 Because of the complexity of its inflectional system, Old English had a greater freedom of word order than present-day English. However, Old English never had the syntactic freedom of Latin, and there were phrase, clause, and sentence patterns that were followed quite consistently. This e-lecture examines the main syntactic patterns of Old English. We will discuss the central issues of word order in Old English. We will look at so-called head modifier patterns within phrases, and we will exemplify our observations with examples taken from Barbara's book, The English Language, a Historical Introduction. So let us start with some sentences within a short text where we can discuss several aspects of Old English syntax. So here is a text and let's quickly perform a short syntactic functional analysis. This is the first sentence of the passage. And here we can observe an S-O-V structure with the verb yamunde in the final position, the subject itch in the first position, and the object between subject and verb. The second sentence of the passage, This sentence exhibits a V-S-O structure, which is quite typical if an adverbial, in this case, fa, then, precedes. Here is the third sentence. How I saw itch-yessach, and here we have an S-V structure with the object, not part of this clause, but the object is the remaining passage of this little text. So the object consists of two clauses. So we have an S-V structure with the verb at the end, and here is the last sentence. Well, and this last clause of this text is again a clause which exhibits the subject in the first position, the verb at the end. So these examples show that the word or in Old English, at least compared with that of present-day English, was relatively free. Speakers and writers of Old English had more options than we have today as to where to place the main elements of clause structure that is subject, verb and object. But how do we establish the word order of Old English? There are two ways of establishing the basic word order of a language. There are the main clausal patterns, that is, the basic word order itself, and the so-called word order correlations, that is, head modifier patterns, a method established by the American typologist Joseph Greenberg. Both indicate that Old English had a relatively free word order, yet there were tendencies towards a consistent use of head modifier patterns and towards an S-V-O structure in clauses. Now within clauses, if we take the three basic elements of clause structure, subject, verb and object, there are six theoretically possible orders in which these elements can occur. Here they are. We can have an S-V-O structure, an S-O-V structure, and a V-S-O structure. But we can also have an O-S-V structure, an O-V-S structure, or a V-O-S structure. So these are the six theoretically possible options. Now all of these orders occurred in Old English, at least occasionally. Yet, despite the high degree of freedom of word order, the subject tended to be placed before the verb. The following three word orders were favored in Old English. These three here, S-V-O, S-O-V, and V-S-O. So let's look at some examples to illustrate these main word orders of Old English. Here is the first, the S-V-O word order. Let's take this sentence first. S-O-S-T-O is Yehaten-Hevenfeld on English. S-O-S-T-O, the subject, is Yehaten, the verb, Hevenfeld, the object, so clearly an S-V-O structure. Number two. And M-E-S-P-R-E-O-S-T, A-S-I-N-G, F-E-R-M-E-S-A-N, O-V-A-N, Turvon. Clearly an S-V-O structure with M-E-S-P-R-E-O-S-T being the subject, A-S-I-N-G, the verb, and F-E-R-M-E-S-A-N, the object. Let's continue with S-O-V. Now in subordinate clauses, the typical word order in Old English was S-O-V. The first two examples illustrate this. Number two. Clearly, Elmer, the subject, them, he, is the object, and Becurde is the verb, S-O-V. Now, this word order was also common in clauses when the object was a pronoun. And this third example illustrates this effect. Clearly, S-O-V, he, subject, he, the object. Let's continue with the third main pattern, V-S-O. And here we find that this word order was basically used in interrogative clauses. That's one and two. Again, can you tame Hawks? Another V-S-O structure. But as you know, the discussion of interrogatives is not so relevant for the discussion of the basic word order. The third pattern, since here we have declarative sentences in mind. And so the third sentence, the imperative, which is also an example of V-S-O, is a nice illustration. But for the discussion of word order, it only plays a minor role. But number four is clearly an example of V-S-O. And this is a typical example where we have an initial adverbial thaw in the first position. So this is typical, a typical word order for verb fronting in old English. And those of you whose mother tongue is German know that this is the same in modern German. Adverbial plus verb in the second position. Now, word order patterns such as O-V-S, V-O-S, and O-S-V all appear in old English texts. But they're relatively rare. Nevertheless, here are some examples. So in prose, you can find examples of this type. Here is number one. Many stories. Him told the Kareelians, so O-V-S, Fela, Spella, Him, Sadon, Fabernas. So clearly an example of an object verb, subject order. And sometimes these word orders constitute the general pattern of specific constructions. For example, O-V-S often occurred in W-H questions. O-V-S in W-H questions. We forgot example number two. Another O-S-V example. Now the high degree of freedom of word order was equivalent to the flexibility in simple head modifier constructions. We cannot discuss all of them in this e-lecture, but let's take two of them. The first concerns adpositions. Now in these two examples, you can find prepositions. On his arnenum lande. On his arnenum lande, a prepositional phrase. But you can also find examples of postpositions. And ques a etnikstan kynlitje himto. Himto is clearly an example of a postposition. So the term postpositional phrase should also be quite adequate here. So the adposition which is the head in such adpositional phrases can either occur at the beginning or at the end. Both patterns were possible in old English. Another typical head modifier pattern is the noun adjective pattern where the noun is the head. Now here we have examples that show that both sequences are possible. In the first two, we clearly have the adjective before the noun. Segodaman. The good man. Michtigdrüchten. In Michtigdrüchten, you had again the adjective before the noun. And in the remaining two examples, we have the noun in the first position. Bernanwerchen. Bernanwerchen. The youthful boy. And... Minethainas tween. My two servants. Totally impossible in present day English to say my servants too. Now on the basis of all these judgments, we can neither say that old English had an SVO nor an SOV structure. Rather, the word order was relatively flexible with tendencies towards SVO. But in any case, it was far more flexible than at later stages of English. Let us now look at the use of sentences in more complex passages. So how were sentences formed that consist of several clauses? Well, the structure of sentences in old English was simpler than we would find today. There was less subordination and the clauses within compound sentences, so-called coordination structures or coordinate sentences, were often simply linked by the conjunctions AND and THAR. And obviously stands for AND and THAR for THEN. Although old English knew a number of subordinate conjunctions, and here are three of them, THAR, which stands for WHEN, IF, which means IF, and FORDAN, which means BECAUSE. Although old English knew these subordinating conjunctions, it lacked the rich array of conjunctions of present day English. Furthermore, the system of relative pronouns was poorly developed. Over and above these basic properties of sentence structure, there were a number of interesting additional syntactic aspects of old English, including the use of the subjunctive and the use of double negation. Now, the development of word order in old English was accompanied by a development that is referred to as case syncretism. Case syncretism is a technical term for the weakening of the case system of a language. Old English nouns, as you can see here, had four cases. We discussed them in the e-lecture old English morphology. Yet, the old English case system had already begun to undergo syncretism. For example, in the plural we have the form QUEENING US in the nominative and in the accusative case. And in some cases, the case I chose here, we have the same in the singular. Case identity in the nominative and the accusative in the singular. Now, this convergence of cases where QUEENING could now be interpreted as nominative or as accusative in the singular, and AS, the affix AS in the paradigm QUEENING stood for the plural nominative and the plural accusative. Now, this convergence of the nominative and the accusative case was the main impetus for the fixing of word order in old English. The distinction between subject and accusative objects could now only be drawn on the basis of word order. If you want to look at more examples and if you want to analyse further syntactic patterns of old English syntax, consult the old English entry in the language index and look at the details. Here it is. Now, in the language index you have several texts which are transliterated to which you can listen. You can look at the syntactic functions in such a text. You can look at extra patterns, additional patterns such as post-positions, specific word order patterns, brace constructions. And you have the choice between several texts. The first one, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, is from the late 9th century. It was taken from the Parker version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. And the second one that you can see here now has been taken from the Battle of Moldon, a short excerpt that was written in the 10th century. And again, you can analyse the text as it stands. You can listen to it. You can look at the syntactic functions, the functional analysis. And you have access to additional analyses. Here, for example, the auxiliary brace construction and additional patterns such as adverbial positioning. Well, let's summarize. Old English syntax was in many ways far more flexible than present-day English. Its word order was relatively flexible and phrasal patterns allowed more variation. However, by the end of the Old English period, several syntactic patterns had already become more or less fixed. This development was accompanied by a reduction of the Old English inflectional system. And this development continued during the Middle English and the early modern English periods, morphologically and syntactically. A development which will be examined in two further e-lectures about the historical development of English syntax. So, see you there.