The Old English syntax (the phrase, the sentence, parts of the sentence, types of word order).

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 1344.

The syntactic structure of OE is determined by 2 major conditions: 1) The nature of OE morphology. 2) The relations between the spoken and written forms of language. OE possesses a system of grammatical forms which can indicate the connection between words. The phrase. In OE there are various types of word-combinations: noun patterns; adjective patterns; verb patterns. Noun patterns consist of a noun as the head-word and pronouns, adjectives, numerals and other nouns as determiners. As a rule dependent words agree with the head-word in gender, number and case. e.g.: on othrum da3um (in other days). Nouns which are the attributes to other nouns usually have the form of the Genitive case. e.g.: hwaeles ban (wale's bone). Adjective patterns can indicate adverbs, nouns or pronouns in the form of one of the oblique cases with or without prepositions. e.g.: him waes manna thearf (he was in need of men). Verb patterns include great number of dependent components: nouns/pronouns in oblique cases with or without prepositions, adverbs, infinitives, participles. e.g.: Isaac cwaeth to his suna (Isaac told to his son). The sentence. The syntax of the sentence is relatively simple in OE coordination of clauses prevails on subordination. Complicated syntactical constructions are quite rare. The ways of connecting words and phrases in sentence have changed greatly from synthetic in OE to analytical in NE. The principal features of the sentence still remain: the nominal character of the subject; the verbal character of the whole sentence. Difference: 1) The indirect object. 2) The unusual word order. 3) The predicate in the subordinate clause is at the end of the clause/sentence. Resemblance: 1) Subject has the nominal character. 2) The center of the sentence is the verb. 3) The subordinate clause is joined by the conjunction in OE ‘thaet', in NE ‘that'. The simple sentence. A sentence is a unit of a different kind from a phrase. It is a unit of communication. A sentence may consist of one word only or of a phrase or of a group of phrases. A simple sentence in OE has certain main and secondary parts. Main parts of the sentence: 1) The subject is characterized by the Nom. case. It can be expressed by nouns, pronouns, numerals, substuntivised particles. e.g.: He com on mor3enne (He came in the morning). The subject always agrees with the predicate in number. In OE there are sentences without any subjects which are called impersonal. e.g.: Me leceth (I like). Him thuhte (It seemed to him). In OE there are also indefinite personal sentences 2) There are 2 types of predicates in OE: the simple verbal predicate; the compound predicate – the compound verbal predicate – the compound nominal predicate. The simple is expressive by the verb in the finite form. The compound verbal predicate consists of the finite form of a preterite-present verb (motan, cunnan, ma3an) and the infinitive. The compound nominal predicate consists of a link-verb and a noun or an adjective or some noun pattern. In the function of a link-verb there are usually the verbs: Here waes on lustum (Army was in the village). There are 3 types of the abject in OE: direct; indirect; prepositional. The direct object can be expressed by nouns or pronouns in the Acc. case. The indirect object can be expressed by nouns or pronouns in Gen., Dat., Acc. cases. The prepositional object can be expressed by the phrase: preposition + noun + pronoun. The attribute in OE always agrees with the head-noun in gender, number, case. It can be expressed by participle, numeral, noun in Gen. case or preposition + noun. The attribute can also be placed after the head-noun. Adverbial modifier can be expressed by adverbs and noun + adjective or preposition + noun. Word order has in OE only a secondary meaning. It is relatively free. Word can be placed more freely than in NE. The direct word order – first comes the subject and then the predicate. The indirect word order – predicate comes first, before the subject; it is used in interrogative sentences. Synthetic word order – the object or adverb modifier are placed between the subject and the predicate which is at the end of the sentence. Framed construction can be found in the subordinate clauses: subject … object … predicate. The particle ‘ne' was dropped and the negative meaning came to be expressed only by the negative pronouns ‘noht'/'niht'. Composite sentence: Compound; Complex. 1) The composite sentence developed later than a simple one. 2) A compound sentence appeared earlier than a complex one. 3) The 1^st compound and complex sentences were asyndetical; they could be joined with the help of intonation. With the introduction of writing some conjunctions appeared: and, ac. Polysyndoten – the repetition of one and the same conjunction. -/ Very long sentences. Subordinate clauses are joined together with the help of conjunctions and connecting words which have developed from demonstrative pronouns and adjectives.