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CHAPTER XIII

SYNTAX

Cases.

§ 207. Accusative.  The accusative has much the same function as in NHG. The verbs āhten, to persecute, beitōn, to wait for, bigėhan, to confess, costōn, to tempt, govern the genitive or accusative.

 

§ 208. Genitive. The verbs gėhan, to confess, corōn, to taste, suorgēn, to take thought for, furlougnen, to deny, take the genitive. The genitive is sometimes used adverbially, as alles, else, nalles (= ni alles), not at all, tages, by day, heimwartes, homewards, nķuwes, recently, &c.

 

§ 209. Dative. The verbs fluohhōn, to speak evil of, folgan, to follow, hėlfan, to help, thionōn, to serve, take the dative.

 

Adjectives.

§ 210. The weak and strong forms are used in much the same manner as in Modern High German.

The comparative and superlative degrees of adjectives and the ordinal numerals [except ander, second} follow the weak declension, as ėr ward altero, he became older ; ėr mir lioboato was, he was dearest to me; ėr ist furisto, he is the first.

Adjectives may be used as nouns without the article, as snėl indi kuoni, thaž uuas imo gekunni, quickness and boldness were inborn in him, blinte gisėhent, halze gangent, the blind see, the lame walk.

When the same adjective refers both to masc. and fem. beings, it is put in the neut. plural, as siu uuārun rėhtiu beidu fora gote, they were bofh righteous before God.

Cardinal numerals compounded of -zug, decade, as fiorzug, forty, as well as hunt, hundred, and dūsunt, thousand, are used as nouns and govern the genitive case. filu, much, also takes the genitive.

The uninflected form of the adjective, when used attributively or predicatively, occurs beside the inflected form in the nom. sing. of all genders, and in the acc. sing. neuter, thus blint man beside blinter man, blind man; blint frouwa beside blintiu frouwa, blind woman; blint kind beside blintaž kind, blind child; alt was siu jāro, she was old in years.

In the nom. plural, all genders, the uninflected form occurs beside the inflected form when the adjective is used predicatively ; thus die man sint blint or blinte, the men are blind ; wir birun frō, we are joyful.

 

Note.—The nom. sg. uninflected form of the adjective is a remnant of the time when the adjectives had the same endings as the nouns, cp. nom. sg.wolf, wolf, wort, word, ēra, honour, is properly the acc. form, the regular nom. form would be *ēr, see § 57, 2.

 

Pronouns.

§ 211. Personal pronouns were somelimes omitted, as sprichist, thaž ni scalt, thou speakest what thou oughtest not; faramēs, let us go; uuard thō, then it happened; mih hungirit, I am hungry.

The relative pronoun was generally expressed by dėr, daž, diu, which however could be omitted, as funtun einan man, mit namon Simeon hiež, they found a man who was called Simeon by name.

dėr and ėr were sometimes used pleonastically, as thie morganlīhho tag thėr bisuorgēt sih sėlbo, the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself'; Lazarus ėr was iro ein, Lazarus was one of them.

 

Verbs.

§ 212. Tenses. The future simple was generally expressed by the present as in OE., as nemnis thū sīnan namon Jōhannem, thou shall call his name John.

The preterite had rarely a perfect meaning. Both the perfect and pluperfect were expressed by the past participle and one of the auxiliary verbs habēn, eigan, wėsan, as er habēt uns gizeigōt, he hath shown unto us; thaž eigut ir gihōrit, that have ye heard; ih bim alt, inti mīn quėna fram ist gigangan in ira tagun (= the Latin ‘ego enim sum senex, et uxor mea processit in diebus suis’).

 

§ 213. Voice. In the oldest monuments the passive was expressed by the past participle and one of the auxiliary verbs wėsan, wėrdan without any distinction in meaning, thus ist ginoman or wirdit ginoman = is taken; was ginoman or ward ginoman = was taken.

From the ninth century onward a distinction began to be made in such a way that wėrdan came to be used for the imperfect tenses, and wėsan for the perfect tenses; thus wirdit ginoman = is taken; ist ginoman = has been taken; ward ginoman = was taken; war ginoman = had been taken.

[ Contents ] [ Intro ] [ Glossary ]
Chapters
[ I ] [ II ] [ III ] [ IV ] [ V ] [ VI ] [ VII ] [ VIII ] [ IX ] [ X ] [ XI ] [ XII ] [ XIII ]