Phrases and ways of expressing syntactical relations

Ways of expressing parts of a sentence

The Parenthesis

The Direct Address

The Apposition

An apposition modifies nouns and pronouns, specifying their meanings by giving them another name. It is expressed by a noun: Claudius cāsere the emperor Claudius; wæs hē, sē mon, …

A direct address is the name of a person to whom the rest of the sentence is addressed: Cedmon, sing mē.

Any part of the sentence may be expressed in different ways: by a single word-form, by a phrase or by a clause. A word- form is any form of the grammatical paradigm of the word. It may contain either one component or more than one. One-component word-forms are various synthetic forms, while multi-component word-forms are analytical forms which are composed of auxiliary components and one notional component.

Phrase is a group of two or more notional words functioning as a whole. There are two-, three-, four- etc. component phrases. Two-component phrase consists of a head word and a dependent word – an adjunct word.

Phrases in OE are of different kinds and their main types are: A + N, N nom+ Nnom, Prn + N, Num + N Noun being the head word, while Nnom, A, Num – the adjunct words.

The words in these groups are connected syntactically by agreement (согласование): lytlan bōc “little book” (acc.), đære bēc “that book” (dat.). The words agree in number, gender and case.

Other groups comprise: N + V, V + N, Prn + V, V + Prn. In these groups the words are connected by government (управление) – the verbs require the adjunct word to be in a certain case: hlyste mīnra worda (gen.pl) “listen to my words”; hire sæde (dat.) “said to her”.

In phrases V + Adv, Adv + A an adverb is connected with the head words without any formal means – by joining (примыкание): grētan frēondlīce “greet in a friendly way”.

The Composite Sentence

A composite sentence consists of two or more simple sentences joined together. The component parts of a composite sentence are called clauses. The relationships between the clauses may be that of coordination and subordination. In the case of coordination we have a compound sentence whose clauses are independent of each other syntactically. They may be joined by coordinating conjunctions: and, ac, oþþe or asyndetically.

In the case of subordination one of the syntactic functions within a simple sentence (e.g. object) is expressed by a clause thereby forming a complex sentence: I know the girl’s name (object) – I know what the girl’s name is (object clause).

The basic structure is called the principal clause; the cause performing some syntactic function within the principal clause is termed a subordinate clause. Subordinate clauses may be joined to principal clauses by means of conjunctions and conjunctive words. In OE subordinate clauses are: object clauses, attributive clauses, adverbial clauses. They are introduced by the conjunctions and conjunctive words: þæt, gif, sē, þe, þā, þonne, þanne, siþþan, oþþæt, þeah, interrogative pronouns and adverbs –hwā, hwæt, swā etc.