The Earliest English: An Introduction to Old

Using easy-to-understand, non-technical language, this book covers basic terminology, background and the OE vocabulary students need to know. The text is divided into sections which each have two parts on the topic involved, one on history and culture, and one on language. Importantly, there are exercises for students to do and these appear in each section along with 'guiding' comments to help students in class and self-study. In addition, there is a discussion topic in each section.

Chris McCully is Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Manchester.

Acknowledgements

ix

Terminology

xi

List of symbols and a note on conventions

xi

Abbreviations

xi

Using this book

xv

UNIT 1: Thinking about the earliest English

1

(30)

1.0 Preliminaries

1

(1)

1.1 Uniformity and change

2

(4)

1.2 Initial terminology

6

(2)

1.3 Old English poetry

8

(2)

1.4 Reading passage

10

(3)

1.5 Words, words, words

13

(4)

1.6 Pronouncing Old English

17

(10)

Summary

27

(1)

Study questions; websites; further reading

27

(4)

UNIT 2: History, culture, language origins

31

(36)

2.0 Reading passage

31

(14)

2.1 Some history

45

(7)

2.2 A language-family tree

52

(7)

2.3 The Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy

59

(2)

Summary

61

(1)

Study questions; websites; further reading

61

(6)

UNIT 3: Nouns

67

(32)

3.0 Mercenaries and settlers

67

(1)

3.1 The Germania

68

(1)

3.2 The Germania and the Anglo-Saxons

68

(2)

3.3 Local shires and their politics

70

(1)

3.4 Women

71

(1)

3.5 Reading passage

72

(5)

3.6 Inflections, nouns and grammatical roles

77

(1)

3.7 Inflections in other languages

78

(2)

3.8 Articles in OE

80

(1)

3.9 More on OE articles, noun inflections and grammatical case

80

(5)

3.10 Inflections on OE nouns

85

(3)

3.11 Additional noun declensions in OE

88

(1)

3.12 Pronouns

89

(3)

3.13 NPs, nominals, strong and weak adjectives

92

(2)

Summary

94

(1)

Study questions; websites; further reading

95

(2)

Appendix 1: At-a-glance guide to OE inflections - nouns and adjectives

97

(2)

UNIT 4: Verbs

99

(35)

4.0 The conversion of England

99

(1)

4.1 Influence of the Celtic church

99

(1)

4.2 The convergence of the Celtic and Roman traditions

100

(4)

4.3 Reading passage (1)

104

(5)

4.4 Word order and pronouns in OE

109

(1)

4.5 OE verbs: present participles

110

(4)

4.6 Relative clauses

114

(1)

4.7 Thou and you in OE

115

(1)

4.8 OE and PDE verbs

115

(2)

4.9 'Less regular' verbs

117

(2)

4.10 Still more on OE verbs

119

(2)

4.11 Weak verbs

121

(1)

4.12 Reading passage (2)

122

(3)

4.13 Comments on reading passage (2) - the subjunctive

125

(2)

Summary

127

(1)

Study questions; websites; further reading

127

(5)

Appendix 2: At-a-glance guide to OE inflections - verbs

132

(2)

INTERLUDE: Working with dictionaries

134

(9)

UNIT 5: OE metrics

143

(43)

5.0 Overview of OE metre

143

(2)

5.1 Stress in OE

145

(5)

5.2 Syllables in OE and PDE

150

(10)

5.3 Syllables and alliteration

160

(4)

5.4 How half-lines end: poetic closure in OE

164

(2)

5.5 Resolution

166

(2)

5.6 The concept of metrical position in OE verse

168

(4)

5.7 Half-line patterns that never occur

172

(2)

5.8 The Five Types

174

(3)

5.9 Secondary stress, metrical position and 'L'

177

(4)

5.10 Stress, L and alliteration

181

(2)

Summary

183

(1)

Study questions; websites; further reading

183

(3)

UNIT 6: Standards and crosses

186

(44)

6.0 Poetry and prose

186

(1)

6.1 The emergence of Wessex

187

(6)

6.2 Alfred's programme of cultural reform

193

(9)

6.3 What makes West Saxon West Saxon?

202

(9)

6.4 Quibbling with 'Breaking'

211

(3)

6.5 What is 'an account of linguistic change'?

214

(3)

6.6 Crosses

217

(8)

Summary

225

(1)

Study questions; websites; further reading

226

(4)

UNIT 7: Twilight

230

(22)

7.0 A 'Silver Age'?

230

(1)

7.1 The reinvention of West Saxon prestige

231

(2)

7.2 Alliterative prose (1): Ælfric

233

(5)

7.3 Alliterative prose (2): Wulfstan

238

(3)

7.4 Inflectional loss: introductory questions

241

(1)

7.5 Inflectional loss (1): evidence from the late 10th century

241

(3)

7.6 Inflectional loss (2): what was lost?

244

(6)

Summary

250

(1)

Study questions; websites; further reading

250

(2)

UNIT 8: Rebuilding English

252

(42)

8.0 Hastings and after

252

(1)

8.1 English, Norman and Anglo-Norman

253

(5)

8.2 Was English ever a creole?

258

(3)

8.3 Remodelling the pronoun system

261

(8)

8.4 The Peterborough Chronicle: reading and study passage

269

(8)

8.5 New models of verse

277

(6)

8.6 Orm

283

(4)

8.7 Envoi: The 'Alliterative Revival'

287

(3)

Summary

290

(1)

Study questions; websites; further reading

290

(4)

Appendix 1: At-a-glance guide to OE inflections - nouns and adjectives

294

(2)

Appendix 2: At-a-glance guide to OE inflections - verbs

296

(2)

References

298

(5)

Index

303

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The Earliest English: An Introduction to Old English Language

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials