I’ve been pondering syntax rather intensely over the last couple of weeks, both Old English and Modern English. Well, perhaps I’m always pondering syntax, but there are two things in particular I’ve been thinking about recently. Today I’ll post on my Old English musings and tomorrow I’ll write about my Modern English musings.
While working on a discourse analysis of the Old English poem Judith a while ago, I ran into the phrase sittan eodon (sittan being an infinitive meaning ‘to sit’, and eodon being preterite plural of the verb ‘to go’),1 and it occurred to me that in the context (men attending a feast), it didn’t seem to make sense to translate it as an infinitive of purpose (‘they went to sit’); it seemed like two separate actions (‘they went and sat’).
Of course, it is often pointed out that an infinitive with a verb of motion or of perception in Old English often seems to function like a present participle in Modern English (‘he went running’ or ‘I saw him running’). In fact, in Modern English we can still use the bare infinitive after a verb of perception in this way (‘I saw him run’). With the verb of perception, the infinitive can be anything, but with the verb of motion, the infinitive is generally something appropriately connected to the motion, perhaps describing the manner in which the subject moved. The classic example is in Beowulf: “Com on wanre niht / scriðan sceadugenga” (‘The walker in the darkness came gliding in the dark night’).2 Less frequently a verb of rest is used instead, as in lagon slapan (‘they lay sleeping’).
What I wondered is to what extent this construction was relevant to my Judith passage, an infinitive of rest following a verb of motion. Of course many scholars would (and have) simply classify this as an infinitive of purpose. Perhaps the infitive shows consecutive action (‘they went and sat at the banquet’), or perhaps the passage should be translated as ‘they went, sitting at the banquet’).
The thing about syntax questions like this is that the more you think about it, the less clear it becomes. Do ‘they went and sat’ and ‘they went to sit’ come to the same thing anyway?
Stæfcræft is seo cæg, ðe ðæra boca andgit unlicð (‘Grammar is the key, which unlocks the meaning of these books’).3
1 The full quotation is: “Hie ða to ðam symle sittan eodon” (‘They then went to the feast and sat’) Jud 15.
2 Beo 702b-703a.
3 ÆGram 2.16-17.
Posted by Mark at February 26, 2004 02:31 PM