Interrogative Pronouns

In OEthe interrogative pronouns had the following forms: ‘hwā’ (Masc. and Fem.) and ‘hwæt’ (Neut.), NE ‘who’ and ‘what,’ respectively. These pronouns had a five-case paradigm, though the Instrumental case of ‘hwæt’ was the separate word ‘hwў’( NE ‘why’). Some interrogative pronouns were used as adjectival pronouns: ‘hwylc’, which corresponds to NE ‘which’.

Indefinite and Negative Pronouns

Indefinite pronouns formed a large class which included simple and compound pronouns. Simple pronouns were ‘sum’ (NE ‘some’), ‘an’ and ‘ǣniʒ’ (NE ‘one, any’); ‘nān’ (NE ‘none’) was made up of the pronoun ‘an’ and the negative particle ‘ne’. Compound pronouns were built by adding the noun ‘þing’ to simple pronouns: ‘nānþinʒ’ (NE ‘nothing’).

The pronoun ‘ǣniʒ’ was used in interrogative, negative, and conditional sentences while the pronoun ‘sum’ was used in affirmative sentences.

Reflexive Pronouns

In OE reflexives were expressed through personal pronouns because such pronouns could be used after intransitive verbs as well. The adjective ‘self’ was also used, and it agreed with its corresponding pronoun or noun.

Possessive Pronouns

In OE possessive pronouns were not represented as a separate class, they developed from the Genitive case of personal pronouns: mīn, þīn, his, hire, ēōwer.

Morphological Categories of Adjectivesin OE

OE adjectives expressed the following morphological categories: number, gender  and case. OE adjectives had 2 numbers and 3 genders. The main difference between the system of adjectival cases and that of a noun, was that adjectives had a fifth case – Instrumental. The Instrumental case was used when the adjective defined a noun in the Dative case with an instrumental meaning. The adjective had forms of agreement with the noun it modified, or with it agreed with the subject if the adjective was a predicative.

Most of the adjectives had two patterns of declension – weak declension and strong declension. Weak or strong pattern was determined by the following reasons: the syntactical function of the adjective, the degree of comparison and the presence of noun determiners. The weak form of declension was used when the adjective was preceded by a demonstrative pronoun or the Genitive case of personal pronouns; the strong form of declension was used when the adjective functioned predicatively or attributively and wasn’t preceded by any determiners. However, some adjectives were always weak: ‘eall’ – ‘all’, ‘maniʒ’ – ‘many’, ‘ōþer’- other, while others were always strong: ‘ilca’ – ‘same’. There was also some semantic difference between the strong and the weak declensions. The weak form expressed definiteness, while the strong form expressed indefiniteness, and so the opposition between these two patterns of declension as defined by Professor Smirnitsky is “the category of definiteness / indefiniteness”.

Compare: þā menn sindon ʒōde – ‘the men are good’ (a strong form);

mid hnescre beddinʒe –‘with soft bedding’(a strong form);

þæt wēste land – ‘that uninhabited land’ (a weak form);

þў bestan lēoþe – ‘with the best song’(a weak form).

The weak declension used the almost all of the same markers as nouns belonging to the n-stem declension. In the strong declension, masculine and neuter endings coincided with endings of the a-stem nouns; feminine endings corresponded to endings of the o-stem nouns. This declension is also called “pronominal” declension.

Declension of Adjectives in OE

CASE	STRONG
	M	F	N	M		F	N
	SINGULAR				PLURAL
Nom.	blind	blind	blind	blinde		blind	blinda, -e
Gen.	blindes	blindes	blinder	blindra		blindra	blindra
Dat.	blindum	blindum	blinder	blindum		blindum	blindum
Acc.	blindne	blind	blinder	blinde		blind	blinda, -e
Instr.	blinde	blinde	blinder	blindum		blindum	blindum
	WEAK
	M	F	N	All Genders
Nom.	blinda	blinde	blinde	blindan
Gen.	blindan	blindan	blindan	blindra, -ena
Dat.	blindan	blindan	blindan	blindum
Acc.	blindan	blinde	blindan	blindan
Instr.	blindan	blindan	blindan	blindum

Degrees of Comparison of Adjectives in OE

Adjectives in OE like adjectives in other languages expressed degrees of comparison: the positive degree, the comparative degree and the superlative degree.

The forms of the comparative and superlative degrees were synthetic. The forms of the comparative degree were built by adding the suffix ‘-ra’, and the forms of the superlative degree were built by adding the suffix ‘-est’ / ‘-ost’. Occasionally interchange of root-vowels would occur.

POSITIVE	COMPARATIVE	SUPERLATIVE
soft	softra	softost
lonʒ	lenʒra	lenʒest
eald	ieldra ealdra	ieldest ealdost / ealdest

Vowel interchange resulted due to the palatal mutation that had taken place in early period. There were two variants of suffixes in OE: ‘-ira’ / ‘ist’; and ‘-ora’/’-ost’. The root vowel of the adjective would mutate if the suffix with the front vowel [i] was used.

A few adjectives built the forms of the degrees of comparison in a suppletive way: ʒōd – bettra – bet(e)st (NE ‘good’); yfel – wyrsa (wiersa) – wyrst (wierrest) (NE ‘bad’). Suppletive forms of these adjectives exist in other Indo-European languages, too (compare with Russian хороший-лучше, плохой-хуже).

MEANS of form-building	DEGREES OF COMPARISON				NE words
	POSITIVE	COMPARATIVE	SUPERLATIVE
Suffixation	soft	softra	softost	soft
Suffixation + vowel interchange	eald lonʒ	ieldra ealdra lenʒra	ieldest ealdost ealdest lenʒest	old elder/eldest long
Suppletion	ʒōd yfel lўtel micel	bettra wiersa, wyrsa lǣssa māra	bet(e)st wierrest, wyrst lǣst mǣst	good evil, bad little much

ADVERBS

Adverbs are words which modify verbs or clauses and adjectives or other adverbs or adverbial phrases. The main function of adverbs is to express some relation of place, time, manner, attendant circumstance, degree, cause, result, condition, purpose or means. In IE languages, adverbs are etymologically unclear. Some function as adjectives and nouns in particular cases. In OE there existed both simple and derivative adverbs. Simple adverbs had the meaning of place, time, manner and some other: hwǣr (NE ‘where’), hwanan (NE ‘where _from’), þǣr (NE ‘there’), hwanne (NE ‘when’), þā, þanne (NE ‘then’), hwīle (NE ‘while’), sōna (NE ‘soon’), hwōn (NE ‘some’), hwæðra (NE ‘however, nevertheles’), þǣr-æfter (NE ‘after that’), twiwa (NE ‘twice’) and others.

Derivative adverbs were formed from adjectives by means of several suffixes, –e, for example: heard - hearde. If the adjective ended in -e, the adverb form did as well. This particular feature of OE has no equivalent in other Germanic languages. The suffix - lice was very productive. This suffix was characteristic of adverbs built from those adjectives ending in –lic. In fact, it was so frequently used that -lice began to be added to other adjectives too, for example: dēadlic – dēadlice – (NE ‘deadly’); swēte – swetlice – (NE ‘sweetly’).

Sometimes adverbs were derived from verbal nouns, and such adverbs ended in -inga/-enga. They were not so numerous as other adverbs: eallunga – (NE ‘altogether’); ierrunga – (NE ‘angrily’).

(Later in ME, the suffix –lice changed into –ly and was regularly used to form adverbs from those adjectives borrowed from French. The adjectival suffix –e was lost as well as the corresponding adverbial form.)

Adverbs were also derived from case forms of adjectives and nouns:

- Adjectives: the Accusative case –lytel (NE ‘little’); the Genitive case -ealles (NE ‘entirely’); the Dative case -lytlum (NE ‘bit by bit’);

- Nouns: Accusative -inn (NE ‘inside’); Genitive - dæʒes (NE ‘by day’), nihtes (NE ‘by night’); Dative dropm lum (‘drop by drop’).

Degrees of Comparison.

In OE only adverbswhich were derived from adjectives were able to form degrees of comparison, and so the suffixes -or, and -ost were used: heardor, heardost.

If an adjective expressing degrees of comparison had a suppletive form, likewise the corresponding adverb had a suppletive form.

PREPOSITIONS

Prepositions were very significant in OE. They were used to express various grammatical relationships. Furthermore, they expressed time and space relations. There were original OE prepositions, such as ‘æt’-‘to’, ‘wiþ ’-‘against’, ‘fram’-‘from’, ‘æfter’-‘after’, ‘þurh’-‘through’, as well as derivatives, for example, ‘benorðan’(to the north), ‘beforan’ (before), ‘būtan’ (without).

CONJUNCTIONS

Conjunctions expressed various relationships between words and clauses. Conjunctions in OE were coordinative and subordinating. Eg.: and / ond (and) , ac (but), gif (if), or, ægþer ge... ge (both... and..., either ... or...), hwonne (when), þa (when), þonne (when),  þēāh (though), þætte (that), ær (before), swā... swā... (so... as...). Coordinative conjunctions linked elements of a sentence or the clauses of compound sentences, while subordinating conjunctions linked the clauses of complex sentences. Subordinating conjunctions were more widespread.

THE VERB IN OE

 MORPHOLOGICAL CATEGORIES OF THE VERB

In OE verbs were rather complicated. All verbal forms were synthetic, as analytical forms were only beginning to develop. Non-finite verbal forms structurally resembled the nominal parts of speech. As a predicate, the OE verb agreed with the subject in number and person, though person was systematically manifested only in the Present tense Indicative Mood. In other tense and mood forms, verbal distinctions were frequently neutralized. Unlike the category of person, the category of number was quite stable and singular and plural were never neutralized.

The category of person consisted of three forms: 1st person, 2nd person and 3rd person. As previously mentioned, this category was distinguised only in the Present Indefinite, Indicative Mood, singular:

Ic wrīte- pu writes- he wrīteð

The category of mood consisted of three elements: Indicative, Imperative, and Subjunctive moods. Among these existed some homonymous forms. It is important to mention that the use of the Subjunctive Mood in OE is quite different from that in NE, as it had the general meaning of supposition and unreality. The Subjunctive was used in conditional clauses, clauses of time and result and in object clauses which featured reported speech.

The Category of Tense had two tenses in OE: Present and Past: ic write- ic wrāt. Both of them were used in the Indicative and Subjunctive Mood. The tense forms had more general meaning than it is now. There were no future forms in OE, future actions were expressed by the forms of the Present tense. Modal verbs and adverbs were used to specify the future time of the action. The Past tense forms were used to express past actions. The modern meanings of the Continuous and Perfect tense forms were denoted by adverbs or could be understood from the context.

Concerning conjugation, most forms were realized through grammatical endings or grammatical suffixes, though vowel interchange was also used and some verbs had suppletive forms.

All verbs in OE were subdivided into several groups. According to the principal means of forming the verb stem: vowel interchange of the root vowel and suffixation, OE verbs were strong and weak. Besides, there were Preterite-present verbs, suppletive and anomalous verbs.

Strong Verbs

Strong verbs originated in Old Germanic. Their forms were achived through vowel interchange or ablaut. The forms of the verbs were Infinitive, Past singular, Past plural and the past participle. They kept the same endings regardless of the class to which they belonged. The Infinitive ending was -an, while the the Past Indicative singular had no ending. Past Indicative plural had the ending –on, and the past participle ending was -en.

There were 7 classes of strong verbs. The classes from the 1^st to the 6^th used vowel gradation that stems from IE languages and corresponds to the Germanic ablaut. Specifically vowel interchange of OE strong verbs came from Indo-Europeanablaut.

Ехать: faran - fōr - fōrum – farans

The 7^th class used doublingof the root morpheme.

Звать: haitan – haihait – haihaitum – haitans

Оставлять: letan – lailot – lailotum – letans

Weak Verbs

Weak verbs were more numerous than strong verbs in OE, and over the course of the OE period the group of weak verbs grew, as new verbs were derived from nouns, adjectives and even from other verbs. Weak verbs fell into three categories, and their past forms were built by means of the dental suffix ‘-d-’ or ‘-t-’.

	Class	Infinitive	Past Singular	Past Plural	Past Participle
слышать	I	hausjan	hausida	hausidēdum	hausiþs
мазать	II	salbōn	salbōda	salbōdēdum	salbōþs
иметь	III	haban	habaida	habaidēdum	habaiþs
наполнять	IV	fullnan	fulnōda	fullnōdēdum	-

Preterite-Present Verbs

The name of this group of verbsreflects the way in which their tense forms were built. Their present tense forms corresponded to the Past (Preterite) forms ofstrong verbs. The Germanic Preterite stems from the IE perfect, which expressed a past action with regard to its result in the present. For the past tense, a new form had to be created in line with theweak verbs. The Preterite-Present Verbs didn’t express actions, but rather attitudes towards actions denoted by other verbs.

	Infinitive	Present Singular	Present Plural	Past Singular	Past Participle
own	āʒаn	āʒ	āʒon	āhte	āʒen
shall, should	sculan	sceal	sculon	scolde	-
could, can	cunnan	cann	cunnon	cuðe	cunnen
may, might	maʒаn	mæʒ	maʒon	meahte	-
must	-	mōt	mōton	mōste	-

Changes of the Preterite-Present Verbs

Principle forms	OE	ME	NE
Infinitive	cunnan	-	-
Present sing.	cann	can	can
Present pl.	cunnon	can, cunnen	can
Past sing.	cuðe	couth(e), coud(e)	coud > could
Past pl.	cunnon	-	-
Past Part.	cunnen	-	-

Anomalous Verbs

Anomalous (athematic, irregular) verbs were irregular. The OE verb ‘willan’ took the form of a Preterite-present verb in meaning and function but was also used as a notional verb. Semantically it expressed volition and desire. In NE it became a modal verb and developed into an auxiliary:

will/would: willan-wolde-wold.

The verbsdon (NE ‘do’) contained features of both the strong and weak verbs: had a weak Past tense form, but was also characterized by a vowel interchange and the Past Participle form in -n like that of strong verbs.

don (do) – dyde (did) – de-don (done).

The Future Tense

In OE the present tense was used to denote a future action. Otherwise OE preterite-present (modal) verbs followed by an infinitive could express the future.

The Passive Voice

In OE only Participle I and the past participle were contrasted as active and passive.

The Perfect Forms

The analyticalforms expressing time correlation developed from two OE phrases: ‘habban + direct object + Past Participle’ and ‘beon + Past Participle’. The prefix ʒe - developed into y-, but it was rarely used.

The Continuous Forms

OE verbs didn’t have regular forms to express aspect. While time correlation (completeness of the action) could occasionally be expressed by the prefix ʒe -, there was no grammatical means by which to express the continuation of the action. In OE the phrase ‘beon + Participle I’ sometimes denoted a quality or an action characterizing the subject, however this phrase typically denoted habitual actions characteristic of the subject.