The Old English Auxiliary Words

These traditionally include prepositions, conjunctions, different particles and interjections. All Indo-European languages have this system of auxiliary parts of speech. Most of Old English prepositions are easily recognizable:

Primary: of(of, out of),æt(to),fram(from),tō(to),wiþ(against),in, of,mid(with), on(on, at), be(by, near, to, because of, about),þurh(through),under,ofer(over),æfter(after),bufan(above),ūt(out).

Secondary: beforan(before),būtan(without),benorþan(north of), etc.

Mind that ætmeans 'to' andwiþmeans 'against'.

Conjunctions included the following:

Primary: and / ond (and), ac (but), gif (if), or.

Secondary: ægþer ge... ge (both... and..., either ... or...), hwonne (when), þa (when), þonne (when),  þēāh (though), þætte (that), ær (before), swā... swā... (so... as...).

And a few interjections: iā (yes), wā (woe!, wow!), hwæt (there! what!).

The Old English Syntax

OE was a synthetical language, which means that the relations between words in phrases and sentences were shown via different flections. Due to this, the OE word order was generally free.

The standard order of subject, object, and verb in a declarative sentence in Modern English is subject first, followed by verb, followed by object, however, Old English doesn't always use SVO order in its sentences and clauses.

For instance, in "Cynewulf and Cyneheard" we have examples of the following orders:

SVO order:

He hæfde þa [i.e. Hamtunscire]oþ he ofslog þone aldormon.

He had it [i.e. Hampshire] until he killed the ealdorman.

He wræc þone aldor mon Cumbran.

He avenged the ealdorman Cumbra.

VSO order:

Þa geascode he þone cyning.

Then he discovered the king.

OSV order:

hiene þa Cynewulf on Andred adræfde.

Cynewulf then drove him into [the forest] Andred.

ær hine þa men onfunden þe mid þam kyninge wærun.

before the men discovered him who were with the king

VOS order:

Ða on morgenne gehierdun þæt þæs cyninges þegnas.

Then in the morning the kings thegns heard that.

The question were usually build with the help of inversion, gehrst Þu Þā word? (Have you heard this word?)

Old English Vocabulary Composition

The OE vocabulary is mainly homogeneous, loan words are an insignificant part of it. Among native words we can distinguish the following layers:

1. Common Indo-European words, for example: fæder (father), fōt (foot), sittan (sit).

2. Common Germanic words, for example: earm (poor), grēne (green), steorfan (die).

3. A few specifically English words, not found in any other languages, for example clipian (call).

The OE vocabulary, like that of any other language, develops in two ways: by forming new words from elements existing in the language or by borrowing words from other languages.

Word building

Main word building patterns in OE were affixation, composition and expanding the meaning of old words.

Affixation was a very important means of word builing in OE, there existed a plenty of productinve word building suffixes and prefixes, for example:

The suffix –erewas used to derive masculine substantives,fiscere (fisherman), wr­ītere (writer).

The suffix –Þ, -uÞ, oÞwas used to derive abstract substantives,trēowÞ (truth) fromtrēow(true).

Composition is widely used in OE. too. There appeared compound nouns, adjectives, verbs, for example: ǣfentīd (evening time). Names of the days of the week were also formed by composition:

Mōnandæg (Moon’s day) – Monday.

T­īwesdæg (Tiw’s, the war god’s, day) – Tuesday.

Wednesday (Woden’s, the foremost Germanic god’s, day) – Wednesday.

Þunresdæg (Thunor’s, the god of thunder’s, day) – Thursday.

Frigedæg (Friya’s, the goddess of love’s, day) – Friday.

Sæternesdæg (Sturn’s day) – Saterday.

Sunnandæg (Sun’s day) – Sunday.