An Introduction to Old English Edinburgh University Press

of-construction, thus ‘a period of five nights’. A rather common usage is
the adverbial usage of the genitive, best exemplified in the phrase dæg
.
es
and nihtes ‘by day and by night’, also found alone, i.e. dæg
.
es ‘by day’, nihtes
‘at night’. Note that nihtes has the inflection appropriate to masculine
nouns in this construction, rather than the usual nihte, which rather
implies a stereotyped idiom. You might also like to compare the present-
day construction he works nights. Note also the use of the genitive form of
demonstrative 
†
æs, which has the meaning ‘therefore, so’.
As with the dative case, a number of verbs normally or often take a
genitive object. The situation here is often quite parallel to the use of the
dative. Although it is possible to give some indication of what kinds of
verb have a genitive direct object, for example verbs of depriving and
also of rejoicing, e.g. blissian ‘rejoice’, such guides are far from infallible;
it is also worth noting that verbs taking a genitive object may also often
take the accusative, and that can be dependent on whether the object is
abstract [
] or animate []. As in cases involving the dative, I have
attempted to note the case usage in the glossary.
There are few prepositions which regularly take the genitive case.
The only common examples are andlang ‘along’, to¯ ‘to’, especially in
expressions of time; note particularly the use of to¯ + genitive in the
phrase to¯
†
æs
†
e ‘until’, and wi
†
when it means ‘towards’ rather than
‘against’.
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6.3 Concord
We are used to agreement or concord in present-day English between
a subject and its verb, as seen in the difference between the two sentences
below:
(26) The cat is sleeping on the mat
(27) The cats are sleeping on the mat
Other than this, rather restricted example, grammatical agreement is
non-existent in English today. But in Old English there is not only
concord between subject and verb, but also between the elements within
a noun phrase, that is to say, demonstratives, adjectives and nouns,
between pronouns and the items to which they refer, and between
pronouns and modifiers of those pronouns. Since so much of Old
English concord takes place in the noun phrase, I have chosen to deal
with all the principal effects of concord here, all in one place.
Subject-verb agreement essentially works in much the same way in
Old English as in present-day English. That is to say, its basis is that the
subject noun agrees in number and person with the verb. Thus we find:
(28) Se ka¯sere [
] hine underfe¯ng [] … and 
t
a¯ romanisc
.
an
witan [
] hine wur
e
odon [
] swy
e
e
The emperor welcomed him … and the Roman senators
honoured him greatly
The kinds of exceptions to subject-verb concord are not dissimilar to
exceptions which sometimes occur in present-day English. Thus when
two singular nouns form a compound subject, then the verb is often
singular, as in:
(29)
t
æ¯r sc
.
eal [
] be¯on g.edrync and pleg.a
there will be drinking and playing
Such agreement is most frequent when, as in (29), the verb precedes
its subject. A different type occurs with hit ‘it’,
†
æt ‘that’ and hwæt ‘who,
what’, which frequently have a plural verb and complement, as in:
(30)
t
æt [
] sindon u¯re synna
that are our sins
As in present-day English, so in Old English, there could be a conflict
between grammatical concord and semantic concord. This can be seen
both in examples with indefinite pronouns, as in (31), and in examples
with a collective noun, as in (32):
(31)
t
onne rı¯de
e
[
] ælc., and hit motan [] habban
then each one rides, and can have it
NOUN PHRASES AND VERB PHRASES
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(32) se¯o buruhwaru [
] hine underfe¯ngon []
the township received him
The second example is like the variation found particularly in British
English between the committee is and the committee are.
Turning now to concord in the noun phrase, the first point to note is
that demonstratives and adjectives agree in number, case and gender
with their head noun. That this does not, for the most part, happen
in present-day English is simply due to the loss of inflections which
has taken place. Some demonstratives, of course, do still show number,
hence this ~ these. The principle therefore remains. Furthermore, of
course, other present-day languages such as German and French do
show, to some degree, agreement between adjectives and their nouns.
The essential rule in Old English is just as explained above, namely
that demonstratives and adjectives agree with their head noun. Thus we
find, for example:
(33)
t
æs heofonlican lı¯fes [
  ]
of the heavenly life
(34)
t
a¯ g
.
elæ¯redestan men [
  ]
the most learned men
It should be noted, of course, that the same rules of agreement apply
regardless of whether an adjective is definite, as in (33–34), or indefinite,
as in (35):
(35) (he¯ wæs) lı¯chomlic
.
re untrymnesse 
t
ryc
.
c
.
ed [
  ]
(he was) with bodily weakness oppressed
and the agreement is entirely distinct from the syntactically-motivated
choice of adjective declension.
Although agreement is quite strictly observed in Old English, there
are some situations where complete agreement is impossible. The most
obvious cases involve two nouns of different gender but which share a
common adjective, as in:
(36) wit [i.e. Adam and Eve] he¯r baru [
  ] standa
e
we stand here naked
As can be seen, the adjective is in the neuter gender, even though the
nouns to which it refers back are, respectively, masculine and feminine.
A further feature, which is far more often found in later texts, is the
simplification of plural adjective forms in a single common gender which
is the historical masculine gender, as can be found in other languages too,
for example Italian. Although this will not cause difficulty, it should be
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noted as a sign of the simplification which will become standard in later
centuries.
Despite the comments above, it should be noted that the normal
situation in Old English is to preserve gender agreement. This is best
seen in the agreement of pronouns and their antecedents.
(37) … swy
e
e mic
.
el sæ¯ [
] up in on lande, se¯o [] is bra¯dre
t
onne æ¯nig
.
mann ofer se¯on mæg
.
e
a very large sea inland, she is wider than any man can see over.
Yet when there is a disagreement between grammatical gender and
natural gender, then the pronoun can show natural rather than gram-
matical gender:
(38) Sum wı¯f [
] ha¯tte Sintic.e, se¯o [] wæs blind …
A certain woman called Syntyche, she was blind …
6.4 Tense in the verb phrase
I have already, in earlier chapters, discussed the fact that in Old English
there were only two tenses, namely present and past. If this fact is kept
in mind, then some potential difficulties can be easily avoided. However,
there are a number of points to note in this basic proposition. Firstly,
future time is regularly expressed by the present tense:
(39) ic
.
arı¯se and ic
.
fare to¯ mı¯num fæder
I shall arise and go to my father
It is noteworthy that neither willan ‘will’ nor sc