| 2.1 | The object | |
2.3 | Negation |
| 2.2 | Word order |
2.1 In section (1.1) we looked at sentences such as se mann rídeð 'the man rides' where the verb's meaning and action are confined to the subject and there are no other people or things involved. Similarly séo sunne scínð 'the sun is shining' or ðá menn cumað 'the men are coming' - verbs like this are called intransitive, meaning that the action is confined to the performer, the subject. What if I want to say 'the man is riding a horse'? Here there is more than one party involved, since the action now affects something else (the horse, the thing which is ridden). This kind of verb is called transitive, because the action crosses over from the performer (subject) to another person or thing whom it affects, called the object. In OE there are sometimes special ways of marking out the object, particularly with words for 'the' and 'this':
| Subject | |
Object |
||
| sing. | pl. | sing. | pl. | |
| masculine | masculine | |||
| se/ðes mann | ðá/ðás menn | ðone/ðisne mann | ðá/ðás menn | |
| se/ðes stán | ðá/ðás stánas | ðone/ðisne stán | ðá/ðás stánas | |
| feminine | feminine | |||
| séo/ðéos talu | ðá/ðás tala | ðá/ðás tale | ðá/ðás tala | |
| séo/ðéos brýd | ðá/ðás brýda | ðá/ðás brýde | ðá/ðás brýda | |
| neuter | neuter | |||
| ðæt/ðis land | ðá/ðás land | ðæt/ðis land | ðá/ðás land | |
| ðæt/ðis scip | ðá/ðás scipu | ðæt/ðis scip | ðá/ðás scipu | |
You can see from the above that it is mainly the words for 'the' and 'this' which change to show subject from object, because mann, stán, scip and land do not have any (inflexional) ending and the plurals menn, stánas, scipu, land don't distinguish between the two uses. The feminines do have separate forms in the singular but not in the plural, which is to say that talu, brýd are marked as subject of the verb and tale, brýde as object, while tala, brýda can be either.
Question: How can I separate the various meanings of þá/þás? Briefly, þá will be found most often with plurals, where it doesn't help in distinguishing subject from object. However, with a singular noun, it can only mark a feminine object.
brýd (bride) and others differ from talu only in that the latter has a -u ending in the nominative singular. This is parallel to the correspondence land : scipu we noted in the neuter plural nouns (see 9.4).
the ending -ne of the masc.acc.sing.(e.g. ðone) is unique and specific to that role, and so is very useful in picking out object from subject in OE.
Practice 2. 1: give the OE for the following, then check your answers by moving the mouse pointer over each test. Continue until you are confident in the use of these forms.
| this land (subj.) | these ships (obj.) | these tales (obj.) |
| this knowledge (obj.) | that man (obj.) | this man (subj.) |
| those stones (subj.) | those men (obj.) | those ships (subj.) |
| this land (obj.) | this tale (subj.) | that stone (obj.) |
| se mann | |
rídeð | |
ðæt hors |
| subject | |
verb | |
object |
However, in OE one might wish to vary this by calling special attention to the horse as for example, in answer to the question Hwæt rídeð se mann? 'What is that man riding?', by saying
| ðæt hors | |
rídeð | |
se mann |
| object | |
verb | |
subject |
Note that you can still see that the man is the subject (i.e. the rider) by the use of se, which can only mark the subject of the verb. Or to take another example:
| se cyning | |
gréteð | |
ðone ðegn |
| subject | |
verb | |
object |
| the king | |
greets | |
the thane |
which can equally be expressed as
| ðone ðegn | |
gréteð | |
se cyning |
where, because ðone and se tell you which is object and subject, you can tell who is greeting whom. A further example with feminine nouns
| séo brýd | |
hierþ | |
ðá tale |
| the bride (subject) | |
hears | |
the story (object) |
where séo marks out the subject and ðá the object, which is also indicated by the inflexional ending -e.
It is important to be familiar with the concepts of subject and object since OE can be deceptive in suddenly reversing the expected order without warning.
Subject forms are referred to as being in the nominative case, and object forms in the accusative case. This is a shorthand method of referring to the form as well as function, since the accusative has other functions than the simple object.
Practice 2.2: identify subject and object in the following phrases:
Question: How can one tell subject from object in the last example - neither noun has any inflexional ending to show which case it is in? True, the nouns don't provide enough information by themselves to tell which case they are in, but we know from the grammar of the sentence that one must be the subject (nominative) and the other must be the object (accusative). But the words for 'this' and 'the' come to our rescue, as þisne can only be accusative singular masculine (characteristic -ne ending) and séo can only be nominative singular feminine. If the nouns had been plural, would the corresponding words for 'the/this' have helped?
| se mann rídeþ hors | versus | se mann ne rídeþ hors |
| the man rides a horse | the man does not ride a horse (rideth not) |
It is possible to use ne more than once in a sentence, since it can also mean 'neither' and 'nor': se cyning ne lufað ne bátas ne scipu 'the king loves neither boats nor ships'. In such cases ne still usually precedes the verb as well, i.e. '...does not love neither... nor...'. While this is bad (modern) English, it was perfectly normal in OE.
There are other, stronger negative words, such as ná (not at all) næfre (never) or nælles (by no means).
Some verbs have special negative forms such as nis from ne + is (not + is). These will be dealt with as the verbs occur (in 5.2,4; 9.3; 10.6; 15.2,5,6).
| and | and | oþþe | or | ac | but |
| oþþe ... oþþe | either ... or | ne ... ne | neither ... nor | eac | also |
the word 'and' can be spelt and or ond; generally, variant spellings with -on- for -an- are West Saxon e.g. lond for land.
Nouns (plurals are shown in brackets beneath)
| masculine | |
feminine | |
neuter | |||
| ðegn (ðegnas) |
a thane | lár (lára) |
learning, knowledge |
hús (hús) |
a house | ||
| biscop (biscopas) |
a bishop | giefu (giefa) |
a gift | word (word) |
a word | ||
| stán (stánas) |
a stone, rock | glóf (glófa) |
a glove | ríce (ríciu) |
a kingdom | ||
| áð (áðas) |
an oath, promise |
lof (lofa) |
praise | brim (brimu) |
a sea | ||
| bát (bátas) |
a boat | cearu (ceara) |
care, grief, worry |
bán (bán) |
a bone | ||
| æðeling (æðelingas) |
a prince, nobleman |
sacu (saca) |
strife, contention |
folc (folc) |
a folk,nation |
||
| líðmann (líðmenn) |
a sailor | sweord (sweord) |
a sword | ||||
Verbs
| sing. | |
pl. | ||
| ádrecceð | afflicts | ádreccað | afflict | |
| sécð | seeks, is looking for | sécað | seek, are looking for | |
| híerð | hears, is hearing | híerað | hear, are hearing | |
| lufað | loves | lufiað | love | |
| oneardað | inhabits, lives in | oneardiað | inhabit, live in | |
| giefð | gives, is giving | giefað | give, are giving | |
Question: In 1(c), how can one tell subject from object? The nouns don't help very much as both can be both subject and object, and ðis likewise. The clue is in the verb, which is singular ('bites') - its subject must likewise be singular, and this excludes menn (which is plural) and effectively permits only hors which, with ðis, can only be singular.
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