Anglo-Saxon Grammar and Exercise Book with Inflections, Syntax, Selections for Reading, and Glossary

This famous work, a series of progressive annals by unknown hands, embraces a period extending from Cæsar’s invasion of England to 1154. It is not known when or where these anna...

NOTE.--In the original Indo-Germanic language, the first person of the present indicative singular ended in (1) ō or (2) mi. _Cf._ Gk. λύ-ω, εἰ-μί, Lat. _am-ō_, _su-m_. The Stro...

12. There are five cases in Old English: the nominative, the genitive, the dative, the accusative, and the instrumental.[1] Each of them, except the nominative, may be governed...

122. The verbs belonging to the Weak Conjugation are generally of more recent origin than the strong verbs, being frequently formed from the roots of strong verbs. The Weak Conj...

6. The long vowels and diphthongs will in this book be designated by the macron (–). Vowel length should in every case be associated by the student with each word learned: quant...

101. Of the three hundred simple verbs belonging to the O.E. Strong Conjugation, it is estimated[1] that seventy-eight have preserved their strong inflections in Mn.E., that eig...

58. The 2d and 3d singular endings were originally not -est and -eð, but -is and -ið; and the i of these older endings has left its traces upon almost every page of Early West S...

22. In the study of Old English, the student must remember that he is dealing not with a foreign or isolated language but with the earlier forms of his own mother tongue. The st...

NOTE 1.--The palatal consonants, g, c, and sc, convert a following e into ie, æ into ea, and ǣ into ēa. Hence #giefan# (< #*gefan#), #geaf# (< #*gæf#), #gēafon# (< #*gǣfon#), #g...

(5) The comparatives all follow the Weak Declension. The superlatives, when preceded by the definite article, are weak; but when used predicatively they are frequently strong: #...

1. The history of the English language falls naturally into three periods; but these periods blend into one another so gradually that too much significance must not be attached...

67. The nouns belonging here are chiefly masculines and feminines. Their stem ended in a consonant other than n. The most important of them may be divided as follows: (1) The _f...

[Footnote 2: By a law known as Grammatical Change, final ð, s, and h of strong verbs generally become d, r, and g, respectively, in the preterit plural and past participle.]

78. The declension of adjectives conforms in general to the declension of nouns, though a few pronominal inflections have influenced certain cases. Adjectives belong either to (...

25. The a-Declension, corresponding to the Second or _o_-Declension of Latin and Greek, contains only (_a_) masculine and (_b_) neuter nouns. To this declension belong most of t...

43. The i-Declension, corresponding to the group of _i-_stems in the classical Third Declension, contains chiefly (_a_) masculine and (_b_) feminine nouns. The N.A. plural of th...

20. The order of words in Old English is more like that of Modern German than of Modern English. Yet it is only the Transposed order that the student will feel to be at all un-E...

4. fēower 5. fīf 6. siex 7. seofon 8. eahta 9. nigon 10. tīen 11. ęndlefan 12. twęlf 13. ðrēotīene 14. fēowertīene 15. fīftīene 16. siextīene 17. seofontīene 18. eahtatīene 19....

33. The paradigms show (1) that monosyllables with short stems (#hof#) take -u in the N.A. plural; (2) that monosyllables with long stems (#bearn#, #bān#) do not distinguish the...

37. The ō-Declension, corresponding to the First or _ā-_Declension of Latin and Greek, contains only feminine nouns. Many feminine i-stems and u-stems soon passed over to this D...

NOTE 1.--The dual number was soon absorbed by the plural. No relic of it now remains. But when two and only two are referred to, the dual is consistently used in O.E. An example...

NOTE 2.--The adverbial genitive is abundantly preserved in Mn.E. _Always_, _crossways_, _sideways_, _needs_ (= _necessarily_), _sometimes_, etc., are not plurals, but old geniti...

63. The n-Declension contains almost all of the O.E. nouns belonging to the Consonant Declensions. The stem characteristic n has been preserved in the oblique cases, so that the...

VI. The a-Declension: Masculine a-Stems (§ 25-30) 27 VII. Neuter a-Stems (§ 31-36) 30 VIII. The ō-Declension (§ 37-42) 33 IX. The i-Declension and the u-Declension (§ 43-55) 35...

Introductory 98 I. The Battle of Ashdown 99 II. A Prayer of King Alfred 101 III. The Voyages of Ohthere and Wulfstan 102 Ohthere’s First Voyage 103 Ohthere’s Second Voyage 106 W...