The Phrase. Noun, Adjective and Verb Patterns

§ 212. The syntactic structure of a language can be described at the level of the phrase and at the level of the sentence. In OE texts we find a variety of word phrases (also: word groups or patterns). OE noun patterns, adjective patterns and verb patterns had certain specific features which are important to note in view of their later changes.

§ 213. A noun pattern consisted of a noun as the head word and pronouns, adjectives (including verbal adjectives, or participles), numerals and other nouns as determiners and attributes. Most noun modifiers agreed with the noun ingender, number and case, e.g.:

on pǣm ōprum prim daʒum ... ‘in those other three days’ — Dat. pl Masc.

Ohthere sǣde his hlāforde, Ælfrēde cyninʒe ‘Ohthere said to his lord, king Alfred’ — the noun in apposition is in the Dat. sg like the head noun.

Nouns which served as attributes to other nouns usually had the form of the Gen. case: hwāles bān, dēora fell ‘whale's bone, deer's fell. Some numerals governed the nouns they modified so that formally the relations were reversed: tamra dēora ... syx hand ‘six hundred tame deer’; twentiʒ scēapa ‘twenty sheep’ (dēora, scēapa — Gen. pl).

§ 214. An adjective pattern could include adverbs, nouns or pronouns in one of the oblique cases with or without prepositions, and infinitives, e. g.:

hū lāp ēow selfum wæs tō ʒelæstenne ēowre ābas ‘how loath it was for you to keep your oaths’

him wæs manna pearf ‘he was in need of men

hiora hӯd bið swiðe ʒōd tō scio-rūnum ‘their bide is very good for ship ropes’.

§ 215. Verb patterns included a great variety of dependant components: nouns and pronouns in oblique cases with or without prepositions, adverbs, infinitives and participles, e.g.:

brinʒ pā pinʒ ‘bring those things’ (Acc.)

Hē ... seālde hit hys māder ‘he ... gave it to his mother’ (Acc., Dat.) hē ðǣr bād wastanwindes ‘there he waited for the western wind’ (Gen.)

Isaac cwæð tō his suna ‘Isaac said to his son’ (preposition plus Dat.);

bi pære ēa siʒlan ‘sail past that river’ (preposition plus Dat. in an adverbial meaning).

Hū mihtest pū hit swā hrædlice findan? ‘how could you find it so quickly’ (adverb)

Infinitives and participles were often used in verb phrases with verbs of incomplete predication (some of these phrases were later transformed into analytical forms): mihtest findan ‘might find’ in the last example, hē wolde fandian ‘he wanted to find out’, hie onʒunnon mā repian ‘they began to rage more’ (see also § 192).

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