The Syntax of Early English - Cryptm.org

Grammaticalization and grammar change 3119.3.2.1 The earliest Old English 12We now turn to some of the earliest Old English, in particular thelong heroic poem Beowulf, written in alliterative four-stress lines. Althoughthe only manuscript we have of the poem was written sometime in the tenthcentury, there is some consensus that the version we have must have been composedin the course of the eighth century. 13 This puts the poem rather earlierthan any of the large prose texts we have. Moreover, the poem was presumablycomposed and written up in the form as we know it after centuries of oraltransmission, which makes it likely that archaic linguistic features have beenpreserved in it. Against this background, it is tempting to see the variation inpatterns of negation attested in Beowulf as a mixture of the Classical OldEnglish patterns of sentential negation, and older patterns that had becomemore or less obsolete by the time of the earliest large prose texts. Let us lookat that variation now. Beside the standard pattern of sentential negation inClassical Old English, illustrated in (28), Beowulf has an alternative pattern,which is exemplified by (29):(28) Nolde eorla hleo ænige inga one cwealmcuman cwicnenot-wanted of-earls protector any thing the kill-comer aliveforlætanrelease‘The protector of earls was minded in no wise to release the deadly visitantalive’ (Beo 791)(29) a. No he wiht fram me flodyum feor fleotan meahte, hraor onnot he thing from me on waves far swim could quicker inholme; no ic fram him woldewater not I from him wanted‘In no wise could he swim far from me on the waves of the flood, morequickly on the sea; I would not consent to leave him’ (Beo 541)b. No ic me an herewæsmun hnagran talige, gugeweorca, onnenot I myself in war-strength inferior count battledeeds thanGrendel hineGrendel himself‘I do not count myself less in war-strength, in battle deeds, than Grendeldoes himself’ (Beo 675)12The material in this subsection is discussed in more detail in van Kemenade (1997b).13This is based on the content of the poem as well as its linguistic features. There is amarked Christian element in the poem, which indicates that it was composed afterthe christianization of England, putting it no earlier than about 700. Moreover, it isthoroughly Scandinavian in subject matter, in a way so sympathetic to Danish affairsthat it must have been composed before the Scandinavians became the enemies ofthe English at the end of the eighth century. The morphological and phonologicalcharacteristics of the language are consistent with this rough date of composition.