Imperative constructions in old English 9783111658407, 9783111274096

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JANUA LINGUARUM STUDIA MEMORIAE NICOLAI VAN WIJK DEDICATA edenda curai

C. H. VAN SCHOONEVELD Indiana

University

Series Practica,

124

IMPERATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS IN OLD ENGLISH by

CELIA M. MILLWARD

El 1971

MOUTON THE HAGUE . PARIS

© Copyright 1971 in The Netherlands. Mouton & Co. N. V., Publishers, The Hague. No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without toritten permission from the publishers.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 74-154529

Printed in Hungary

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I should like to express my thanks to Professor W. Nelson Francis, under whom this study, in its original form, was undertaken, and to Professor Yngve Olsson and W. Freeman Twaddell, who also gave me valuable advice and criticism. To the students of English grammar who have preceded me I owe a debt of gratitude greater than can be expressed by the inclusion of their names in the Bibliography. The financial aid provided by the National Science Foundation allowed me to devote most of my time for a year to this research. Finally, my warmest thanks go to my husband and my son, who have for several years graciously tolerated a part-time wife and mother.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

5

List of Tables

9

0. Introduction 0.1 The Corpus

11 12

1. Definition of the Grammatical Imperative in Old English 1.1 First-Person Plural Imperatives 1.2 Second-Person Singular Imperatives 1.8 Second-Person Plural Imperatives 1.3.1 Imperatives with -n 1.3.2 Imperatives with -ap 1.4 Third-Person Imperatives

15 17 19 19 19 20 20

2. Imperatives in Negative Constructions 2.1 First-Person Plural Negative Imperatives 2.2 Second-Person Negative Imperatives 2.2.1 Second-Person Singular 2.2.2 Second-Person Plural 2.2.2.1 Imperatives with -n 2.2.2.2 Imperatives with -ap 2.2.3 Constructions with Nelle(n) 2.2.4 Second-Person Imperatives in the Vespasian Psalter 2.3 Third-Person Negative Imperatives

23 24 24 24 25 25 25 26 27 28

3. Imperatives in Coordinate Constructions 3.1 Constructions with the Same Subject 3.2 Constructions with Different Subjects

29 30 32

4. Nominal Complements in Imperative Clauses

34

8

TABLE OF CONTENTS

4.1 Pronominal Objects 4.1.1 Objects with Sylf

37 39

5. Neutralization and Imperative Constructions

41

6. Problems of Particular Verbs

43

6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4

Lœtan Oe-witan Don Beon-Wesan

43 45 45 46

7. Conclusions

48

Appendix A. Imperative Verbs Appearing in the Corpus

52

Appendix B . Index of Imperative Porms Cited in the Text

65

Bibliography

69

Index

74

LIST OF TABLES

1. 2. 3. 4.

Second-Person Singular Imperative and Subjunctive Forms Verb and Pronoun Forms in Imperative Clauses Word-Order in Affirmative Imperative Constructions Word-Order in Negative Imperative Constructions

16 17 22 24

5. Coordinators in Imperative Constructions

29

6. Sylf-Forms in Old English

39

0. INTRODUCTION

In most grammars of Old English, imperative forms are listed only for the secondperson singular and second-person plural. Mention is usually made of a firstperson plural form, although it is ordinarily not included in the regular verbal paradigm.1 One reason for this defective conjugation of the imperative mood is, of course, the feeling that the very definition of 'imperative' restricts its application to the second person.2 A second reason is the lack of morphologically discrete forms for the first person and the third person in Old English. Old English does have, at least for most verbs, morphologically discrete second-person singular forms for the imperative, but the second-person plural forms in -ap are morphologically identical with those of the present indicative plural. Thus, extra-morphological considerations are tacitly taken into account. If such considerations are restricted to syntactic criteria, we can still speak of a grammatical imperative, provided that these syntactic criteria are adequately specified. If, however, the extra-morphological considerations are of a semantic nature, then we are not justified in labelling the particular constructions in which the -ap forms appear as grammatical imperatives. In this study, an attempt is made to give a grammatical description of imperative constructions in Old English. However, we do not restrict our consideration to the second person; certain types of constructions involving both the first person and the third person are also classified as imperatives because of, first, their syntactic uniqueness and, second, their semantic compatibility with such an interpretation. While we restrict our use of semantic criteria to that of corroborative evidence, we do make use of information beyond the level of the written word. 1 See, for example, the grammars of Bosworth, Blom, Mitchell, Moore and Knott, Moss6, Quirk and Wrenn, Sievers, Sweet, and Wright. ' Jespersen, for example, says (of Modern English), " A n y imperative . . . is virtually in the second person, even in such cases as Oh, please, someone go in and tell her." Otto Jespersen, The Philosophy of Grammar (New York: W . W . Norton, 1966). More recently, transformationalists have reaffirmed this opinion; see, for example, Jerrold J. Katz and Paul M. Postal, An Integrated Theory of Linguistic Descriptions (Cambridge, Mass.: The M.I.T. Press, 1964).

12

INTRODUCTION

0.1 THE CORPUS

The data for this study are derived from thirty-five works of Old English prose and poetry. The chronological time-span of the dates of composition ranges from roughly AD 700 to roughly AD 1150. The period AD 950-1000 is overrepresented, thus biasing the corpus somewhat toward late Old English. This bias is unavoidable in a large corpus of Old English because the body of text surviving from earlier periods is relatively small. Further, a large proportion of the corpus consists of prose of a religious nature, frequently translated into Old English from Latin. Again, paucity of secular prose originally written in Old English has forced this bias on the data. Most of the poetry in the sample is 100—200 years older than most of the prose. Although it is not included as part of the corpus, the Old English portion of the Vespasian Psalter is compared with the works in the corpus in an effort to determine what features of Old English imperative constructions remain the same in glosses and what features are altered as a result of the word-forword translation. The corpus is drawn from approximately 16,000 lines of poetry and 2,000 pages of prose. The results reported here are based on a sample of approximately 4,000 examples of the grammatical imperative, involving more than 500 different verbs. The works examined and the abbreviations used in the present study are listed below. The editions used and an explanation of the reference numbers employed in the text are given in the Bibliography. Each item listed in the Bibliography was examined in its entirety. Poetry Beowulf (Beo) Genesis A (Gen A) Exodus (Exod) Widsith (Wid) Deor (Deor) Christ I, I I , III (Ghr) Elene (Elene) Juliana (Jul) Fates of the Apostles (Fates) Guthlac A & B (Guth) Phoenix (Phoen) Andreas (And) Genesis B (Gen B) Judith (Jud) Dream of the Rood (Dream)

INTRODUCTION

13

Battle of Brunavhurh (Brun) Wulf and Eadwacer (Wulf E) Wife'8 Lament (Wife) The Wanderer (Wand) The Seafarer (Seaf) Battle of Maldon (Maldon)

Prose King Alfred's Version of Gregory's Pastoral Care (Qreg) The Old English Version of Bede's Ecclesiastical History (Bede) Bliclcling Homilies (Blick) West-Saxon Gospels (Malt; Mark; Luke; John) Letter of Alexander the Great to Aristotle (Alex) Wonders of the East (Wonders) Life of St. Christopher (St. Chris) Homilies of Wulfstan (Wulf) Mlfric's Lives of Saints (JE Sts) Mlfric's Treatise on the Old and New Testament (M ONT) Mlfric's Preface to Genesis (AS Pref) Mlfric's Heptateuch (M Gen; Exod; Lev; Num; Deut; Josh; Judg) Apollonius of Tyre (Apoll) Vespasian Homilies (Vesp) Peterborough Chronicle (Peter) The frequency of imperative constructions varies greatly from one work to another. Content is less of a determining factor than might perhaps be expected; for example, some homiletic works contain many imperative constructions, others very few. Nor is frequency necessarily a function of prose versus poetry — Beowulf has many imperatives, the poetic Exodus almost none. Historical narrative, such as the Peterborough Chronicle and Letter of Alexander the Great to Aristotle, however, has few imperatives. Grammatical differences among authors are for the most part limited to obvious idiosyncracies of style. In general, all authors have the same grammar, although they occasionally exercise different options in different proportions. Deviant usages are discussed in the following pages under the categories into which they fall. In general, there is great consistency among authors, types of literature, and over the entire time-period investigated. In the text, citations are given in the spelling of editions used, with the exception that no diacritical marks are included. Punctuation follows that of the editors except in a few cases where editorial punctuation appears in-

14

INTRODUCTION

consistent or confusing. In these cases, punctuation is simply omitted. All conventional abbreviations, such as p for pcet, are silently expanded. When mention is made of specific verbs, spelling and alphabetization follow the practice of Clark Hall and Meritt's Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. In the tabulations of different verbs, prefixed verbs are counted as separate verbs, with the exception of those with the prefix ge-. In Appendix B, all imperative forms cited in the text are indexed under the Clark Hall-Meritt spelling of their infinitives.

1. DEFINITION OF THE GRAMMATICAL IMPERATIVE IN OLD ENGLISH

In defining a grammatical category, it is of course safest to begin with morphologically unique forms. In Old English, only the second-person singular imperative has unique morphological forms for all classes of strong and weak verbs.1 The second-person singular imperative of strong verbs has the stem of the infinitive and no ending, except for contract verbs, which end in -h. The situation with weak verbs can most easily be described with examples and a tabular presentation. Singular present subjunctive forms are included in Table 1 for comparison purposes.2 If we examine the clauses in which these second-person singular imperative forms appear, we find that they occur only in independent clauses, and that they appear either with or without the expressed subject pu. By our previous definition, we know that the finite verb of these clauses is not in the indicative mood. However, the corpus of Old English has many examples of independent clauses in which the verb is not in the indicative and which do not contain second-person singular imperatives. Many of these involve clauses with firstperson plural subjects (we), third-person singular subjects (he, heo, hit or a singular noun or nonpersonal pronoun), or third-person plural subjects (hie or a plural noun or nonpersonal pronoun), all with a verbal form commonly known as the present subjunctive. Therefore, we shall extend our definition of an imperative construction to include these latter constructions. There

1 With the verbs beon, don, and gan, the second-person singular imperative form cannot be distinguished from the first-person indicative or the present singular subjunctive. With witan 'to know', the second-person singular imperative cannot be distinguished from the present singular subjunctive. But these are all irregular verbs, and their nonadherence to the rule does not compel us to abandon or reformulate our general statement. The form uta/n also uniquely identifies an imperative construction, but it does not constitute an imperative. That is, the complete verbal imperative with utan requires another verbal form, the infinitive. Therefore, it cannot be considered at the strictly morphological level. 2 The classification and most of the examples are from Randolph Quirk and C. L . Wrenn, An Old English Grammar (London: Methuen, 1957), pp. 42—43, 46ff.

16

DEFINITION OF THE GRAMMATICAL IMPERATIVE TABLE 1

Second-Person Singular Imperative and Subjunctive

Forms

Infinitive

2d Sg. Imperative

Pres. Subjunctive Sg.

fremman nerian

freme nere

fremme nerie

déman bcernan

dim bcern

déme bcerne

lufian

lufa

lufie

Class 1(a) Short vowel -f- double cons. Short vowel + -ri-

Glasa 1(b) Long vowel + cons. Short vowel + cons, cluster

Class II Infinitive in C-ian, where C

r

are a few examples of independent clauses with second-person singular subjects and verbs in the present subjunctive singular. To be consistent, we must also include these constructions in our definition of imperative. Two categories are still missing: the first-person singular and the secondperson plural. The corpus contains no examples of independent clauses with a marked first-person singular subject in which the verbal form is clearly not indicative, so we must assume that this category is empty. There are a very few examples of independent clauses with a marked second-person plural subject (ge) and with a present-subjunctive verb; thus, the second-person plural imperative must include at least these examples. The corpus has about 2,000 examples of second-person singular imperatives, but only 28 examples of second-person plural imperatives in -n. Such an imbalance is intuitively unreasonable. If we examine the occurrences of second person singular imperatives, we find that, in the great majority of examples the clause does not have the expressed subject pu. In the only other large category of independent clauses without an expressed subject, the finite verb is identical to the present indicative plural. In most cases, the context beyond the clause indicates that a second-person plural interpretation is justifiable. Therefore, we include in our definition of imperative constructions those clauses without an expressed subject in which the verb is in the present indicative plural. We can now complete our table of imperative constructions (Table 2). Each of these number-person categories will now be examined in greater detail and examples of each type of construction will be given. Only affirmative

DEFINITION OF THE GRAMMATICAL IMPERATIVE

17

TABLE 2

Verb and Pronoun Forma in Imperative Clauses? 1st sg. 1st pi. 2d sg. 2d pl. 3d sg. 3d pl.

(null V-n; V-a; V-e; V-n; V-ap V-e; V-n;

class) tee (¡m)

(pu) ge he hie

a

A n independent clause is a necessary but not sufficient condition. V = infinitive stem. In the texts, the present subjunctive plural m a y end in -en, -an, or -on; -n is used to represent all these endings. Because -a is a verbal ending restricted to the second-person singular imperative, it is used here to represent the entire olass of unique morphological forms, he represents all third-person singular nominative subjects; hie represents all third-person plural nominative subjects.

constructions in which the verb is not the second or subsequent member of a series of coordinated verbs will be considered at this point.3

1.1 F I R S T - P E R S O N P L U R A L I M P E R A T I V E S

It was stated in the Introduction that many grammars of Old English mention a first-person plural imperative form. This form, usually considered rare, is said to have the stem of the infinitive and the verbal ending -an (-on).* Thus it should contrast with the present subjunctive plural, which supposedly has the stem of the infinitive and the verbal ending -en. In some earlier texts, such as some of the poetry and Alfred's translation of Gregory, a fairly consistent distinction seems to be made between the present subjunctive plural in -en and the first-person plural imperative in -an (-on). (The corpus contains so few examples of first-person plural imperatives from earlier periods that a stronger statement cannot be made.) However, by the time of ^Elfric, the present subjunctive plural usually ends in -an (-on), and the first-person plural imperative is not morphologically unique.5 Examples (a) — (c) below illustrate subjunctive plural forms, and examples (d) and (e) illustrate imperative forms. 8

See Chapter 2 for a definition of 'negative' as it applies to imperative constructions in Old English. A general treatment of coordinated verbs in imperative constructions is given in Chapter 3. 4 See, for example, Fernand Moss^, Manuel de 1'anglais du moyen dge (Paris: Aubier, 1946), p. 111. 1 For that matter, the infinitive, the first-person plural imperative, and the present subjunctive plural m a y all be morphologically identical.

18 (a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

DEFINITION OF THE GRAMMATICAL I M P E R A T I V E

Selre ya pcet we hyne syllon to ceape Ismaelitum (J$ Gen 37.27) We halsijad eow and beodad, pcet ge god lufjan (Wulf 135.5) [he] bead dcet hig hit nanum men ne saedon (Luke 9.21) Lufian we urne Sceppend and hiñe herían (Blick 5) gemunan we nu for&an pone halgan sunnandceg (Wulf 215.4—5)

Still later, the present subjunctive plural and the first-person imperative plural (and the infinitive) end in -en. In the corpus, the Vespasian Homilies regularly have -en in both moods, and -en endings appear sporadically in Wulfstan, .¿Elfric, and the West-Saxon Chapels. Because of this somewhat unstable situation during the Old English period, we are not justified in speaking of a morphologically unique first-person plural imperative. Because of its restriction to independent clauses, however, we can identify a syntactically unique first-person plural imperative. In the first-person plural imperative construction, the subject may precede or follow the verb, but the pronoun follows the verb in approximately seven examples out of eight. Examples are given of both word-orders. (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

Behealden we Qodes Mlmihtiges bisne (Vesp 96.26) Oecyrron we nu to Drihtnea willan (Blick 101) ondrœdon we us symle pcene toweardan dorn (Wulf 189.10—11) Forpon we hine domhwate . . . hergen holdlice (Chr I 429 — 30) we nu ondetton Qodes mycelnesse (Blick 157) we àœr œtforan him standon us gearwe (JE Sts 23.458)

Constructions with utan6 may be considered variants of the morphological subjunctive used in forming first-person plural imperatives. Utan carries the information regarding mood, person, and number, while a following infinitive carries the lexical meaning. In constructions with utan, the subject pronoun may be omitted; if we is used, it always follows utan and precedes the infinitive. Constructions with utan outnumber those without utan by nearly three to one. Some typical examples follow. (7) (8) (9) (10)

uton wyrcean her preo eardung-atowa (Matt 17.4) Uton ealle began usser cneo (Bede 154.29 — 30) uten we nu ealle blisaigen (Vesp 83.9) Uton we hycgan hwcer we harn agen (Seaf 117)

8 Utan was originally a plural aorist subjunctive of witan 'go'. The vowel change in the stem is probably due to combinative a-umlaut of i. The loss of initial w here represents an isolated loss of [y] not preceded by a consonant and before [u]. A. Campbell, Old English Orammar (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1969), pp. 92—93, 189.

DEFINITION OF THE GRAMMATICAL IMPERATIVE

19

1.2 SECOND-PERSON SINGULAR IMPERATIVES As was mentioned earlier, second-person singular imperatives may appear with or without an expressed subject, although examples without pu are much more frequent. (11) (12) (13) (14)

Cum ponne to minum lichaman (St. Chris 72.17—8) hefe up dine stefne (Greg 91.19—20) afirsa fram pam iungan his sarnesse (Apoll 24.25 — 6) sege pinum leodum miccle lapre spell (Maldon 34)

In constructions in which pu is present, the pronoun usually — though not invariably — follows the verb in the examples from prose. In poetry, the placement of the pronoun seems to be stylistically or metrically determined; pu follows the verb in only about 50 per cent of the examples; examples (15)— (18) below are from prose and examples (19)—(22) are from poetry. (15) (16) (17) (18) (19) (20) (21) (22)

andswara pu sona pcet her nan man ne come (M Judg 4.20) fylig du me (John 21.22) gehyr du pa onfundennesse (Apoll 6.20) pu leofa butan me, gif pu mosge (Wulf 259.5) Span pu hine georne pcet he lare loeste (Oen A 575—6) pu pcet fcergewyrc fiftiges wid (Gen A 1307) Beo pu on sid gearu (Guth 1175) Du hyre eac saga post heo pis banfcet beorge bifceste (Guth 1192 — 3)

Second-person singular imperatives in -e (i.e., with a present-subjunctive singular verb) are not common, but they do occur in both prose and poetry. (23) (24) (25)

Sunu min, hlyste minra worda (AS Gen 27.43) Leere hie, and healsa, and tad hira undeawas (Greg 291.16 — 7) Gehiere me Andreas, and arcefna pas tintrego (Blick 237)

1.3 SECOND-PERSON PLURAL IMPERATIVES 1.3.1 Imperatives with -n Affirmative imperative constructions in which the verb ends in -n are rare. Ge is always present, but may either follow or precede the verb. (26) (27) (28)

witan ge, pcet ge healdan (Wulf beon ge gesunde (Apoll 28.8) ge pisne arceran (M Sts 4. 273)

218.3—4)

20

DEFINITION OF THE GRAMMATICAL IMPERATIVE

1.3.2 Imperatives vnth -ap Forms in -ap compriBe the overwhelming majority of second-person plural imperatives in the corpus. (29) (30) (31) (32)

Astreecad eowre agalodan honda (Oreg 65.17) berap linda forp (Jvd 191) Gap on da ceastre (Mark 14.13) Gehyrad vntedom lobes gieddinga (Phoen 548—9)

1.4 T H I R D - P E R S O N I M P E R A T I V E S

In third-person imperatives, both pronominal and nominal subjects usually follow the verb. Examples (33)—(38) are of third-person singular imperatives; (33)—(34) illustrate a personal pronoun subject, (35)—(36) a nonpersonal pronoun subject, and (37)—(38) a nominal subject. (33) (34) (35) (36) (37) (38)

alyse he hyne nu (Matt 27.43) ga he ut (JE Exod 21.3) clcensige his heortan gehwa (Wulf 180.8—9) Bere eower celc odres byrdenne (Greg 219.12) Cume se blinda to me (JE Sts 22.178) Gehcele me din sio switfre (Greg 389.20)

Examples (39)—(44) are of third-person plural imperatives; (39)—(40) illustrate a personal pronoun subject, (41)—(42) a nonpersonal pronoun subject, and (43)—(44) a nominal subject. (39) (40) (41) (42) (43) (44)

beon hi begen beworpene (JS Sts 18.106) reccon hi hit de (JB Exod 18.22) eton eal daetflce.sc(M Exod 12.8) gan ealle ut (Wulf 181.3) Cuman nu myccle hundas forp (Blick 181) Gehieren da eadmodan hu . . . (Greg 299.8)

Both pronominal and nominal subjects can also precede the verb. Examples of singular imperatives (45)—(48) and plural imperatives (49)—(52) in which the subject precedes the verb are given below. (45) (46) (47)

he rfonne demesma swa he wylle (M Sts 23.205—6) he pees dcedbote do (Vesp 23.2) Feeder alwalda . . . eowic gehealde sida gesunde (Beo 316—8)

DEFINITION OP THE GRAMMATICAL IMPERATIVE

(48) (49) (50) (51) (52)

celmihtig God hit gemiltse (Peter 1070) hig hlyston him (Luke 16.29) hi scinon on dcere heofenan fcestnysse (JS Gen 1.15) ealle godes peowas don, swa him neod is, .. . pingjan (Wulf 12-3) seofon sacerdas blawan (M Josh 6.4)

21

171.

There are two common subtypes of third-person imperatives not covered by examples (33) —(52). Both involve not only the independent clause in which the verbal imperative appears, but also a subordinate clause. In both subtypes, the subject of the imperative may be omitted from the independent clause.7 The first of these subtypes appears only in prose. The dependent clause begins with gif hwa (or gif he) in the third-person singular imperative. The corpus has only one example in the plural; in this example, the dependent clause begins with gif hie. The dependent clause usually, but not always, precedes the independent clause. Examples (53)—(56) are of third-person singular imperatives; (57) is the single plural example. (53) (54) (55) (56) (57)

Gif hwa denige, Wenige he suelce . . . (Qreg 323.4—5) Gif hwa earan hcebbe, gehlyste me (Marie 7.16) Gif he hweet to-brece . . . bete poet georne (JE Sts 12.138) Gehyre, gif hwa earan hcebbe (Mark 4.23) Gif he . . . tueonad, gongen donne (Greg 103.9—10)

In the second subtype, the dependent clause is introduced by the relative construction se pe (pa pe in the plural). This subtype appears in both prose and poetry. The subject of the independent clause is usually the dependent clause, but occasionally the independent clause has an expressed subject when the dependent clause precedes the independent clause. Third-person singular examples are listed first (58) —(61), then third-person plural examples (62)—(64). 8 (58) (59) (60) (61)

Se de Godes degn sie ga hider to me (Greg 383.1—2) se de weorc weorce forweorde he (M Exod 31.14) wyrce se pe mote (Beo 1387—8) Gehyre se de earan hcebbe (Luke 8.8)

'There is a difference among authors here. The subject of the imperative is almost always expressed in examples from Gregory, but is never expressed in examples from .