A decent circadian rhythm ought to be fixated around 24 hours. Mine isn't, so I had little by little pushed my goodnight time to 4 or 5 o'clock in the morning. Yesterday I decided to revert to more sensible hours and went to bed around midnight, and of course I couldn't fall asleep immediately so instead I got through about half of my good old Teach Yourself Old English from 1964 (7. impression from 78). And contrary to expectation I did actually have fun reading it. For instance I saw on page 53 that the verb "hattar" ('to be called' in Modern English) was the one and only surviving one-word passive verb in Anglosaxon. Ha ha, I know that word - it is "at hedde" in Danish - but I didn't know that it goes all the way back to a synthetic passive in Proto-Germanic or even before that. And "hattan" is not the only word that has become extinct in modern English, but still is alive and kicking in other Germanic languages.
On page 32-33 I noticed that in the analytic past tense forms (i.e. a form of "habban" or "bean" plus a past participle) the participle can be in either the Nominative or the Accusative, which typically has an added -e. I can't see the reason for that with "bean" (modern "to be"), but it makes sense with "habban "(modern "to have") - the construction with "to have" must have originated from a construction with some kind of an object predicative (or complement) : " I have seen the light" ---> I have + (light - 'seen'), but experts in Protoindoeuropean may know more about this topic. Anyway, it is an interesting quirk. And also that there is such a thing as an inflected infinitive, but not as in Portuguese. On page 55 and 56 there is a list of its typical uses (to express purpose, to 'complement the sens of a verb', whatever that is, and to 'define a adjective'), but I can't see a pattern here.
My main grievance with the book is that the texts in at least the first half of the book all are religious - either direct quotes from the bible or tales about bishops and saints. Yesterday I saw Stephen Fry in the quiz QI lament that no swear words are known from Anglosaxon, simply because the only people who could write were too religious to use such words. Damned - we lack a whole dimension of the language!
My second main grievance with the book is that it is impregnated with a historical view on morphology. If you look at the first two pages from the chapter about strong declensions you will see some masculine a-stems and some (equally) masculine -ja-stems. What I can't see is a difference between the two: the endings of stān (stone) are nought, nought, -es, e (N,A,G,D singular) and -as, -as, -a, -um (N,A,G,D plural), and the endings of "secg" (spear) are - guess what - nought, nought, -es, e (N,A,G,D singular) and -as, -as, -a, -um (N,A,G,D plural)! OK, then there is "ende" (end) which has -e and -e at the end in the nominative and accusative singular, but while that may have a historical background it isn't enough to warrant that you speak about ja-stems for a class that can't muster a single
j in any of its forms.
When you construct morphological schemes then you are of course allowed to make them from a historical perspective, but then the explanations must follow at the same page - and it is still not the way a learner should think about the different forms in the first place. In any language which you study with the purpose of becoming an active speaker/writer the main thing must be to show how the system functions in its must succinct and logical form at the
synchronic level. The excuse must be that no reader of this book is supposed ever to become an active user of Anglosaxon (and in my case that's a correct assumption), and then there is room for historical studies instead.
Apart from that, there are strong declensions and 'minor' (rather than 'weak') declensions. And among these last ones you find some 'monosyllabic' nouns whose declensions are based on vowel changes. One of the nouns quoted is by the way "hnutu" (nut), which to my eyes looks distinctly bisyllabic, but that's a minor issue. I'm more worried that the strong verbs are those which depend on vowel changes (p.52ff) whereas the weak ones use endings ... so why use the exact opposite system for nouns ?? And now we are at it, at page 199ff there are some tables for 'strong' adjectives. But here there is a general problem with the terminology: verbs and nouns can be either strong or weak, but not both at the same time. However adjectives are inflected strongly AND weakly, depending on the context - and not only in Old English, but in all Germanic languages I know of. It is sad that the words "strong" and "weak" have come to be used like this about adjectives, but I can't blame the author mr. Blakeley for that - he just continues in the footsteps of a long and dubious tradition.
All in all I'm happy that he at least put enough data on the table to make it possible to imagine other setups than those preferred by himself. Most modern textbooks aren't as systematic (and generous)...
Anglosaxon Nouns.jpg
GER: Und weil wir wir über die Beugung von Adjektiven sprechen: Auf Deutsch gibt es tatsächlich drei Reihen von Endungen, nicht nur zwei (wie in einige vereinfachten Darstellungen). Eine beugung wird nach bestimmten Artikeln benutzt, eine andere nach unbestimmten Artikeln und eine ohne Artikel dabei (alle drei mit verschiedenen Alternativen) verwendet. Mein grünes Blatt dazu ist unten zu sehen:
Deutsche Eigenschaftswörter.jpg
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