Personal pronouns & grammar book

[David]

If you are rich, I think that the best book on the morphology of Old English is “A Grammar of Old English Volume 2 Morphology” by Richard M. Hogg and R.D. Fulk. Volume 2 Morphology is mainly by Fulk whereas Volume 1 Phonology is mainly by Hogg. Almost as good but probably a bit cheaper is “Old English Grammar” by A. Campbell which deals with both phonology and morphology.
On the internet you can explore Wiktionary Old English. For starting morphology I would try the link for lemmas.
Category:Old English lemmas - Wiktionary
From there you can go into different types of words and into West Geermanic, Proto Germanic and Proto Indo European.
More directly for Old English Paradigms try the Old English Translator
Old English Translator
This got a bad reputation as there used to be so many errors in the paradigms but now it is much better.

[Wayne Aelfhere]

Apols, I only just saw this page! Thanks loads David. I have forgotten to be wealthy I'm afraid but I absolutely love the Old English Translator! I will look into your other suggestions too.


I'm too tired & stupid to wrestle with Mitchell & Robinson right now, so I thought I would bother my dear Gesiþas with a few more annoying questions, this time sentence & concept on the Green Man.
So, stand by for barrage of bothersome questions...


"To [or æt] þǣm Grenum Menn." (Q1: All dative...do all words have to agree and carry dative endings? )
[Q2: I wonder if "æt" might be the appropriate term if the sentence is "to" as in addressing the spirit? As opposed to "to" as in giving something to him.]


OR (Q3):


"To þǣm Menn Grenes." (Dative and genitive [to the man of green])


Q4: As far as I can make out, the concept, imagery etc of "the Green Man" are later ideas than Anglo Saxon period. There may have been spirit(s) of nature or the forest, but not the Green Man per se. Trying to reverse engineer this, I've just used 'green' in its most basic literal sense of colour (I think) - but perhaps there's a word for "green" which carries a wider sense of the forest, greenery, vegetation etc? Any thoughts?


Many thanks & best wishes.

[David]

Adressing your questions.
1.  If you are using macrons for þǣm then you should be consistent and use them in tō and grēnum. Grēnum is the strong adjective but þǣm specifies which green man and so the weak grēnan should be used. The case of both the pronoun se and adjective grēne should agree with the noun mann.
2.  If you are addressing someone it is the vocative, which in Old English is represented by the nominative and “the” would not be needed so I would use Grēne Mann.
3.You are treating green as a noun instead of an adjective. This would be saying “to the man of (Mr.) Green.”
4. I’m afraid that I cannot help you with this one.

[Wayne Aelfhere]

Brilliant, David, as ever! Thank you.
So an address is vocative and that takes the nominative. That's a really useful one to remember.
One of these days I'll have to sit down & read what strong/weak adjectives and all that are all about.. I think I might blow a fuse so may need repeated attempts!
To summarise then, would you just use a vocative with nominatives for Green Man, rather than all that genitive stuff? So "æt (or to) Grenne Mann"?
Many thanks.

[Wayne Aelfhere]

Oh and just out of curiosity, were I to give the Green Man a new toaster, hence using the dative "to", would those endings be "to þæm Grenean Mane"?

[David]

When you address someone by calling out to them you use the nominative. If you were to address a message to give to someone else you would use to with the dative e.g. giving Andy a letter addressed to Bill.
 
Basically an adjective standing with “the, this, that or a possessive adjective” is weak whereas when it stands alone it is strong, so in
An old man, old men  the “old” is weak
Whereas in
The old man, this old man and my old man    the old is weak.
Note that this possessive adjective, my, is strong but it makes old weak.
Also in “the man is old”, the “old” is strong as it is not with the “the”.
A few adjectives only appear the strong form or only appear in the weak form even when the grammar suggests that the other form should be used.
 
If you were to give the Green Man a toaster then you would be nominative, the Green Man would be dative and a new toaster would be accusative. As in Modern English the “to” is optional. Green would be weak because of the “the” whereas new would be strong.
“to þæm Grenean mane” should be “to þæm Grenan men”. The -an ending replaces the -e ending rather than being added onto it. Then menn/men is the dative of mann/man.

[Wayne Aelfhere]

Phew! I think I'm starting to feel like a weak old man!
I think Im starting to get the theory though ...
"Old men are green" - old is strong
"My old man is green" - old is weak. Is that it?
And "an old man" - is old strong or weak there? (You've written that it's weak in your text, I just wanted to check.) And how about "All old men are green"? Is it when used with any pronoun it becomes weak?
 Or is it when the pronoun signifies a *specific* old man, or group of them (this, my, his, these etc) it is weak, but if it refers to a *general*  or abstract old man (old men, all old men, an old man etc) it is strong?

And as for sentence structure in general, I think I'm ok with that, but specifically, I had the dative endings being "grenean" and "mane" from OE translator (see screen caps attached). Where have I gone wrong on that one?

So much to consider in translations. I have a strong new headache!

(Sorry again for all the questions - I hope you don't mind.)

Best wishes.

[David]

Wayne, you seem to be doing very well with some tricky Old English.
In “My old man is green” old is weak but green is strong.
In the line  “An old man, old men  the “old” is weak”   I should have said strong not weak.
You are right that if the pronoun makes the noun specific then the adjective with it is weak. If the noun is still general then the adjective with it is strong.
 
The Old English Translator used to have lots of errors in the paradigms but now it is far better. However, in several paradigms it incorrectly adds the suffix onto the “e”. If you ask it to translate grene into Modern English it gives the correct paradigm as well as that wrong one. If you ask it to translate mann into Modern English it gives the correct paradigm. Personally, I only use the version with a single n when it is used in the passive sense. 

[Wayne Aelfhere]

Thank you David. Good to know I'm on the right track.


I will spend some time soon getting familiar with one of the second hand grammar books I ordered.


In fact, could you recommend which of the following will be best for me? I have: Brights; Mitchell & Robinson; and I've just ordered Baker - the latter as reviews suggest it is particularly "approachable".
However, I suppose I really just want one that's clearly & sensibly laid out, so I can quickly refer to it as & when issues crop up - I don't particularly want to have to read one cover to cover, like some very & long complicated novel, before it becomes of use! Definitely a "dip in & out of" type of thing is what I'd prefer.
Many thanks again.

[David]

For learning Old English I would recommend the companions language course and Pollington’s “First Steps in Old English”. Other possibilities are Matt Love’s “Learn Old English with Leofwin” and Atherton’s “Complete Old English”.
I consider the Mitchell & Roninson and Baker books more as reference books with Baker easier to use. I do not know Brights book.

[Wayne Aelfhere]

Thank you David.
The Companions correspondence course looks really interesting, but I'd have to make a proper grown-up commitment!  I'll definitely cogitate on that idea though.
It was a grammar reference book I was thinking of, so I'll get familiar with Baker then, and have the other two as cross reference resources.
Very best wishes and thanks again for all your help & excellent advice.

[Phyllis]

I'd only add that for the Correspondence Course:

 - some of us take years to do it, there's no time limit and people often re-start because of Real Life getting in the way, and

 - we do have a Zoom group to encourage one another to keep on keeping on, and to share new discoveries about learning the language (the next one is on Saturday if you wanted to dip in!)

Phyllis

[Wayne Aelfhere]

Thanks Phyllis. I can't do this Saturday but I appreciate the invite. Maybe see u at some point in the future though.
Good to know it can be done over some years as that'd be me!
Best wishes.