is discussed in the OED, s.v. shall, 23.a, with the following definition: “In questions introduced by why (or equivalent word), implying the speaker’s inability to conceive any reason or justification for something actual or contemplated, or any ground for believing something to be fact.” According to the OED entry, this use is already attested in OE. The remaining instances where I see epistemic modality outside the ones found in section 3.4.3 are GD 1 (C) (4.37.8) (see (28) below and ÆCHom II, 38 (283.111)).

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3.4.3 Future in the past Instances in which the time reference of sceolde/​sceoldest is to future in the past are very common in the present data. The modality is usually deontic (cf. also Wischer 2019: 123). In my data the majority of the verbs occurring in the governing clause are verbs of mental activity. Sceolde/​sceoldest occurs in a noun clause which functions as direct object and is introduced by þæt. BEHATAN ‘promise’ (25) HomU 5.7 (Buch G) (44) Þine godfæderes … þet þu me scoldest holden þuruh holi lufe Cristes ‘Your godfathers promised … that you would protect me through the holy love of Christ’

Here the sense of obligation is weakened. GECNAWAN ‘know’ (26) HomU 5.3 (Buch C) (27) Ne icneowe þu þe sulfen, þet þu scoldest mid wurmen in eorþan. ‘You did not know it yourself that you should/​would stay with worms in the earth’.

Here the verb in the main clause is a verb of knowing. I agree with Wischer (2019: 123) when she says that the deontic modality sense is weakened after verbs of knowing and that with sceolde “the future event seems more determined compared to similar constructions with wolde.” HATAN ‘order’ See (17) above and the following closely similar example: (27) Nic (A) (1.2.5) se dema þe het clypian þæt þu sceoldest in to him gan. ‘the judge ordered you to be summoned that you should go to him’.

ONDRÆDAN ‘fear’ (28) Bede 4 (26.354.29) Ic ondred for þinre arwyrðnisse ðæt þu sceolde to swiðe gedrefed & afyrhted beon; ‘I feared out of reverence for you that you would be excessively disturbed and frightened’.

GEÞENCAN ‘think’ (29) HomS 40.1 (Nap 49) (186) For hwon noldest þu hit geþencan … þæt þu ne sceoldest þæs nan þing forleosan, þe þu him dydest ‘Why did you not want to think … that you would lose nothing of what you gave to him’

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HomS 40.3 (ScraggVerc 10) (157) and HomS 7 (55) offer variants for this passage. WENAN ‘expect, think’ (30) GD 1 (C) (4.37.8) Ic wende, þæt þu scoldest me mann to lædan, nu byrst þu heig. ‘I expected that you would lead a man to me, now you are carrying hay’.

WILNIAN ‘desire’ (31) Solil 1 (35.5) Wære þu forinwordlice dysig, ða þu wilnodest þæt þu scoldest myd swilcum æagum þa sunnan æac geseon? ‘Were you completely foolish when you desired that you would also see the high sun with such eyes?’

3.4.3.2  sceolde/​sceoldest in adverbial clauses of purpose The time reference here is to the future in the past; this is a feature that links this group with the instances in 3.4.3.1. (32) GDPref and 3 (C) (25.228.22) ure fosterfæder me sænde to ðe sanctus Petrus, to ðon þæt þu sceoldest me alysan of ðissere untrumnesse. ‘Our teacher sent me to you, St. Peter, in order that you would cure me from this illness’. (33) ÆCHom II, 11 (101.317) We andbidodon ðin halga fæder þæt ðu us þæs mynstres gebytlu dihtan sceoldest and þu ne come swa swa ðu us behete. ‘We waited for you, holy father, that you would have given instructions concerning the buildings of the monastery, but you did not come as you had promised to us’. (34) HomS (48) þy ic sealde þæt þu hafast to þon þæt þu sceoldest hit þearfum dælan. ‘therefore I gave what you have in order that you would give it to the needy’. (35) Nic (A) (19.1.2) þa ða ic þe asende to neorxnawanges geate, þæt ðu sceoldest dryhten byddan þæt he … asende ‘when I sent you to the gate of Paradise that you should ask the Lord that he would send’

Also GD 1 (H) (4.37.8), HomS 40.3 (ScraggVerc 10) (153), HomS 40.1 (Nap 49), and Nic (C) (213).

3.4.3.3  Summary of the remaining clause types Sceolde/​sceoldest as the finite verb in a main clause is rare in my data. In addition to (18), (19), and (24) there are two more examples: HomS 40.3 (ScraggVerc 10) (157) and HomU 5.7 (Buch G) (42). The main clause in (24) is a wh-​question.

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While the majority of the noun clauses in the present data, ten in all, occur in the future in the past group (see 3.4.3), there are four instances outside this group, see the object clauses in (17), (19), and (23) and the noun clause functioning as subject complement in (22). Adverbial clauses outside the clause of purpose group are represented by a clause of result and a clause of place in HomU 37 (Nap 46) (221). There are two instances in which sceolde/​sceoldest occurs in a relative clause: Beo 2053 (see (16)) and ChristA,B,C (1383).

3.5 Summary One feature that characterizes both the wolde/​woldest data and the sceolde/​ sceoldest data is the presence of interaction between speaker and addressee, either expressly marked or indirectly understood. With sceolde/​sceoldest, however, this element is not as prominent as with wolde/​woldest where the search for shared understanding between addressor and addressee is a common feature, particularly in philosophical texts. A number of syntactic and semantic characteristics of sceolde/​sceoldest arise from the preceding discussion: (a) There are no instances of sceolde/​sceoldest as a lexical verb; (b) Sceolde is found only in four out of the eleven eOE instances; all the twenty lOE instances have sceoldest; (c) The basic syntactic frame of the verb phrase is uniformly one where the pre-​ modal verb receives an infinitive complement; (d) Sceolde/​sceoldest almost exclusively occurs in a subordinate clause in a complex sentence; (e) The time reference of sceolde/​sceoldest is virtually always to the past; in a considerable number of instances it refers to future in the past; (f) The modality of sceolde/​sceoldest is basically deontic but quite frequently veers towards an epistemic reading.

4. The encroachment of -​est upon -​e in wolde/​woldest and sceolde/​sceoldest: more questions than answers The advance of -​est at the expense of -​e is dramatic with both verbs, willan and *sculan. This development raises a number of questions. First of all, where should we place the origin of the rise of -​est in a ‘subjunctival’ function? It is amply attested in eOE; thus, logically, it could be assumed that it was already found in the pre-​documented period in the history of English.

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Another, perhaps even more crucial, question is: how should the inflection -​est be formally classified? Is it already an established option in the past subjunctive paradigms? If established, should it not be added as a variant next to 2nd p.sg. past subjunctive -​e in the paradigms of textbooks dealing with the morphology of OE pre-​modals, not only willan and *sculan but other pre-​modals of this class showing the same variation: magan, *motan and cunnan? The stance taken in this study is that -​est should at least be treated as a functional variant of -​e; whether it is ‘formally’ labelled as a subjunctive inflection is of secondary importance. The important thing is to realize that it is a major addition to the ways in which modality is expressed in OE. How did the development here discussed get started; what was the moving force behind it? Here we are dealing with hypotheses. The ‘new’ inflection -​est could possibly be seen as an innovation ‘borrowing’ -​est from the past indicative 2nd person sg. woldest/​sceoldest as a result of analogical pressure, Systemzwang. It could further be hypothesized that the introduction of -​ est in dialogic contexts, such as the Soliloquies and Boethius, where intersubjectification is present, could be seen as a strategy which strengthens the ‘second-​person-​hood’ of the addressee and adds to the polarity between the participants. Traugott’s characterization of intersubjectification fits the dialogic context very well when she says that intersubjectification entails “the development of meanings that encode speaker/​writers’ attention to the cognitive stances and social identities of addressees” (2003: 124). Nuyts (2014: 69) suggests that intersubjectification can be defined as a process where a linguistic element assumes “a function in the realm of interaction management, e.g. as an illocutionary marker, a politeness marker, a sentence connector, etc.” Why is the past and non-​past subjunctival use of -​est in the OE pre-​modals so difficult to describe in specific grammatical and syntactic terms? The answer seems to lie in the gradient nature of the changes taking place. The stability and clarity of the textbook paradigms of past subjunctive singular inflections with -​e in all three persons is disrupted in two ways: particularly with woldest the time reference is extended so that it is more frequently non-​past than past, and the newcomer -​est, originally an indicative ending added to OE pre-​modals, adopts ‘subjunctival’ functions.2

2 For a recent discussion of gradience in linguistic research, see Vartiainen (2016: 19–​28).

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5. Conclusion The present study has shown the extent to which the past indicative second person singular inflection -​est seen in woldest and sceoldest had as early as in eOE entered domains where one could expect to see the corresponding subjunctive inflection -​e. The research method used can very broadly be called one that is used in corpus studies. There are, however, two features in my study which make it rather atypical as a corpus study: first, the DOEC is not a structured corpus, and second, the majority of the examples have been hand-​picked from a large amount of data, which inevitably entails a certain amount of subjectivity. The syntactic and semantic profiles of wolde(st) and sceolde(st) differ from each other quite radically. What is common to them, though, is a high degree of grammaticalization. Theoretically, the parallel use of forms with -​e and -​est raises a number of questions. Is it justified to say that the introduction of -​est actually creates two paradigms of equal standing: a ‘tidy’ paradigm where all three singular persons have the same ending -​e and a syncretic paradigm where the second person has the ending -​est? In my discussion, I have adopted a mediating position in that I refrain from arguing for two free-​standing paradigms but recognise ‘subjunctival’ woldest and sceoldest as functional variants of wolde and sceolde. An obvious next step is to study the -​e/​-​est variation in other OE pre-​modals. In the present study I have, due to limitations of length, been compelled to leave out my findings relating to *cunnan,*magan and *motan; I hope to return to them in the future.3

Appendix This appendix contains a list of the whole data studied. The instances have been grouped under those spellings that yielded data for my study. Early OE instances have been boldfaced. Each short title refers to one instance unless otherwise indicated. WILLAN woldest: Bo (20.48.14), Bo (20.48.15), Bo (32.71.18), Bo (32.71.29), Bo (32.72.6), Bo (34.87.19), Bo (34.89.26), Solil 1 (14.11), Solil 1 (15.1), Solil 1 (15.11), Solil 1 (17.6), Solil 1 (17.16), Solil 1 (19.1), Solil 1 3 I am grateful to the editors of this volume for their skill and patience and to Olga Timofeeva for her pertinent comments on a manuscript version of this article.

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(19.19) [2 instances], Solil 1 (32.18) [2 instances], Solil 1 (34.14), Solil 1 (39.8), Solil 1 (43.5) [2 instances], Solil 2 (56.10), Solil 2 (56.16), Solil 2 (57.9) [10 instances], Solil 2 (58.5) [3 instances], Solil 2 (58.20) [3 instances], Solil 2 (59.7), Solil 2 (65.3); ÆCHom I, 38 (513.188), ÆHom 20 (161), ÆLet 4 (Sigeweard Z) (838), ÆGram (262.10), HomS 24.1 (Scragg) (67), HomS 24.2 (Schaefer) (68), HomS 40.1 (Nap 49) (77), HomS 40.3 (ScraggVerc 10) (69), HomS 42 (Baz-​ Cr) (95), LS 5 (InventCrossNap) (101), LS 7 (Euphr) (229), LS 10.1 (Guth) (8.15), LS 14 (MargaretCCCC 303) (7.16), LS 34 (SevenSleepers) (499), ApT (22.15), Gen (31.42), VSal 1 (Cross) (5.1), PsGlE (Harsley) (50.18), PsGlJ (Oess) (50.18), PsGlG (Rosier) (50.18), PsGlF (Kimmens) (50.18). woldyst: PsGlC (Wildhagen) (50.18). woldost: ÆHom 24 (97). noldest: Solil 1 (42.17), LS 5 (InventCrossNap) (101), LS 29 (Nicholas) (362), BoGl (Hale) (P.3.3.24) [2 instances]. noldes: Bo (11.25.21). woldes Bo (20.48.12), Bo (38.112.28), Ps61I (Lindelof) (50.18). þu (…) wolde: Dan (315), Az (32), Jul (191), Bo (7.18.21), Bo (38.117.25), Lch II (4.2.3), Lch II (35.2.13), ChristA,B,C (1489), GuthA,B (451), Beo (1175); HomS 19 (Schaefer) (64), HomS 19 (Schaefer) (72), PsGlH (Campbell) (50.18). ðu (…) wolde: Bo (27.62.14), Bo (33.78.9), Bo (33.78.31), Bo (39.127.32), Bo (40.137.15), PsGlD (Roeder) (50.18), Met (4.33), KtPs (120); PsGlB (Brenner) (50.18). walde: PsGlA (Kuhn) (50.17). *SCULAN þu (…) sceoldest: Solil 2 (15.11), GDPref and 3 (C) (25.228.22), GD (H) (4.37.8); ÆLS (Thomas) (102), HomS 7 (48), HomS 7 (55), HomS 40.1 (Nap 49) (180), HomS 40.1 (Nap 49) (186), HomU 5.7 (Buch G) (42), HomU 37 (Nap 46) (221), Nic (A) (1.4.1). ðu (…) sceoldest: Beo 2053; ÆCHom I, 38 (516.253), ÆCHom II, 11 (101.317), HomS 40.3 (ScraggVerc 10) (153), HomS 40.3 (ScraggVerc 10) (157), HomU 37 (Nap 46) (221), Nic (A) (1.2.5), Nic (A) (1.4.12), Nic (A) (19.1.2).

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þu (…) scoldest: Solil 1 (35.5), GD 1 (C) (4.37.8); HomU 5.3 (Buch C) (27), HomU 5.7 (Buch G) (44), Nic (C) (213). ðu (…) scoldest: ÆCHom II, 38 (283.111). ðu (…) sceoldes: Bo (5.13.25). þu (…) sceolde: ChristA,B,C (1383), Jul (425), Bede 4 (26.354.29). ðu (…) sceolde: Bo (7.18.25).

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Kytö, Merja (comp.) 1996. Manual to the Diachronic Part of the Helsinki Corpus of English Texts: Coding Conventions and Lists of Source Texts. 3rd ed. Helsinki: Department of English, University of Helsinki. Lowrey, Brian. 2012. Grammaticalisation and the Old English Modals. Quaderna 1/​2012. http://​quade​rna.org/​gra​mmat​ical​isat​ion-​and-​the-​old-​engl​ ish-​mod​als. Möhlig-​ Falke, Ruth. 2016. “Using the Dictionary of Old English Corpus for Linguistic Analyses: A Basic Classification of the Textual Sources”. Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 116: 395–​420. Nuyts, Jan. 2014. “Notions of (Inter)subjectivity”. In Intersubjectivity and Intersubjectification in Grammar and Discourse: Theoretical and Descriptive Advances, edited by Lieselotte Brems, Lobke Ghesquière, and Freek Van de Velde, 53–​76. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Traugott, Elizabeth Closs. 1992. “Chapter 4: Syntax”. In The Cambridge History of the English Language. Vol. 1, The Beginnings to 1066, edited by Richard M. Hogg, 168–​289. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —​—​—​. 2003. “From Subjectification to Intersubjectification”. In Motives for Language Change, edited by Raymond Hickey, 124–​40. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Vartiainen, Turo. 2016. Challenges in Categorization: Corpus-​based Studies of Adjectival Premodification in English. Mémoires de la Société Néophilologique de Helsinki 101. Helsinki: Société Néophilologique. Visser, F. 1963–​1973. An Historical Syntax of the English Language. 3 parts in 4 vols. Leiden: E. J. Brill. Watson, G., (ed.) 1990 [2008]. Augustine: Soliloquies and the Immortality of the Soul. With an Introduction, Translation and Commentary. Reprint, Eastbourne: CPI. Wischer, Ilse. 2019. “Old English wolde and sceolde: A Semantic and Syntactic Analysis”. In Developments in English Historical Morpho-​Syntax, edited by Claudia Claridge and Birte Bös, 111–​27. Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 346. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Tadashi Kotake

Word Order in Old English Interlinear Glosses: A Case Study on the Position of Inserted Pronominal Subjects Keywords: Old English, word order, interlinear gloss, syntactical glossing, pronoun subject

1. Introduction Old English interlinear glosses are often described as “word-​for-​word” translations that slavishly follow the word order of their Latin counterpart. Given that the gloss is written just above the Latin, such a strictly literal translation is probably a natural outcome. There are, however, various instances in which the gloss deviates from the Latin word order, and those deviations may reflect a syntax more natural to OE. Crowley (2000), for example, has termed some such instances as “Anglicized word order” and investigated the five patterns that involve inversions of adjacent words. Toswell (2014, 268) suggests that some of the OE interlinear glosses to the Psalms could “stand alone,” implying that the syntax of the glosses can sometimes be independent from the Latin. Those instances in which OE glosses syntactically deviate from their Latin counterparts have potential significance in linguistic studies because they might reflect syntactic patterns natural to OE, as Crowley’s terminology suggests. It is equally interesting to consider what caused the glossators to adopt a seemingly less straightforward method of glossing, avoiding much simpler word-​for-​word glosses in a particular instance. The present paper will focus on one specific phenomenon not dealt with in Crowley’s study, and after briefly reviewing its linguistic significance, will examine how individual glossators took pains to handle this difference in the syntax of the two languages, resorting to various measures.

2.1 The position of inserted pronominal subjects: the glossator’s choice? The present paper is concerned specifically with the position of inserted pronominal subjects. In Latin, pronominal subjects are not expressed, except for the sake of emphasis, owing to clearly distinguishable personal endings of the verb. For OE, in contrast, glossators often supply a pronominal subject, and, in doing

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so, it is the norm* to insert it next to the verb –​usually before the verb, but under certain conditions after the verb.1 Another pattern dislocates the pronominal subject from the verb entirely. To illustrate this phenomenon and related issues, it is useful to compare multiple versions of the Psalter glosses: (1) Ps 70:3 esto mihi in Deum protectorem et in locum munitum ut saluum me facias2 A: bio ðu me in god gescildend ⁊ in stowe getrymede ðætte halne mec gedoe B: beo ðu me on god gescildend ⁊ on stowe getrymede þætte halne me ðu gedo C: beo ðu me on god gescyldynd ⁊ on stowe getrymyde þæt þu halne me gedo D: beo gescyldend on stowe getrymede þæt halne þu do E: beo ðu me on god scildend ⁊ on stowe getrymede þet þu halne me do F: beo ðu me on gode bewerigend ⁊ on stowum gefryþsumre þæt þu halne me do G: beo me on god gescyldend ⁊ on stowe getrymede þæt halne me do H: beo gescyldend ⁊ on stowe getrymede þæt halne me do I: beo þu me gode on to gescyldendum ⁊ on stowe ymbtrymmedre þæt þu gehæl me J: beo þu me on god gescildend ⁊ on stowe gefæstnode þæt þu halne me gedo K: beo me on gode gescylden ⁊ on stowe getrummed þæt halne me don L: beo min on gode gescylded ⁊ on stowe getrymede þæt halne me þu do “Be thou unto me a God, a protector, and a place of strength: that thou mayst make me safe.” (2) Ps 130:2 si non humiliter sentiebam sed exaltaui animam meam A: gif ne eaðmodlice ic hogade ah upahof sawle mine B: gif no eaðmodlice ic hogode ac ic uphof mine sawle C: gef ne eadmodlice ic hogode ac ic upahof sawle mine D: eaþmodlice ic þafode ac ic ahof sawle mine

* An earlier version of the paper was read at one of the SHELL sessions (Session 302 “New Perspectives on Old English Literature and Linguistics, II”) which Professor Michiko Ogura organized as part of Leeds IMC 2017. It was with great regret that I was unable to complete my paper in time for the proceedings collection she edited, and I should like now, with sincere apologies, to submit it belatedly to the volume dedicated to her. 1 A pronominal subject appears after the verb in the imperative, as exemplified in (1), glossing esto; cf. Mitchell (1985, §§ 879–​919) for details. Questions also involve the word order of the verb followed by a pronominal subject; cf. Mitchell (1985, §§ 1640–​60). 2 The psalter gloss citations in (1) and (2) are taken from the DOEC, checked against the editions used by the DOE. The Latin citations are from the Romanum version, for which I use Weber (1953). In these two examples, there are no textual differences between the Romanum and Gallicanum. The English translation of the Bible is from the Douay-​Rheims Bible with modernized spelling throughout this paper. For a general introduction to psalters in early medieval England, in addition to Toswell (2014) already mentioned, see Pulsiano (1995).

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E: gif ne geeæðmedeþ geðæfotungæ æh upæhefe sæwle mine F: gif ic na eadmodlice geþafode ac ic ahof sawle G: gif ic na eadmodlice geðafode ac ic upahof sawle mine I: gif ic ne eadmodlice geþafode ac ic up ahof sawle mine J: gif ic na eadmodlice geþafode ac na ic upahof sawle mine L: gif no eadmodlice ic hogode ac ic uphof sawle mine MSS H and K wanting “If I was not humbly minded, but exalted my soul”

The subject pronouns in bold letters (þu and ic in [1]‌and [2] respectively) are examples of dislocated pronominal subjects. Both instances involve a pronominal subject in the subordinate clause, and, as we shall see later in detail, the phenomenon of subject dislocation occurs frequently, though not exclusively, in subordinate clauses. Note that not all the parallel examples show the same word order. Despite the undeniable fact that each of these glosses is textually related to the others in very complicated ways, there is no discernible pattern of distribution as regards the positions of pronominal subjects.3 Rather, the examples seem to confirm what Ogura (2003) has characterized as the “variety and conformity” of the psalter glosses. In (1), for example, even within the textual group termed as the “A-​type” gloss, here represented by A, B, and C, we find different treatments of the second person singular subject glossing facias in the ut-​clause. A (London, BL, Cotton MS Vespasian A. i; Ker [1957] 1990, no. 203) supplies no subject, whereas B (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Junius 27; Ker [1957] 1990, no. 335) places the subject immediately before the verb gedo. In contrast, C (Cambridge, University Library, Ff. 1. 23; Ker [1957] 1990, no. 13) dislocates the subject from the verb and places it immediately after þæt. In (2), we seem to be observing a moderate degree of conformity within the D-​type glosses, ic being placed after gif in F (London, BL, Stowe MS 2; Ker [1957] 1990, no. 271), G (London, BL, Cotton MS Vitellius E. xviii; Ker [1957] 1990, no. 224), and J (London, BL, Arundel MS 60; Ker [1957] 1990, no. 134), along with the textually unique I, the so-​called Lambeth Psalter (London, Lambeth Palace Library, MS 427; Ker [1957] 1990, no. 280), to which I shall return in the final part of this paper (3.4). These observations suggest that the choice concerning the place of pronominal subjects is likely to have been made by each glossator.

3 The literature on the textual issues of the OE psalter glosses is too vast to be discussed here. See, for example, Gretsch (1999, chap. 2, esp. 33–​34) for a brief summary and references.

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2.2 The position of inserted pronominal subjects: linguistic interpretations If the choice was indeed made by each glossator, it is also necessary to identify the underlying linguistic rule or tendency that invited that individual to employ this marked word order. Given that a very high proportion of the relevant examples occurs in the subordinate clause, the word order resulting from dislocating the subject, i.e. a conjunction followed immediately by the pronominal subject, may be aligned with a regular clause opening in OE in general. Some linguistic analyses have been proposed to account for this regularity; for instance, van Kemenade (1987, 109–​12) notes in her discussion of clitics that in OE “in embedded clauses, the position to the right of the complementizer is the only one occupied by subject pronouns; they never appear separated from the complementizer.” Or, in verse, separating the pronominal subject from the conjunction will automatically violate Kuhn’s First Law, which prescribes that particles must be placed together in the first dip.4 Whatever the explanation, this syntactic tendency is fairly consistently observed in OE, in both prose and verse. The rest of the present paper will look closely into how this underlying OE syntactic tendency affects individual glossators of various interlinear glosses.

3.1 Farman’s gloss to the Rushworth Gospels It may be useful to begin with Farman’s gloss in the Rushworth Gospels (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Auct. D. 2. 19; Ru), dated to the tenth century by Ker ([1957] 1990, no. 292), which contains a relatively large number of instances of subject dislocation.5 In addition, we can compare this text with another interlinear gloss (Aldred’s gloss to the Lindisfarne Gospels [London, BL, Cotton MS Nero D. iv; Ker (1957) 1990, no. 165], Li) and a prose translation (the so-​called West Saxon Gospels; the citations are taken from Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 140, Ker [1957] 1990, no. 35, WSCp). Farman, who glossed the entirety of Matthew, Mark 1–​2:15, and John 18:1–​3, frequently –​on more than 40 occasions –​displaces a pronominal subject.6 In (3), for example, Latin sederet 4 See Terasawa (2011, 92–​101) for Kuhn’s Laws and relevant references. 5 For ease and brevity of reference, I have provided shelfmarks only for manuscripts particularly relevant to the discussion, along with Ker references ([1957] 1990); full bibliographical material for each manuscript cited in this paper is available in Gneuss and Lapidge (2016). 6 As to Farman’s general tendency to employ syntactic patterns independent from the Latin counterpart, see Kotake (2010) and, especially for the comparison with Li, Kotake (2014).

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occurs at the end of the clause, and Farman, while glossing the verb in the position corresponding to the Latin, places the pronominal subject he just after the initial element of the clause þt. (3) Mt 13:2 (Oxford, Bod.L., Auct. D. 2. 19, f. 20v, 6–​7)7 ⁊ gesomnadun to him mengu /​swa þt he on scipe astigende gesett et congregatae sunt ada eum tur〈-​〉/​bae ita ut in nauiculab ascendens sederet [a corrected from et ad Y WW; b nauiculam Y WW] Li: ⁊ gesomnad weron ł sint to him menigo ł ðreatas monigo suæ þæt in scipp ł lyttel scipp astag ł wæs stigende gesætt WSCp: ⁊ mycle mænigeo wæron gesamnode to hym. swa þæt he eode on scyp ⁊ þær sæt “And great multitudes were gathered unto him, so that he went up into a boat and sat”

Similarly, in (4) below, we is dislocated from the verb by the intervening þonne. (4) Mt 21:26 (Oxford, Bod.L., Auct. D. 2. 19, f. 34v, 20–​22) gif we þon(ne) cweðaþ /​of monnu(m) we us ondredaþ þas mængu ealle forþon /​ habbaþ iohan(nem) swa witga si autem dixerimus /​ex hominibus timemus turbam⸱ omnes eni(m) habe〈-​〉/​banta iohannem sicutb profetam⸱ [a habent Y WW; b corrected from sunt] Li: gif uutedlice we cueðas of monnum we ondredes ðæt menigo alle forðon habbað suæ witga. WSCp: Gyf we secgað of mannum we ondrædað þis folc; Ealle hig hæfdon iohannem for anne witegan. “But if we shall say, from men, we are afraid of the multitude: for all held John as a prophet.”

7 From this instance on, the manuscript layout is crucial in understanding the significance of the matters to be discussed. Because of limitations of print, however, it was not possible to reproduce the interlinear format as I had originally intended. I am grateful to the editors for their efforts to make adjustments in line with the required format and for keeping the necessary information.​Readers are recommended to consult the digital images available online as indicated in relevant footnotes. Th ​ e Rushworth Gospels manuscript is available at the Digital Bodleian (https://​digi​tal.bodle​ian.ox.ac.uk/​inqu​ ire/​p/​4aee9​7d4-​0845-​44fa-​8dd7-​8c490​2090​db2). The Latin text of Ru is collated with the Oxford Vulgate (WW, see Wordsworth and White [1889–​98]) and the Lindisfarne Gospels (Y). Both Li and WSCp are cited from the DOEC (replacing & with ⁊), which is based on Skeat (1871–​87).

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Farman’s dislocation of the subject can be contrasted with Li, which supplies no subject in (3) and inserts we immediately before the verb in (4). The prose translation of the West-​Saxon Gospels has a pronominal subject in the same position as Ru1 in both examples. Likewise, though much less frequently, this phenomenon is observed in a coordinate clause, as in (5): (5) Mt 15:6 (Oxford, Bod.L., Auct. D. 2. 19, f. 25r, 1–​3) ⁊ ne ariað /​fæder his ⁊ moder his ⁊ ge ungænge /​gedydon bebod godes for settnisse eowrum et non hono〈-​〉/​rificauit patrem suum eta matrem suamb⸱ et inritum /​fecistis mandatum d(e)i⸱ propter traditionem uestram⸱ [a aut Y WW; b om. Y WW] Li: ⁊ ne worðiges fader his ł moder ⁊ bismer ł telend ge dydon bebod godes fore selenise iure. WSCp: ⁊ ne wurðiaþ fæder ⁊ modor ⁊ ge for naht dydon godes bebod for eowre lage. “And he shall not honor his father or his mother: and you have made void the commandment of God for your tradition.”

There are some instances of the same phenomenon in principal clauses as, for example, in (6), where a further example occurs in the subordinate clause. (6) Mt 23:31 (Oxford, Bod.L., Auct. D. 2. 19, f. 39r, 5–​7) hwæt ge in cyþnisse /​sindun eow seolfum þt ge bearn sindun heora se ðe witgan /​ slogun itaq(ue) testimoniu(m)a /​estis⸱ uobismet⸱ ipsis⸱ quia filii estis eorum qui pro〈-​〉/​fetas occiderunt⸱ [a testimonio Y WW] Li: forðon to witnese ge sint iuh seolfum forðon sunu gie sint hiora ða ðe witgo ofslogun. WSCp: Witodlice ge synt eow sylfum to gewittnysse þæt ge synt þæra bearn ðe ofslogon þa witegan. “Wherefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are the sons of them that killed the prophets.”

It is especially interesting that in these examples the West-​Saxon Gospels agrees with Ru1 in placing the pronominal subject just after the initial element of the clause, though the position of the verb may differ. In fact, in the examples showing the same pattern as (3) and (4), i.e. when the clause is subordinate, the West-​Saxon Gospels almost always place a pronominal subject just after the initial element. It is tempting to assume, therefore, that Farman’s frequent use of the

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displaced pronominal subject in subordinate clauses may result from an attempt to use a syntactic pattern natural to OE.

3.2 OE glosses to Defensor’s Liber scintillarum Another gloss that contains a relatively large number of comparable instances is the OE glosses to Defensor’s Liber scintillarum, now extant only in London, BL, Royal MS 7 C. iv, whose gloss, written mostly by a single hand Ker ([1957] 1990, no. 256), dates to the mid-​eleventh century. In this gloss, we find many relevant examples, as in (7). (7) LibSc [043600 (9.75)] (BL, Royal MS 7 C. iv, f. 23v, 1–​4)8 mænige soðlice hi gelyfdon lange timan /​lybban ⁊ swa hi deað færlic ætbræd /​þt hi na to þære hwilendre mihtan /​dædbote becuman Multi enim se credebant longo tempore /​uiuere et ita illos mors repentina subtraxit /​ut nec ad illam momentaneam potuissent pę/​nitentiam peruenire; “For many believed that they would live for a long time and sudden death took them away so that they could not attain that timely repentance”

Incidentally, the text of the EETS edition (Rhodes 1889) occasionally missed out dislocated subjects, perhaps due to confusion caused by the feature deviating from the word-​for-​word practice; the DOEC is now based on a more recent, unpublished edition by Sarah Getty, who also discusses this syntactic tendency at some length (Getty 1969, xxv–​xxviii). It is worth taking a close look at a small section on f. 25v, which demonstrates the interaction of two different glossators: (8) LibSc [0559 (11.46)] (BL, Royal MS 7 C. iv, f. 25v, 17–​19) sæde /​naht na framað þt we þas stowe we gyrnað /​gif we swylce her synd swylce we on worulde beon mihtan. Caesarius dix(it) /​Nihil prodest quod istu(m) locum expetimus /​si tales hic sumus quales in s(ae)c(u)lo e(ss)e poteram(us); “Caesarius said: that we have longed for that place does no good, if we are such that we could be in the world”

8 I examined the manuscript in September 2016; the entire manuscript is now available online at the British Library’s “Digitised Manuscripts”: http://​www.bl.uk/​ manuscripts/​FullDisplay.aspx?ref=​Royal_​MS_​7_​C_​IV The DOE’s citation system, by chapter and sentence number, is adopted here, followed by the manuscript reference. All subsequent translations in this paper are mine unless otherwise indicated.

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In the above example, the three instances of we are dislocated in the clauses introduced by þ(æt), gif, and swylce, respectively. Note that the words underlined in the transcription are written by a different hand which Ker ([1957] 1990, no. 256) identifies as writing “the earlier stratum of the glosses.” Although expetimus had been glossed with we gyrnað by this earlier hand, the later scribe followed his usual practice of placing the inserted pronominal subject just after the conjunction, thus producing a redundant subject. Possibly the trace of erasure preceding the earlier hand’s mihtan could have read we, which was deleted by the later hand when he wrote we after swylce. Unfortunately, the original reading is now completely illegible in the manuscript, leaving this as nothing more than guesswork.

3.3 The OE gloss to the Benedictine Rule Also worth attention is the mid-​eleventh-​century OE gloss to the Benedictine Rule in London, BL, Cotton MS Tiberius A. iii (Ker [1957] 1990, no. 186), again uniquely preserved. Because the EETS edition by Logeman (1888) is getting out-​ of-​date, and a new edition by De Bonis, who has published several important articles on the gloss, is not yet available,9 my analysis is based on my cursory investigation of the manuscript conducted in March 2017 and on the British Library’s online digital images.10 There are many instances comparable to the previous examples, as in (9): (9) BenRGl [007200 (2.17.1)] (BL, Cotton MS Tiberius A. iii, f. 124r, 12–​16) ⁊ swa micel undergymenne gebro/​ðra hine habban swa he wite getel he oncnawe to /​soðan þt he sylfra ealra þara sawla /​sceall agyldan buton twyn to gehiht /​his agenne sawle. Et quantum sub cura sua fra/​trum se habere scierit numerum⹎ agnoscat pro /​certo . quia in die iudicii ipsarum omnium animaru(m) /​est redditurus d(omi)no rationem . sine dubio addita /​et suę animae; “Whatever the number of brothers that he knows are under his care, let him be certain that on the Day of Judgment, he will render an account to the Lord for every one of these souls, and of course for his own as well.” (Venarde 2011, 27)

9 Her plan for a new edition was laid out in De Bonis (2011), and it is listed on the Brepols website at the time of writing this paper (March 2021) as The Interlinear Glosses to the Regula Sancti Benedicti in London, British Library, Cotton Tiberius A. III, Ff.118r-​ 163v with the Anglo-​Saxon (Turnhout: Brepols, ISBN 9782503542669), expected to be published in June 2021. De Bonis (2016) deals specifically with grammatical glosses in the interlinear gloss texts in the Tiberius MS. 10 http://​www.bl.uk/​manuscripts/​FullDisplay.aspx?ref=​Cotton_​MS_​Tiberius_​A_​III

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One recurring pattern in this text, appropriate to our study here, is that, instead of dislocating the subject from the verb and placing it immediately after the conjunction, the glossator sometimes dislocates the OE conjunction from the corresponding Latin, and brings it rightward to the position of the subject and verb, as shown in (10). (10) BenRGl [0138 (7.29.2)] (BL, Cotton MS Tiberius A. iii, f. 128v, 9–​11) gesutulað us /​þt witega on urum geþancum /​e(ss)e e(ss)e andweardne þon(ne) he geswutulað demonstrat nobis /​hoc p(ro)pheta cum in cogitationibus n(ost)ris d(eu)m semp(er) /​ presentem ostendit dicens; “The prophet points this out to us when he shows that God is always present in our thoughts in this way, saying”

Indeed, Scahill (2013, 101), discussing what he terms “syntagmatic glossing” in the Benedictine Rule gloss, lists several instances of this pattern and points out that the operation “create[s]‌a canonical [Old English] clause-​opening.” In other words, the glossator appears to have intended to produce the sequence of “conjunction +​subject +​verb.” One may question, however, the usefulness of placing this sequence above the Latin verb instead of at the beginning of the clause, if the intention was indeed to reproduce a canonical clause-​opening. On this point, our understanding may be advanced by referring to what Logeman called the “paving letters,” or construe marks whose functions are not entirely clear.11 In fact, there are some instances that involve these letters in relation to the position of the subject in subordinate clauses, as in (11): (11) BenRGl [0167 (8.37.4)] (BL, Cotton MS Tiberius A. iii, f. 132r, 3–​7) wintres on tide fram clypunge þæs nygeðan /​monðes oð eastran æft(er) forasceawunga /​æt ðære ehtera tida is to arisan /​æt hwe lytle mare þære þt hi gerestan /​hi arisan hyemsk temporel . idi est a kalendism /​nouembrism usquen anpascan . iuxta consideratione(m)o /​rationisp . octauab horab noctisc surgenduma esta . utd /​modice ampliuse dimidiaa f noctef pascunturd n . etia(m)b /​digestii surgantg; “In winter time, that is, from the first of November until Easter, reason dictates that monks should rise at the eighth hour of the night, so that after resting a little past midnight, they should rise with digestion complete.”

11 The marks are discussed by De Bonis (2007, 211–​5), who also points out Logeman’s inaccuracies in recording these marks (De Bonis 2011, 283–​4).

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Here, þ(æt) is grouped with the pronoun hi and the verb gerestan and placed above the Latin verb pascuntur, but also marked with “d,” apparently connecting it with the other “d” above the Latin ut. With the help of these construe letters, a reader probably could read the sequence “conjunction +​subject +​verb” at the appropriate point in the sentence. If a similar operation underlies even unmarked instances of the delayed sequence of “conjunction +​subject +​verb,” as examined in (10), its utility seems to become clearer.

3.4 The Lambeth Psalter gloss The use of construe marks, or syntactical glosses, brings us back to the Lambeth Psalter (designated as I in studies of the OE psalter glosses), a Gallican psalter equipped with not only OE glosses but numerous construe marks, as studied by such scholars as Robinson (1973) and O’Neill (1992). Its standard edition, however, is still that of Lindelöf (1909), which does not reflect any syntactical glosses. The example we examined in (2) appears with construe marks in the manuscript as transcribed in (12).12 (12) PsGlI 130.2 (London, Lambeth Palace Library, MS 427, f. 165v, 7–​8) gif ic ne eadmodlice geþafode ac ic up/​ahof -​sawle mine-​ Si[,]‌ non[,] humiliter[..] sentiebam[,.]⹎ sed[.] ex[..]/​altaui anima(m) mea(m)[…]; “If I was not humbly minded, but exalted my soul”

O’Neill demonstrates how the construe system works is not a simple matter for brief discussion, but, being added later than the glosses, its ultimate purpose is likely to have been “to recast the whole Old English gloss as integral sentences” (1992, 256). Here the three commas, each given to si, non, and sentiebam, appear to indicate that the glosses to these words should be read together, and the group should precede humiliter, which has received two dots, indicating the word order. The resulting OE for that portion would be gif ic ne eadmodlice geþafode. In this example, the inserted pronominal subject is dislocated from the verb. In contrast, in (13) below, the subject ge is written above the verb loquimini; its position can be rearranged according to the syntactical glosses, connecting si (uere) with loquimini. (13) PsGlI 57.2 (London, Lambeth Palace Library, MS 427, f. 71r, 14–​15) gyf soðlice witedlice rihtwisnysse ge sprecaþ /​rihtlice demaþ eala ge suna manna Si[,]‌ uere utique[..] iustitia(m)[…] loquimini[,]⹎ /​recte[…] iudicate[..] filii[.] hominum;

12 The transcription is based on my examination of the manuscript in March 2017. The construe marks are placed in square brackets.

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“If in very deed you speak justice: judge right things, ye sons of men.”

Moreover, the Lambeth gloss has some instances of delayed conjunctions as in (14), comparable to (10) and (11) from the Benedictine Rule gloss, where an OE conjunction is dislocated from the corresponding Latin and moved rightward to the position of the subject and verb: (14) PsGlI 88.32 (London, Lambeth Palace Library, MS 427, f. 112v, 10–​11) mine rihtwisnessa ⁊ gif hig besmitaþ ł togælaþ /​mine bebodu ne healdaþ Si[,]‌ iustitias[..] meas profanauerint[,.]⹎ /​et mandata mea non custodierint. “If they profane my justices: and keep not my commandments”

Here, gyf glossing si is delayed (and preceded by ⁊ with no obvious counterpart), and it appears above the verb, immediately before the inserted pronominal subject. The construe marks again suggest that the conjunction should be read together with the verb.

4. Conclusion The foregoing discussion has presented a brief overview of what appear to be reactions of individual glossators to unconventional OE syntactic patterns that would have arisen if they provided a straightforward word-​for-​word gloss. In inserting a pronominal subject, where to insert it did matter to the glossators of the examples discussed, especially in a subordinate clause where the Latin verb occurs in a position other than immediately following the conjunction. Their solutions have turned out to be diverse: they not only dislocate the inserted pronoun from the verb and bring it leftward to the position immediately following the conjunction, but also suspend the conjunction to the position of the verb, whereby it is possible to keep the sequence of “conjunction +​pronominal subject +​verb.” Furthermore, various types of construe marks interact with the gloss, presumably facilitating the users of the gloss to read the sequence in an appropriate syntactic order. These solutions and measures adopted by the glossators strongly suggest that the underlying OE syntactic tendency was strong enough to cause them to deviate from the word-​for-​word glossing that was the norm. One caveat, especially for those who wish to theorize the behavior of pronouns linguistically, is that there are of course other instances in which the same glossators did not employ any special treatment in comparable syntactic environments, and simply inserted a pronominal subject next to the verb, leaving some words between the conjunction and the subject. Chronologically speaking, a greater number of relevant instances of this effort by glossators are found in eleventh-​century manuscripts than in earlier ones, as

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most of the examples discussed in the paper are from that period.13 Ru1 is dated to the tenth century, and therefore it may be seen as exceptional among contemporary glosses, in that it very frequently dislocates a pronominal subject in subordinate clauses. It remains unclear, however, whether the increasing numbers of relevant instances in eleventh-​century manuscripts reflect the glossators’ growing understanding of and consciousness about syntactic differences between OE and Latin, simply because of the much greater size of the corpus of interlinear glosses available from the eleventh century than for the earlier period. Straightforward statistical comparison is almost impossible. Still, it is true that there appears to be a strong inclination among the glossators discussed here towards choosing a regular clause opening, as reflected in the diverse examples we have observed in this paper. This is particularly significant if we take into consideration the fundamentally “word-​for-​word” character of interlinear glosses. Some glossators, especially in the eleventh century, were ready to go beyond the “word-​for-​word” principle when it did not produce a satisfying outcome, and they approached something that we might call “clause-​for-​clause” glossing.

References Crowley, Joseph. 2000. “Anglicized Word Order in Old English Continuous Interlinear Glosses in British Library, Royal 2. A. XX.” Anglo-​Saxon England 29: 123–​51. De Bonis, Maria Caterina. 2007. “Learning Latin through the Regula Sancti Benedicti: The Interlinear Glosses in London, British Library, Cotton Tiberius A. iii.” In Form and Content of Instruction in Anglo-​Saxon England in the Light of Contemporary Manuscript Evidence: Papers Presented at the International Conference, Udine, 6–​8 April 2006, Textes et Etudes du Moyen Âge 39, edited by Patrizia Lendinara, Loredana Lazzari, and Maria Amalia D’Aronco, 187–​ 216. Turnhout: Brepols. —​—​—​. 2011. “The Interlinear Glosses to the Regula Sancti Benedicti in London, British Library, Cotton Tiberius A.iii: A Specimen of a New Edition.” In Rethinking and Recontextualizing Glosses: New Perspectives in the Study of Late Anglo-​Saxon Glossography, Textes et Etudes du Moyen Âge 54, edited by Patrizia Lendinara, Loredana Lazzari, and Claudia Di Sciacca, 269–​97. Turnhout: Brepols.

13 As noted by its recent editor (Kuhn 2014, 135), the eleventh-​century OE interlinear gloss to Latin prayers in London, BL, Arundel MS 155, also contains a number of relevant instances.

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Yoshitaka Kozuka

On the So-​called Genitive Object in Old English Keywords: Genitive object, morphological variation, case, Old English, transitivity

1. Introduction In Old English, many verbs vary in assigning a case to their direct objects (e.g., æthrinan his/​him/​hine “to touch him,” fylgan him/​hine “to follow, pursue him”) seemingly without making any crucial difference in meaning. As Mitchell (1985, § 1092) points out, it is not uncommon to encounter this sort of morphological variation (or fluctuation) “in the works of different writers or in different places in the works of the same writers, but even in the same sentence.” Scholars such as Plank (1982), Goh (2000), and Koike (2006) regard OE alternative case marking as representative of how events, especially the transitivity involved therein, are interpreted by speakers. Their view is to some extent reasonable and convincing, but seems to have limitations especially in terms of the interpretation of the genitive. In this short paper, I reconsider when and how the genitive object is used in late OE, suggesting that the genitive is not always used in ways that affect the degree of transitivity, but rather, as Erickson (1975) proposed, there are cases where the genitive should be interpreted as the “absolute” or “elliptical” genitive associated with what it really encodes.

2. Previous studies Visser ([1963] 1970) and Mitchell (1985) provide us with extensive and fundamental information regarding OE verbs taking more than two cases. In addition, both comment upon the difficulty in interpreting the genitive taken by those verbs.1 Ogura (2010) focuses on the difficulty in dealing with the genitive occurring with verbs in OE, stating:

1 Charzyńska-Wójcik (2011) seeks a better way to describe and classify OE verbs that often show case alteration.

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(1) It is hard to say if the genitive which occurred with certain verbs should be called as the ‘causative’ object, since the terminology provokes unnecessary and inappropriate problems to be solved in theory. The best we can do is to see if a noun (or a substantive) is unambiguously in the genitive and its collocation is steady enough to be called ‘the object.’ (Ogura 2010, 69)2

Jon Erickson’s study (1975) could be useful in this matter, putting forward an interesting view on the function and interpretation of the genitive object. In his study of the interpretation of þæs and þisses in the refrain in Deor (i.e., þæs ofereode, þisses swa mæg), he shows the possibility that the main NP might be deleted, leaving a dependent genitive when possible, stating “the precise lexical item is irrecoverable, but the semantic properties of the item are sufficiently clear from the context that the meaning of the construction is unmistakable” (Erickson 1975, 81).3 A number of scholars such as Plank (1982), Goh (2000), and Koike (2006) have tackled the alternative case marking more or less theoretically. Their conclusions are essentially the same, in that OE case alterations with the same verb could lead to semantic difference, and that difference in transitivity is a matter of degree of “opposedness” and “affectedness.”4 In discussing OE expressions meaning “giving birth” (e.g., acennan), Plank (1982) considers how the case functions in OE, describing that the same verb may take more than one case. His hypothesis is that different case markings are a matter of degree of transitivity, and that, more specifically, different cases mean different degrees of semantic opposedness. Goh (2000) also discusses the factors behind the alternative case marking, assuming that different cases show “different degrees of opposedness or affectedness,” relying on the concept of transitivity, especially “affectedness” or “opposedness” and the assumption of obliqueness hierarchy in OE,5 arguing:

2 See also Ogura (2008) for a discussion focusing on the use of the genitive and of-​phrase with verbs of tasting in OE. 3 The so called Deor-​genitive, “one of the most perplexing problems in OE” (Goh 2001, 485), has attracted much scholarly attention. For details, see, for example, Erickson (1975), Kim (1995), and Goh (2001). 4 See Hopper and Thompson (1980) and Tsunoda (1985) for details on “affectedness.” 5 The obliqueness hierarchy for OE NP arguments is as follows (Goh 2000, 190): (a) Nom