An Introduction to Old English Edinburgh University Press

a¯
‘when’ and the main clause by 
†
a¯ ‘then’. Note that which clause is which
is most easily determined by verb-final order against verb-second order:
(43)
Ê
a¯ he¯
e
a¯
t
a¯s andsware onfe¯ng, 
†
a¯ ongon he¯ so¯na singan
When he then that answer received, then began he at once to
sing
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It is tempting to spend much more time on correlative structures, of
which the Old English writers were clearly fond, at least in the rather
literary texts which dominate the available material. But time presses.
Instead let me focus attention on relative clauses, which show clear
differences from relative clauses today. In particular I want to look at
methods used to introduce the relative clause, namely various types of
what are nowadays grouped together as complementisers.
Essentially there were two relative complementisers possible in Old
English, together with some examples where there is no complementiser
at all. As I shall show, it is also possible to find compound-type structures
with both complementisers used, in a strictly-defined sequence. Perhaps
most surprising of all is the fact that Old English had neither the who-
nor the that-pronoun of the present-day language, although in relation
to that, this suggestion only messily relates to the Old English situation,
as I discuss immediately below.
Instead, the two relative complementisers in Old English are firstly
what we may call the relative particle
†
e, which is indeclinable, and
secondly the demonstrative pronoun se, 
†
æt, se¯o used as a relative pro-
noun. A straightforward example of the particle is:
(44)
T
a¯ beco¯m he¯ to¯ Westseaxan, 
†
e wæs
e
a¯ g
.
yt hæ¯
t
en
Then he went to Wessex, which was then still heathen
whilst here is an example with two relative clauses in consecutive
clauses, each having a different form of the relative pronoun:
(45) Se hearpere wæs ung
.
efræ¯g
.
lı¯c
.
e good, 
e
æs nama wæs Orfeus
The harper was incredibly good, whose name was Orpheus
(46) He¯ hæfde a¯n swı
¯
e
e æ¯nlic
.
wı¯f, sı¯o wæs ha¯ten Eurudic
.
e
He had a very excellent wife, who was called Eurydice
The use of the demonstrative pronoun as a relative, although now
perhaps alien to English, unless one assumes that the demonstrative
pronoun is directly, rather than indirectly, developed as a relative, will
be recognisable to anyone who has some knowledge of present-day
German.
In many instances the use of demonstrative alone could be confusing,
since there is the possibility that it might be a simple demonstrative
rather than a relative; on the other hand the use of the relative particle
alone can be unhelpful, since it is uninflected. These difficulties are
resolved by a sequence of pronoun + particle, as in:
(47)
T
rı¯wa clypode se¯o [
] stemn fram 
t
æ¯re
e
ry¯nesse se¯o [
]
t
e
is ælmihtig
.
god
CLAUSES
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Three times called the voice from the Trinity which is almighty
God
Sometimes, however, there is a further difficulty, for the pronoun can, by
a process called relative attraction, take the case not of the relative but
rather that of its antecedent:
(48) Heria
e
for
e
ı¯ Drihten [
],
t
one [
]
e
e earda
e
on Sı¯on
Praise therefore the Lord, who that lives in Zion
And occasionally we find examples where there is no relative element
present at all:
(49) And on 
t
ys ilc
.
an g
.
e¯re for
e
ferde Æ
t
ered wæs on Defenum
ealdorman
And in this same year died Athered, (who) was Alderman of
Devon
Such structures are often described as contact clauses, since they have no
complementiser intervening between the two clauses.
7.7 Impersonal verbs
There is much more that could be said about clause structure, both in
detail and in variety, but, as always, a line must be drawn somewhere,
and this seems an appropriate place to draw it. A simple reason for this
is that there is one further feature of Old English syntax which must be
discussed before we move on to matters of vocabulary in Chapter 8. This
is the matter of impersonal verbs.
Consider the following present-day English sentence:
(50) It is raining
Such an example is often described as having an impersonal verb struc-
ture. What we mean by that is that the subject, it, is not a full subject, for
it has no meaning; its only purpose is to fill the otherwise empty subject
position, which every finite clause requires to be filled. It, therefore, is a
dummy subject inserted to fulfil the demands of present-day syntax.
Compare with (50) the following Old English sentence:
(51) Nor
t
an snı¯wde
From the north snowed
Here we can see that it isn’t obligatory for an Old English sentence to
have a subject. If you know Latin, then such ‘omission’ of the subject may
be familiar to you.
There would be no need to make any fuss about such impersonal verbs
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if the only verbs which were involved were the so-called weather verbs
like snow and rain and if there were no further consequences. Then the
same situation would exist in Old English as in present-day English. But
that is not the case.
Rather, in Old English there is a range of verbs which can occur
without a subject in the nominative case, although there is often the
possibility of these verbs also occurring with a ‘normal’ subject. I shall
ignore that variation for a moment, but you should remember that it
is possible and even, in later texts, more and more frequent. The verbs
which participate in impersonal constructions, apart from the weather
verbs, tend to share semantic features relating to physical or mental
experiences. This can be seen in an example such as the following:
(52) him [
] ofhre¯ow 
t
æs mannes [
]
he experienced pity because of the man [to him was pity because
of the man]
The best way to explain what happens is by taking two semantic
concepts, namely experiencer and cause, where the experiencer is an
animate noun and the cause either a noun phrase or a clause. In (51)
there neither an experiencer nor a cause, just as in the present-day
example (50). This type is usually called a zero-place impersonal. On
the other hand, in (52) him is the experiencer and 
†