The Syntax of Early English - Cryptm.org

An outline of Old English syntax 55(47) ne sende se deofol a fyr of heofenum, eah e hitnot sent the devil then fire from heavens though that itufan comefrom above came‘the devil did not send fire from heaven then, though it came from above’(ÆCHom I, (Pref)6.13)(48) He ne andwyrde am wife æt frumanhe not answered the woman at first‘He didn’t answer the woman at first’ (ÆCHom II, 8.68.45)There is a small minority pattern where two negation elements are employedto express sentence negation. In that case, the element na or no is used as thesecond element, although noht and nawiht are also attested. An example withna is (49):(49) Ne bi na se leorningcniht furor onne his lareownot is not the apprentice further than his master‘The apprentice is not ahead of his master’ (ÆHom 14.134)Constituent negation is usually expressed by prefacing the relevant constituentwith na or a phonological variant thereof. (46) is a case in point, nan beinga contraction of na an. Some other examples are given in (50). Observe furtherin (50) the frequently attested contraction of the negative particle ne with thefinite verb: næs in (50a) is the contracted form of ne wæs; nabba in (50b) thecontracted form of ne habba.(50) a. ær næs eac nan geafungthere not-was also no consent‘there was also no consent’ (ÆCHom I, 11.176.7)b. Stanas sind gesceafta, ac hi nabba nan lifstones are created things but they not-have no life‘Stones are created, but they have no life’ (ÆCHom I, 21.302.13)2.5 Subordinate clausesSubordinate clauses are usually divided into adjective (relative)clauses, complement clauses and adverbial clauses, according to their function.We will look at them in turn in sections 2.5.1, 2.5.2 and 2.5.3. First, webriefly address the issue of the origin and marking of subordinate clauses.It is a widely held view that subordination (‘hypotaxis’) arose through thereinterpretation of a sequence of independent clauses (‘parataxis’). Harrisand Campbell (1995: chapter 10) show that this is unlikely to be the origin ofall subordinate clauses, but given the properties of main and subordinate