Scribd
Upload
26 views5 pages

Understanding Old English Syntax

Old English syntax used ambiguous words that could function either as subordinating conjunctions, resulting in longer sentences with embedded clauses, or as adverbs, producing shorter sentences. Some words like "þā" could mean "then" as an adverb or "when" as a conjunction. Determining whether a clause was independent or subordinate is challenging because of these ambiguous words. The document discusses how Old English could be written in either a paratactic or hypotactic style depending on the usage of these words.

Uploaded by

David Alejandro Servín Rojas
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
26 views5 pages

Understanding Old English Syntax

Old English syntax used ambiguous words that could function either as subordinating conjunctions, resulting in longer sentences with embedded clauses, or as adverbs, producing shorter sentences. Some words like "þā" could mean "then" as an adverb or "when" as a conjunction. Determining whether a clause was independent or subordinate is challenging because of these ambiguous words. The document discusses how Old English could be written in either a paratactic or hypotactic style depending on the usage of these words.

Uploaded by

David Alejandro Servín Rojas
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Old English Syntax

One of the most obvious features of syntactic style in any language is the degree to which
grammatical and semantic relationships are expressed by subordinate clauses. A high
proportion of long sentences with subordination, as in the prose of Edward Gibbon or
Henry James or the poetry of John Milton, is known as hypotactic style, whereas shorter
sentences and a higher proportion of principal clauses, as in the prose of Ernest
Hemingway, is paratactic. Parataxis may also be interpreted as immature and childish, as
in examples given by [Link]:
Example
Then I asked him; then he replied…
They came to a place on the road; there stood a temple.
There lived in the convent a certain monk; he was called Martin:
he said…16
There are clear differences in our modern perceptions of Old English
written in this paratactic style and Old English written with many
embedded clauses. The problem is in determining whether a particular
clause is independent or subordinate, because the words that do the
subordinating are often ambiguous.
Old English þā the beginning of a clause can be either an adverb
translated ‘then’ and introducing an independent clause, or a
subordinating conjunction translated ‘when’ and introducing a
dependent clause.
can be translated as ‘there’ or ‘where’, þonne as ‘then’ or ‘when’, swā
as ‘so’ or ‘as’,

as ‘formerly’ or ‘ere’, siððan as ‘afterward’ or ‘since’, nū as ‘now’ or


‘now that’, þēah as ‘nevertheless’ or ‘though’, and forðām as ‘therefore’ or
‘because’.
In each pair the first word is an adverb, and the style that results from
choosing it is a choppier style with shorter sentences, whereas the
choice of the second word, a conjunction, results in longer sentences
with more embedded clauses.

Old English syntax aims to understand the use of these ambiguous subordinators
and
adverbs

You might also like