Word Order

The OE word orderis free. That is great variation was possible. But tendency to fixation is evident already in OE. The existence of this tendency is quite natural since the language tries to make use of all structure of elements to express grammatical meanings.

The usual position of the principal parts of the sentence is SP. Deviations from this order are quite numerous however. The most important from these deviations are the following:

a) the inverted order of the principal parts as a result of placing some secondary parts of the sentence first:

þā dælde hē him his æhte (Then he apportioned him his due)

þā in the beginning of a sentence usually causes inversion.

b) The inverted order of the principal parts in interrogative sentences both with the interrogative word and without it:

Eart þū Ēsau, min sunu? (Ти Ісай, сину мій?)

Hwæt eart þū, sunu min? (Хто ти, сину мій?)

c) The imperative verbs usually precede the subject:

Swi™a þū! (Мовчи!)

d) Inversion due to emphasis:

Beowulf is mīn name (Беовульф моє ім’я)

In many cases the principal parts frame the sentence. The subject comes first and the predicate closes the sentence. This word order is called synthetical(синтетичний). This pattern is older than SP pattern. The original synthetical word order is more common in poetry, than in prose, and restricted mainly to subordinate clauses. It has been estimated that in “Beowulf” this word order makes some 70 %.

Hē sæde Ælfrede cynin™e þæt hē ealra Norþmanna norþmest būde

(He said to king Alfred that he lived Northenest of all Normans).