Part 1 — CHAPTER V. Practical Suggestions.
Reading edition
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 study will prove profitable and stimulating in proportion as close and constant comparison is made of the old with the new. The guiding principles in such a comparison are reducible chiefly to two. These are (1) the regular operation of phonetic laws, resulting especially in certain Vowel Shiftings, and (2) the alterations in form and syntax that are produced by Analogy.
(1) “The former of these is of physiological or natural origin, and is perfectly and inflexibly regular throughout the same period of the same language; and even though different languages show different phonetic habits and predilections, there is a strong general resemblance between the changes induced in one language and in another; many of the particular laws are true for many languages.
(2) “The other principle is psychical, or mental, or artificial, introducing various more or less capricious changes that are supposed to be emendations; and its operation is, to some extent, uncertain and fitful.”1
(1) Vowel-Shiftings.
23.
It will prove an aid to the student in acquiring the inflections and vocabulary of Old English to note carefully the following shiftings that have taken place in the gradual growth of the Old English vowel system into that of Modern English.
(1) As stated in § 3, the Old English inflectional vowels, which were all short and unaccented, weakened in early Middle English to e. This e in Modern English is frequently dropped:
Old English. Middle English. Modern English.
stān-as ston-es stones
sun-u sun-e son
sun-a sun-e sons
ox-an ox-en oxen
swift-ra swift-er swifter
swift-ost swift-est swiftest
lōc-ode lok-ede looked
(2) The Old English long vowels have shifted their phonetic values with such uniform regularity that it is possible in almost every case to infer the Modern English sound; but our spelling is so chaotic that while the student may infer the modern sound, he cannot always infer the modern symbol representing the sound.
Old English. Modern English.
ā o (as in no)2 nā = no; stān = stone; bān = bone; rād = road; āc = oak; hāl = whole; hām = home; sāwan = to sow; gāst = ghost.
ē e (as in he) hē = he; wē = we; ðē = thee; mē = me; gē = ye; hēl = heel; wērig = weary; gelēfan = to believe; gēs = geese.
ī (ȳ) i (y) (as in mine) mīn = mine; ðīn = thine; wīr = wire; mȳs = mice; rīm = rime (wrongly spelt rhyme); lȳs = lice; bī = by; scīnan = to shine; stig-rāp = sty-rope (shortened to stirrup, stīgan meaning to mount).
ō o (as in do) dō = I do; tō = too, to; gōs = goose; tōð = tooth; mōna = moon; ðōm = doom; mōd = mood; wōgian = to woo; slōh = I slew.
ū ou (ow) (as in thou) ðū = thou; fūl = foul; hūs = house; nū = now; hū = how; tūn = town; ūre = our; ūt = out; hlūd = loud; ðūsend = thousand.
ǣ, ēa, ēo ea (as in sea) ǣ: sǣ = sea; mǣl = meal; dǣlan = to deal; clǣne = clean; grǣdig = greedy. ēa: ēare = ear; ēast = east; drēam = dream; gēar = year; bēatan = to beat. ēo: ðrēo = three; drēorig = dreary; sēo = she, hrēod = reed; dēop = deep.
(2) Analogy.
24.
But more important than vowel shifting is the great law of Analogy, for Analogy shapes not only words but constructions. It belongs, therefore, to Etymology and to Syntax, since it influences both form and function. By this law, minorities tend to pass over to the side of the majorities. “The greater mass of cases exerts an assimilative influence upon the smaller.”3 The effect of Analogy is to simplify and to regularize. “The main factor in getting rid of irregularities is group-influence, or Analogy—the influence exercised by the members of an association-group on one another.... Irregularity consists in partial isolation from an association-group through some formal difference.”4
Under the influence of Analogy, entire declensions and conjugations have been swept away, leaving in Modern English not a trace of their former existence. There are in Old English, for example, five plural endings for nouns, -as, -a, -e, -u, and -an. No one could well have predicted5 that -as (Middle English -es) would soon take the lead, and become the norm to which the other endings would eventually conform, for there were more an-plurals than as-plurals; but the as-plurals were doubtless more often employed in everyday speech. Oxen (Old English oxan) is the sole pure survival of the hundreds of Old English an-plurals. No group of feminine nouns in Old English had -es as the genitive singular ending; but by the close of the Middle English period all feminines formed their genitive singular in -es (or -s, Modern English ’s) after the analogy of the Old English masculine and neuter nouns with es-genitives. The weak preterits in -ode have all been leveled under the ed-forms, and of the three hundred strong verbs in Old English more than two hundred have become weak.
These are not cases of derivation (as are the shifted vowels): Modern English -s in sons, for example, could not possibly be derived from Old English -a in suna, or Middle English -e in sune (§ 23, (1)). They are cases of replacement by Analogy.
A few minor examples will quicken the student’s appreciation of the nature of the influence exercised by Analogy:
(a) The intrusive l in could (Chaucer always wrote coud or coude) is due to association with would and should, in each of which l belongs by etymological right.
(b) He need not (for He needs not) is due to the assimilative influence of the auxiliaries may, can, etc., which have never added -s for their third person singular (§ 137).
(c) I am friends with him, in which friends is a crystalized form for on good terms, may be traced to the influence of such expressions as He and I are friends, They are friends, etc.
(d) Such errors as are seen in runned, seed, gooses, badder, hisself, says I (usually coupled with says he) are all analogical formations. Though not sanctioned by good usage, it is hardly right to call these forms the products of “false analogy.” The grammar involved is false, because unsupported by literary usages and traditions; but the analogy on which these forms are built is no more false than the law of gravitation is false when it makes a dress sit unconventionally.