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Erol Ismetov Shukriev
Francisco Javier Martín Arista
Facultad de Letras y de la Educación
Grado en Estudios Ingleses
2015-2016
Título
Director/es
Facultad
Titulación
Departamento
TRABAJO FIN DE GRADO
Curso Académico
The inflectional morphlogy of the old english verb on alexical database
Autor/es
© El autor© Universidad de La Rioja, Servicio de Publicaciones,
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de Erol Ismetov Shukriev, dirigido por Francisco Javier Martín Arista (publicado por laUniversidad de La Rioja), se difunde bajo una Licencia
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Trabajo de Fin de Grado
THE INFLECTIONAL MORPHOLOGY OF THE OLD ENGLISH VERB ON A
LEXICAL DATABASE
Autor:
EROL ISMETOV SHUKRIEV
Tutor/es:
Fdo.
Titulación:
Grado en Estudios Ingleses [601G]
Facultad de Letras y de la Educación
AÑO ACADÉMICO: 2015/2016
THE INFLECTIONAL
MORPHOLOGY OF THE OLD
ENGLISH VERB ON A LEXICAL
DATABASE
AUTHOR: EROL ISMETOV SHUKRIEV
SUPERVISOR: JAVIER MARTÍN ARISTA
2
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ABSTRACT: This paper will tackle three main topics in relation to the Old
English verb: 1) Old English language, 2) a lexical database of Old English and 3)
experience gained from the use of the lexical database. These three topics have been
divided into five core chapters to provide a clear structuring of the issues being dealt with.
The first topic is found in Chapters 1 and 2. The reader will find in the first Chapter an
overall introduction of the status of the Old English language, its origins and its
classification in the Indo-European branch. It will then discuss briefly the expansion and
variations of Old English, placing emphasis on the Old English dialects. Following are the
problems of writing and documenting this language in the early Middle Ages. Next comes
an overview of the Old English lexicon with emphasis on the verbs. Chapter 2 is a section
dedicated to the Old English verb with brief summaries of its conjugations. These first two
Chapters are intertwined, for they deal mainly with grammatical and theoretical questions.
Up to here the focus is only on the language. The second of the three topics deals with the
Freya database of Old English, part of the bigger Nerthus Project
(www.nerthusproject.com) by the University of La Rioja. This topic is found in Chapter 3,
which explains the raison d’être of the database, including its structuring, usefulness and
the stylistic norms it follows. This Chapter presents an overview of what Freya is. The
third and last topic is found in Chapters 4 and 5. These Chapters deal with the experience
that one gains from using the database. To do this, in Chapter 4 is explained how a glossary
of Old English words was used as a source to index data and to test the database, and the
experience gained from it is described here. Finally, in Chapter 5 are exposed the
conclusions drawn from the use of Freya. This Chapter discusses the necessity and
invaluableness of a database such as Freya.
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RESUMEN: Este trabajo abordará tres temas principales en relación con el verbo
del inglés antiguo: 1) el inglés antiguo como idioma, 2) una base de datos léxica de inglés
antiguo y 3) experiencia obtenida a través del uso de la base de datos léxica. Estos tres
temas están divididos en cinco capítulos centrales para una mejor estructuración. El primer
tema se encuentra en los Capítulos 1 y 2. En el Capítulo 1 hay una introducción general al
estado del inglés antiguo, sus orígenes y su clasificación en la rama indoeuropea. Tras esto,
se discute brevemente la expansión y las variaciones del inglés antiguo, poniendo énfasis
en los dialectos. A continuación se abordan los problemas de escribir y documentar este
idioma en la temprana Edad Media. Tras esto, sigue una descripción general del léxico del
inglés antiguo centrándose en los verbos de este. El Capítulo 2 está dedicado a los verbos
del inglés antiguo con resúmenes breves de sus conjugaciones. Estos dos Capítulos están
entrelazados ya que hablan de cuestiones gramaticales y teóricas. Hasta aquí el enfoque
está solamente en el idioma. El segundo de los tres temas trata sobre la base de datos de
inglés antiguo Freya, parte del Proyecto Nerthus (www.nerthusproject.com) de la
Universidad de La Rioja. Este tema se encuentra en el Capítulo 3, que explica qué es la
base de datos, su estructuración, utilidad y las normas de estilo que sigue. Este Capítulo
presenta un resumen de lo que constituye Freya. El tercer y último tema se encuentra en los
Capítulos 4 y 5. Estos Capítulos tratan sobre la experiencia que uno obtiene al usar la base
de datos. Para hacer esto, en el Capítulo 4 se explica cómo un glosario con palabras de
inglés antiguo ha servido como fuente de indexación para la base de datos y la experiencia
obtenida a partir de esto se describe aquí. Finalmente, en el Capítulo 5 se exponen las
conclusiones sacadas del uso de Freya. Aquí se discute la necesidad e importancia de una
base de datos como Freya.
5
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT: ......................................................................................................................... 3
RESUMEN: ........................................................................................................................... 4
TABLE OF CONTENTS ....................................................................................................... 5
INTRODUCTION AND RELEVANCE ............................................................................... 7
OBJECTIVE .......................................................................................................................... 8
METHODOLOGY ................................................................................................................ 8
ABBREVIATIONS ............................................................................................................... 9
CHAPTER 1: Introduction – History of Old English .................................................... 11
1.1. Origins and language classification of Old English .................................................. 11
1.2. Expansions and variations ......................................................................................... 13
1.3. Problems of writing and documenting Old English .................................................. 14
1.4. The lexicon of Old English ....................................................................................... 15
CHAPTER 2: The Old English Verbs ............................................................................. 17
2.1. Introduction ............................................................................................................... 17
2.2. Inflections of strong verbs ......................................................................................... 19
2.3. The seven classes of strong verbs ............................................................................. 21
2.4. Inflections of weak verbs .......................................................................................... 23
2.4.1. CLASS 1 ............................................................................................................. 23
2.4.2. CLASS 2 ............................................................................................................. 24
2.4.3. CLASS 3 ............................................................................................................. 25
CHAPTER 3: Freya – Database of Old English ............................................................. 27
3.1. Presentation ............................................................................................................... 27
3.2. Structuring of the database and stylistic norms......................................................... 29
6
3.3. Usefulness of the database ........................................................................................ 32
3.4. Searching the database .............................................................................................. 32
CHAPTER 4: Using the database .................................................................................... 35
4.1. Data sources: dictionaries and glossaries .................................................................. 35
4.2. Scragg’s Vercelli Homilies ........................................................................................ 36
4.3. Structuring of the glossary ........................................................................................ 38
4.4. The Vercelli Homilies on the Freya database ........................................................... 40
4.5. Challenges of working on the database ..................................................................... 44
CHAPTER 5: Conclusions ................................................................................................ 47
BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................................ 49
7
INTRODUCTION AND RELEVANCE
In an ever more globalised world where English is becoming a lingua franca not
only for business but also for everyday interaction, travel and tourism, being aware of the
origins and evolution of this language is of crucial importance not only for the linguist or
scholar dedicated to this study, but also for anyone curious enough to know why English
came to be the way it is. While this paper does not cover such a broad timespan to be able
to answer all of the questions arising from this, it does shed light on some specific aspects
of English at its core, at its birth, in the earlier stages when it was a different language from
what it appears today.
The relevance of this paper lies in that the topic covered sheds some light on the
English verbs. Why are they so different from other European languages? What made
English grammar so simple, in terms of inflection, but so complex, in terms of consistency?
The short answer to these questions is evolution. In this paper the state of English verbs in
their early stage is discussed, the stage before they were influenced by neighbouring and
other distant languages. The state of English verbs discussed in this paper is arguably one
of the purest that can be found, due to its lower degree of contact with foreign languages.
Therefore, this paper is fundamental to have a basic understanding of the state of Old
English verbs. While it does not answer all the questions that may arise from the curious
minds, it provokes the reader to learn more about the origins of English.
8
OBJECTIVE
The main purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the usefulness of a lexical
database of Old English. While this is the final goal, the process to get there involves the
prior knowledge of two topics. On the one hand, the inflectional morphology of the Old
English verb, which is dealt with in Chapter 2 and, on the other hand, the knowledge of
what is the lexical database in question, which is discussed in Chapter 3. On the way to the
final goal, the reader will also become aware and gain knowledge of these prior steps.
METHODOLOGY
To achieve the final goal, the reader is presented with all the theory of the Old
English verb in Chapter 2. Prior to this, Chapter 1 contextualises the topic by giving an
overview of the Old English language, slowly building up to Chapter 2, where the focus is
only on the Old English verb. The method followed in Chapter 2 is to provide the reader
with a summary of the most important aspects of the Old English verb and examples of the
conjugations being discussed in each section to illustrate the theory. Chapter 3 discusses
the Freya database per se, explaining what it is and how it works. By doing this, the reader
becomes aware of the work process involved in the database, which will lead to the
following Chapter 4. Here, the experience from the work on the database that was gained is
explained as a means of illustrating all the theory discussed in the immediately previous
Chapters. In the final Chapter 5, conclusions are drawn from the work on the database.
9
ABBREVIATIONS
The list shows some abbreviations used throughout this paper.
acc.: accusative
cons.: consonant
gen.: genitive
IE: Indo-European
ind.: indicative
nom.: nominative
OE: Old English
PDE : present-day English
pers.: person
pl.: plural
pa.: past
part.: participle
pres.: present
sg.: singular
SVO: subject – verb – object
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11
CHAPTER 1
Introduction – History of Old English
1.1. Origins and language classification of Old English
The traditional division of languages according to their genetic relationship situates
Old English in the Germanic branch of the Indo-European section. Old English is a
Germanic language in its core; however, it has been heavily influenced throughout its
existence by foreign languages, notably French, Latin and Greek. This influence has
allowed the originally Germanic Old English to gain a powerful layer of non-Germanic
elements today, mainly in its vocabulary.
The Old
English period
traditionally starts
with the Angles,
Saxons and Jutes
invading Britain
around the year 500
CE. This period
lasts until the
Norman Conquest
of Britain in 1066
when the period of
Middle English
starts. Following it,
the Modern English
period is traditionally associated with the introduction of the printing press in the 1440s. It
goes on to the present day and it is subdivided in Early Modern English (1500 - 1700) and
Modern English (1700 - Present) (Gelderen 2014).
The location of Old English in the West Germanic branch (Adapted from
Macafee and Aitken 2002)
12
PERIODS
OLD ENGLISH MIDDLE ENGLISH MODERN ENGLISH
Period: 500 – 1100 AD
Continental vowels and consonants
Germanic lexicon
Some loanwords from Latin
Lexical creation through affixation and compounding
SVO order Full inflection
of nouns, adjectives, verbs and pronouns
CHARACTERISTICS CHANGES CHARACTERISTICS CHANGES CHARACTERISTICS
Period: 1100 – 1500 AD
Phonological system in transition: simplification of consonants
Mixed lexicon Romance – Germanic
Lexical borrowing rather than creation
Rise of auxiliaries: modals and periphrastic tenses
Full SVO order Simplification of
inflection of nouns, adjectives and verbs
Periods: Early Modern English 1500 – 1700, Modern English 1700 – 1900, Present Day English 1900 – 200
Continental consonants
Insular vowels Mixed lexicon
Romance-Germanic
Latin and Greek loanwords
Lexical borrowing rather than creation
Rise of auxiliaries: do support
Little explicit inflection of nouns, adjectives and verbs
Simplification of the consonant system
Lengthening of short vowels Shortening of two vowels
followed by two consonants Levelling of unstressed vowels
/a, o, u > e/
Reduction of the number of case forms in the declension of the noun and the adjective
General simplification of verb forms
Loss of grammatical gender
Great Vowel Shift o Long vowels were
raised o Long close vowels /i,
u/ were diphthongised
Development of vowels before /r/
Use of the auxiliary do o Appeared
around 1550 o Fixed use
around 1700
PHONOLOGY PHONOLOGY MORPHOSYNTAX MORPHOLOGY
Main periods of the English language with their characteristics and changes (Based on Martín Arista 2015b)
13
Distribution of the Old English dialects (Adapted from Encyclopædia Britannica 2009)
Even though these are considered homogeneous and continuous periods, there are
internal variations in them. It is a convention that there is no change and that this is a
unified linguistic stage. However, for the sake of study they are considered synchronically
invariable stages.
1.2. Expansions and variations
Bede is one of the best recognised Old
English authors for his contribution in writing
about the origins of the English People. His
Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum presents
the Germanic invaders of England as
descendants of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes.
On this regard, Campbell (1974) states that
these peoples were related to the Ingvaeonic
West Germans, so the linguistic variation was
not as developed at an early stage except
perhaps in matters of vocabulary. There were
two main dialects in Old English, the Anglian
and the West Saxon. However, they developed
within England because of the isolation of the
areas where they were spoken. Kentish, in the same line, is considered a different dialect
also because of its isolation rather than because the descendants of the Jutes later developed
a dialect of their own. Additionally, Campbell traces four main dialects of Old English:
Northumbrian, Mercian, West Saxon and Kentish; and he associates Northumbrian and
Mercian as the Anglian dialects.
According to Ringe and Taylor (2014), there were important changes in the
pronunciation and grammar that Old English suffered throughout its existence. However,
these changes were not sufficiently documented in the surviving texts available nowadays.
They also note that the West Saxon dialect is the best attested and it is the one usually
14
taken as a paradigm of Old English. Moreover, they state that, excluding some examples of
prose written in different dialects, West Saxon is the predominant dialect in which Old
English texts have survived.
1.3. Problems of writing and documenting Old English
One of the biggest challenges for someone documenting Old English is the scarcity
of sources available. The earliest works of this form of English date from the mid-7th-
century, but it is believed that it had already started to develop in the 5th century. Therefore,
working with empirical evidence in many cases is impossible and some forms of certain
periods need to be reconstructed. Moreover, due to the lack of different sources, scholars in
this field work only with written texts. This carries the problem that, at a time of non-
uniformity in the writing style, one will find different spellings and pronunciations of the
same words due to chronological and topological variations. It was not until the invention
of the printing press in the 1440s when some unification of the spelling of English was
achieved. Campbell (1974) states that there are considerable differences in orthography and
inflections from the West Saxon dialect even when it had been established as the literary
dialect.
On the matter of attestation of Old English dialects, following Hogg (1992), Ringe
and Taylor (2014) note that they are unevenly documented because the greater part of
existing texts are written in the West Saxon dialect or they have been recopied by scribes in
this form. Moreover, they have observed that, despite that some poetry was originally
written in Anglican dialect, most of it was transcribed into West Saxon. Prose is also
almost entirely in West Saxon. Other dialects that have been attested in surviving texts
include Kentish, from charters and glosses; Mercian, from early glossaries, charters and a
short prayer; Northumbrian, from short poems and a rich lexicon of proper names; and
Essex dialect from charters. Evidence from the dialects from Norfolk, Lindsey and others
from the midlands, however, is inexistent.
15
1.4. The lexicon of Old English
The lexicon of Old English is purely Germanic, with some words of Latin and
Scandinavian origin. The grammar is fully inflectional. Regarding word formation, it
occurs by using the words that already exist in Old Germanic. Thus, Old English opts for
making words on the basis of an already existing word. This comes in contrast with
borrowing words, which is more widespread in the latter stages of English. Language
contact was not as common at this moment. The use of Latin letters in English came with
the Christianisation of England by the Romans. The Latin alphabet was imported to
represent what was written in Runic before. Therefore, there are misrepresentations of
sounds that did not exist in Latin, as is, for example, the case of /ʃ/. That is also probably
the reason why some runic symbols were kept, as are thorn ⟨þ⟩ and wynn ⟨ƿ⟩.
After the Norman Conquest in the 11th century, there is a linguistically complex
moment; for at least two centuries French was the official language of England. It was used
for law, business, court and other formal matters, and English was restricted to the daily
and colloquial use. Inflection in verbs, articles, nouns etc. was lost almost entirely in
Middle English.
Focusing now on the verbs, in Old English there were strong and weak verb forms,
which in Present Day English have evolved in the regular and irregular verbs. In
derivational morphology, weak verbs always derive from strong verbs and not the other
way around. Care should be taken not to confuse the terminology of weak and strong when
it refers to verbs and when it refers to nouns. Verbs have either weak or strong
conjugations and nouns have weak and strong declensions. However, they do not mean the
same in both cases. In verbs, weak is similar to regular and strong to irregular, whereas in
the declensions weak is associated with the nouns that go with a determiner and strong
declensions are reserved for the nouns that go without a determiner. Weak suggests that
there are fewer inflectional endings and strong suggests that there are more. In the case of
nouns, the determiner indicates case, number and gender. If there is no determiner then the
adjective has to indicate them, and, because of this, there are more different inflectional
endings. In the presence of the determiner, it marks case, number and gender; therefore, it
16
is not necessary for the adjective to mark the same features, which would make it
redundant.
17
CHAPTER 2
The Old English Verbs
2.1. Introduction
This section and the inflections represented in it have been summarised following
entirely Campbell (1974) and Martín Arista (2015b). A broad overview of the Old English
verbal system has been attempted in this Chapter by representing as concisely as possible
the many complexities that OE verbs have.
Two main groups of verbs exist in the Germanic languages: strong verbs and weak
verbs. The strong verbs form their past tense with a vowel variation and the weak verbs
with a dental element. For example, the past tense of the strong verb tredan (tread) is træd
(trode) and the past tense of the weak verb hieran (hear) is hierde (heard). The thematic
vowel of the present tense of practically all strong verbs is e, interchanged sometimes with
o. In weak verbs, this thematic vowel e/o is preceded by -i-. Therefore, there are three main
classes of weak verbs: -ie-, -oie- and -æie- classes. There is also a minor group of verbs
called the preterite-present and all verbs belonging to it are very common. They are
originally strong past tenses of present meaning but they developed a past tense with a
dental formative element in Germanic; for example sceal (shall) and scolde (should).
There are also subdivisions in classes within these groups of verbs. In the weak
verbs there are 3 classes. Class 1 is characterised by the display of i-mutation in the root
and class 2 does not suffer i-mutation. Class 3, on the other hand, had very few verbs in it
and they were all very irregular but very frequent. On the other hand, the strong verbs had
7 classes. These classes are divided according to the changes they suffer in their vowels, or
ablaut.
Outside of the three groups of strong, weak and preterite-present, there are very few
verbs and Campbell (1974) classifies them as anomalous verbs. Martín Arista (2015b), on
the other hand, categorises preterite-present and anomalous verbs in one group as irregular
verbs. About preterite-present verbs, he says that they were a small group of frequent verbs
in Proto-Germanic; strong in their origin, but that for semantic reasons their preterite
18
started to be used in present contexts. This led to their usage as present forms. To illustrate
this, Campbell (1974) compares these OE preterite-present verbs to the Latin novi, for
example, or the Greek οἶδα. Posteriorly, a new preterite appeared for them in Germanic that
was comparable to the preterite of weak verbs, a preterite that was formed by adding a
dental suffix (Martín Arista 2015b). Some of these preterite-present verbs have survived to
the present day as modal auxiliaries: ahte (ought), cuþe (could), meahte (might), moste
(must), sceolde (should). Regarding anomalous verbs, Martín Arista says that they are
“athematic verbs that in Proto-Indo-European were conjugated in the present and the aorist
in such a way that inflectional endings were added directly to the root, without any
intervening thematic vowel” (Ibid). He notes that the relevant anomalous verbs in Old
English are beon (be), willan (will), don (do) and gan (go).
On the matter of voice, there existed the active and the passive voice. And on the
matter of mood, there existed the indicative, the subjunctive, the infinitive and the
imperative mood, as well as a verbal adjective, the present participle. Moreover, Old
English verbs have several periphrastic forms, such as the use of the present with future
meaning or forming the future with willan or sculan + infinitive.
Regarding persons, the indicative and the subjunctive have three independent forms
for their persons in singular. In their plural, however, the three persons have the same form.
Campbell (1974) notes this to be a particularity of the Ingvaeonic languages. In comparison
to the dual number in Ancient Greek verbs, Old English verbs do not have dual forms.
Therefore, the dual pronouns, such as wit (we two) or git (you two), are followed by plural
verbs. In the imperative mood, one finds only two persons, the 2nd singular and 2nd plural.
The infinitive has an inflected form that is used after to. The participles are inflected as
adjectives.
Following is a brief explanation of the inflections of strong and weak verbs. In the
interest of brevity, preterite-present and anomalous verbs are not developed in detail.
However, the reader should be aware that preterite-present verbs, if taken into account the
form of their present (a strong past in form), can be classified under the classes of strong
verbs. Anomalous verbs, on the other hand, have many difficulties of formation and a
complex origin, according to Campbell (1974).
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2.2. Inflections of strong verbs
PRESENT INDICATIVE
Sg.
1st ride
2nd ritst
3rd ritt
Pl.
1sg ridaþ
2nd ridaþ
3rd ridaþ
What characterises strong verbs is that their inflectional forms are obtained from the
changes they suffer in the vowel of their stem, known as ablaut or gradation. Ablaut,
however, should not be confused with i-mutation. Ablaut is what makes the gradation of
the vowel in the stem of the verbs, producing thus a new tense. In some cases, however,
there are vowels that suffer i-mutation (for example -ēo- > -y-) that does not necessarily
PAST INDICATIVE
Sg.
1st rad
2nd ride
3rd rad
Pl.
1sg ridon
2nd ridon
3rd ridon
PAST SUBJUNCTIVE
Sg.
1st ride
2nd ride
3rd ride
Pl.
1sg riden
2nd riden
3rd riden
PRESENT SUBJUNCTIVE
Sg.
1st ride
2nd ride
3rd ride
Pl.
1sg riden
2nd riden
3rd riden
IMPERATIVE
2nd Sg. rid
2nd Pl. ridaþ
INFINITIVE
ridan
Inflected to ridenne
PASSIVE PARTICIPLE
riden PRESENT PARTICIPLE
ridende
20
mean that vowel gradation has occurred. I-mutation is a regular change, but ablaut is
irregular.
Campbell (1974) notes that the plural endings –aþ, -on and –en can be reduced to
–e when a pronoun of the 1st and 2nd person follows. Under similar circumstances, the final
consonant of monosyllabic forms can be dropped. He also notes that one can only
conjugate strong verbs if it is known the infinitive or some part of the present system, the
singular and plural of the past, and the passive participle. Thus, for example, to conjugate
the verb ridan one also needs to know the forms of rad, ridon and riden.
Martín Arista (2015b) explains the resulting forms of the 2nd and 3rd pers. sg. of the
pres. ind. in strong verbs by observing the process of assimilation that occurs in many of
them. He argues that when a stem ended in a consonant that was dental, plosive, fricative
or affricate, the consonantal cluster resulting from syncope suffered assimilation. He
illustrates this with the following examples: the 2nd pers. sg. of the verb cweþan (say) is
cwist. This form underwent assimilation from cwi-þ-st > cwi-s-st > cwi-st > cwist.
Similarly, with the plosive consonant /g/ at the ending of the stem of the verb leogan (lie),
the process of assimilation occurs as follows: leog-st > leoh-st > lyhst.
21
2.3. The seven classes of strong verbs
According to the vowels that some verbs present in their ablaut systems, seven
classes of strong verbs can be established. Martín Arista (2015b) summarises and
exemplifies the most frequent graded vowel series as follows:
CLASS INFINITIVE 1ST
PRETERITE
2ND
PRETERITE
PAST
PART.
I ī + one
cons.
ī ā i i
scīnan (shine) scān scinon scinen
II
ēo + one
cons.
ēo ēa u o
cēosan
(choose) cēas curon coren
III i + nasal
+ cons.
i a u u
bindan (bind) band bundon bunden
IV e + liquid
(l/r)
e æ ǣ o
beran (bear) bær bǣron boren
V
e + one
cons.
(plosive
p/t/c/d/g or
fricative
f/þ/s)
e æ ǣ e
cweþan (say) cwæþ cwǣdon cweden
VI a + one
cons.
a ō ō a
dragan (draw) drōg drōgon dragen
VII
same vowel
in inf. and
pa. part.
same vowel
in pret. sg.
and pl.
ēa ēo ēo ēa
ēacan
(increase) ēoc ēocon ēacen
22
Similar to class I are ridan, belifan, drifan, glidan etc. Verner’s law can be seen
operating in sniþan – snaþ – snidon – sniden and in the same way also in liþan and criþan.
Verbs following class II are also beodan – bead – budon – boden, ceosan – ceas – curon –
coren or seoþan – seaþ – sudon – sodden. Verbs with internal -g- often have -h in the past
singular (for example fleogan – fleah). In class III one can find bindan – band/bond –
bundon – bunden, and other similar verbs include drincan, grindan, climbam etc. Class IV
presents verbs like beran – bær – bæron – boren, and similar to it are cwelan, helan, stelan,
teran etc. Like class V are metan – mæt – mæton – meten, which is also a model for
cnedan, drepan, screpan, sprecan, swefan etc. Verner’s law is seen in this class in cweþan
– cwæþ – cwædon – cweden, or wesan – wæs – wæron. Similar to class VI are faran – for –
foron – faren, and it serves as a model for dragan, galan, grafan, wadan etc. Finally,
Campbell (1974) divides class VII into subclasses according to the forms of their present
system. Thus, there are verbs following a) hatan – het – haten, b) beatan – beot – beaten,
c) feallan – feoll – feallen, d) blandan – blend – blanden, e) lætan – let – læten, and f)
blotan – bleot – bloten.
23
2.4. Inflections of weak verbs
2.4.1. CLASS 1
PRESENT INDICATIVE
Sg.
1st fremme herie hiere
2nd frem(e)st herest hierst
3rd frem(e)þ hereþ hierþ
Pl.
1sg fremmaþ heriaþ hieraþ
2nd fremmaþ heriaþ hieraþ
3rd fremmaþ heriaþ hieraþ
Like fremman, other verbs conjugated following the same rules are cnyssan,
hrissan, swebban, trymman, wecgan, wennan etc. Campbell (1974) points out that the
present system of the weak verbs is differentiated from that of the strong verbs by the
PAST INDICATIVE
Sg.
1st fremede herede hierde
2nd fremedest heredest hierdest
3rd fremede herede hierde
Pl.
1sg fremedon heredon hierdon
2nd fremedon heredon hierdon
3rd fremedon heredon hierdon
PRESENT SUBJUNCTIVE
Sg.
1st fremme herie hiere
2nd fremme herie hiere
3rd fremme herie hiere
Pl.
1sg fremmen herien hieren
2nd fremmen herien hieren
3rd fremmen herien hieren
PAST SUBJUNCTIVE
Sg.
1st fremede herede hierde
2nd fremede herede hierde
3rd fremede herede hierde
Pl.
1sg fremeden hereden hierden
2nd fremeden hereden hierden
3rd fremeden hereden hierden
IMPERATIVE
2nd Sg. freme here hier
2nd Pl. fremmaþ heriaþ hieraþ
INFINITIVE
fremman herian hieran
Inflected to
fremmenne
to
herienne
to
hierenne
PASSIVE PARTICIPLE
fremed hered hiered PRESENT PARTICIPLE
fremmende heriende hierende
24
presence of an element -i- before the endings. However, fremman diverges from this rule
because, as Campbell notes, “in OE it disappeared after both long closed syllables and old
short ones made long by West Germanic doubling, but [it] remained after short syllables.”
(1974, p. 322)
The past of all Germanic weak verbs, on the other hand, needed a ð, which was
added to the -i- that appears before the endings of the present system, and it is syncopated
after long syllables. The passive participle needed a dental element for its forms in the
weak verbs, as seen in the Latin rectus, auditus etc.
2.4.2. CLASS 2
PRESENT INDICATIVE
Sg.
1st lufige
2nd lufast
3rd lufaþ
Pl. lufiaþ
PAST INDICATIVE
Sg.
1st lufode
2nd lufodest
3rd lufode
Pl. lufodon
PAST SUBJUNCTIVE
Sg.
1st lufode
2nd lufode
3rd lufode
Pl. lufoden
PRESENT SUBJUNCTIVE
Sg.
1st lufige
2nd lufige
3rd lufige
Pl. lufigen
IMPERATIVE
2nd Sg. lufa
2nd Pl. lufiaþ
INFINITIVE
lufian
Inflected to lufienne
PASSIVE PARTICIPLE
lufod PRESENT PARTICIPLE
lufiende
25
Other examples that Campbell (1974) provides for class 2 weak verbs conjugated
like lufian are ascian, bodian, endian, fandian, halgian, langian, locian, lofian, macian etc.
He argues that this conjugation is “a mixture of one in which endings were added to
Germanic -o- and of one in which they were preceded by -i- as in class 1, but this -i-
followed -o-” (1974, p. 333). He also notes that the stem -o without an ending formed the
imperative. In the subjunctive, the present was formed by adding the same endings that
strong verbs preceded by -oi- had. Regarding the past, similarly as in class 1, the dental
formative elements were the same, but added to -o- instead.
2.4.3. CLASS 3
Habban, secgan, libban and hycgan are the four verbs that best show signs of
belonging to class 3 weak verbs. In the past indicative and in the subjunctive tenses only
the first person singular has been given because all these have the same endings as in class
PRESENT INDICATIVE
1st hæbbe libbe secge hycge
Sg. 2nd hæfst leofast sægst hygst
3rd hæfþ leofaþ sægþ hygþ
Pl. habbaþ libbaþ secgaþ hycgaþ
PAST INDICATIVE
hæfde lifde sægde hogde
PAST SUBJUNCTIVE
hæfde lifde sægde hogde PRESENT SUBJUNCTIVE
hæbbe libbe secge hycge
IMPERATIVE
hafa leofa sæge hyge
INFINITIVE
habban libban secgan hycgan
PRESENT PARTICIPLE
hæbbende libbende secgende hycgende
PASSIVE PARTICIPLE
hæfd lifd sægd hogod
26
1 and 2. The imperative plural is identical with the plural of the present indicative and,
hence, has been omitted.
27
CHAPTER 3
Freya – Database of Old English
3.1. Presentation
The Department of Modern Languages in the Faculty of Literature and Education at
the University of La Rioja has been developing for more than a decade a lexical database of
Old English under the name Nerthus Project (www.nerthusproject.com). Freya is only one
part of the bigger project that Nerthus is and it aims to compile an exhaustive lexical
database that will help researchers in the field with an up-to-date tool easily accessible
from any computer. The principal researcher and coordinator of this project is Dr Javier
Martín Arista, while several researchers and PhD candidates have taken part in it
throughout the years.
Martín Arista (2012) explains that the aims of the project are “to provide an overall
analysis of the Old English lexicon based on up-to-date linguistic theory and to incorporate
the findings of lexicological analysis into a lexicographical product that meets 21st century
lexicographical standards” (120). Furthermore, he claims that it is necessary to have a
study of the Old English lexicology that will provide a convenient tool to retrieve the
synchronic and diachronic data of the Old English language (Ibid.). The reason for
choosing a digital database as the format to compile this information, he explains, is, on the
one hand, the versatility to expand and update it and, on the other, because a database
allows for a neatness as well as “rigour and exhaustiveness of the final product” (121). In
the same paper, Martín Arista credits the following works from which the database draws.
Notably, A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (Clark Hall 1996), An Anglo-Saxon
Dictionary (Bosworth and Toller 1973), The Student’s Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon (Sweet
1976), The Dictionary of Old English (Healey 2008), The Dictionary of Old English
Corpus (Healey et al. 2004) and Student’s Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon (Sweet 1976) (All
from Martín Arista 2012).
28
In research hitherto involving Nerthus (cf. Caballero González et al. 2004-2005;
García Fernández 2015; Martín Arista 2006; 2007; 2008a; 2008b; 2009; 2010a; 2010b;
2010c; 2012; 2013a; 2013b; 2013c; 2015a; Metola Rodríguez 2015; Tío Sáenz 2014; or
Torre Alonso 2012, to name a few) attention was placed on the derivational morphology of
Old English while using the database. While Freya is a very powerful tool to do this as
well, it is also an invaluable tool in the research of the inflectional morphology of Old
English.1
Freya is a database that was created to compile and systematise information that
has been obtained from the indexing of secondary sources of Old English (GIGFUR 2015).
Moreover, and most importantly, it includes a section “References” where the sources of
all the information that Freya comprises can be found. The result of this is an organised
tool where all the information and contexts needed for the study of a single OE word can
be found in one place.
The Nerthus database is available to everyone and it can be accessed from any
browser anywhere in the world. The Freya database, however, is still only available to
researchers and contributors, for it is being developed constantly and new information is
added every day.
1 Regarding derivation and inflection, derivation is a process by which new words are created. This
occurs by adding affixes to a stem or to an already existing word. The main difference of derivation from
inflection is that derivation often, but not always, results in a new category for the new word, while inflection
does not change the category of a word, as Crystal (1985) has observed. Payne (1997) adds that derivation
will typically create a different meaning in the new word; for example, the verb judge can be transformed into
a noun by adding the suffix –ment, i.e. judgement. Lawler (n. d.) cites as inflectional markers the number,
gender, case, person, tense, aspect, mood and voice, although not all of them apply to English or Old English.
29
3.2. Structuring of the database and stylistic norms
This section follows entirely GIGFUR (2015) and their guidelines for work on the
database. Hence, this section is a summary of the style that the researcher in the database is
expected to follow in the interest of consistency and clarity.
There is a total of seventeen fields for inputting information about every entry that
is added into Freya. However, not all of the fields are compulsory but rather optional in
many cases. Some fields are there to contribute with additional information that in some
cases is given in the original sources, but not all sources give the same information.
Therefore, some fields are used more than others.
A new register is created whenever there is not one existing already for a new word
that needs to be added. Extreme care should be taken, however, not to confuse a new word
with an existing register of a different word that presents a similar spelling. A good
example of this is the word eaðmodlic and many other adjectives with the –lic ending.
Some authors, like Scragg (1992, p. 425), under the same entry, explain that it can work
both as an adjective, and as an adverb with the spelling eaðmodlice. In Freya, however,
this needs to be split into two separate registers. The information about the adjectival form
of eaðmodlic is put in the register of the adjective, and the adverbial form eaðmodlice in a
separate register for the adverb. Therefore, when creating new registers these details need
to be taken into account before indexing in Freya all the information that one author gives
under the same entry. As a general rule, and always when it is possible to establish it, the
forms of West Saxon will be used as headwords and the other diatopic and diachronic
variants will be included in the field Alternative spellings.
Vowel length is another important aspect to have in mind. From the sources used
for the database, many provide the vowel length, which is then marked in the database as
well, but others do not. When the case occurs that a source gives a word without vowel
length and the same word appears in Freya with vowel length, after consulting dictionaries
and other relevant sources to determine whether it is the same word or not, the new
information will be added to the already existing file if the word is the same, or a new
register will be created if the words are different.
30
The letters ð and þ can lead to doubts when the same word appears in two different
sources with the only difference of ð and þ in their spelling. For example, þonne and
ðonne. In such cases, the spelling from the first source is used in the headword and the
entry from the second source is added to the field Alternative spellings.
Upper-case and lower-case letters are maintained in the Headword in Freya even if
it means creating a new register. Exceptions apply if the source gives all entries with an
upper-case letter, in which case only proper nouns will be spelt with an upper-case letter,
while the rest of the words will be interpreted as if spelt with lower-case.
The most relevant fields are: Headword, Ge prefix, Glossary, Alternative spellings,
Inflectional forms, Inflectional class, References, Category, Meaning, and Notes.
Following is an explanation of the purpose of each field and the stylistic norms that are
followed to input information in it.
Headword is where the reference forms are added. That is to say that in this field
the user of Freya will find the form of a word as it is expressed in the program. Headword
in Freya can be compared to what a dictionary user will find as the entry form of a word.
The form of reference by default for nouns and pronouns is their nom. sg., and the nom. sg.
masc. for the positive degree of adjectives, for adverbs is their positive degree and for
verbs is their infinitive form. For example, the word æbylgð will appear in Freya as
follows:
HEADWORD: ǣbylġð
INFLECTIONAL FORMS: ǣbyliiġða, ābilġðe (acc. pl.); ēbylðu (infl.)
REFERENCES: Campbell (1987: §589.6); Scragg (1992: GLOSS413) etc.
The Ge prefix has had special attention paid to it. Information about it can appear
in the field Headword and the field Ge prefix. In the former, information about this prefix
is added as it appears in the original source, without the interpretation of the researcher. In
the field Ge prefix, the researcher decides what the author means in the entry when giving
information about the prefix. There is a threefold interpretation to this: 1) the word never
appears with ge-, in which case ø is selected from the drop menu; 2) the word sometimes
appears with ge-, in which case (ge-) is selected; or 3) the word always appears with ge-, in
31
which case ge- is selected. Care should be taken not to confuse the actual prefix ge- with a
spelling of a word that simply starts with ge-; for example ge-byht and gearo.
When a word comes from a Glossary it is recorded in this field by selecting the x
from the drop menu, even if the word also appears in other sources that are not glossaries.
Posteriorly, in the field References it is marked with the letters GLOSS next to the author
and the page; for example Scragg (1992 GLOSS415).
Alternative spellings is reserved for the alternative orthographies of the headword.
Inflectional form is the field for the inflected forms that the original source gives.
All the analysed forms given are added to Freya, unless the analysis between two sources
is exactly the same. If it is not and one of them is more detailed than the other, they are put
one after the other in Freya with the more detailed analysis following after the less detailed
one. For example:
HEADWORD: andswarian(ge)
INFLECTIONAL FORMS: […] andswyrdan, andswaredon (pret. pl.);
ondswarodon, ondswaredon (pret. 3pl) […]
Inflectional class is reserved for the morphological classes of verbs, nouns and
adjectives, when they are given in the original source; i.e., strong, weak, masculine,
feminine, neuter, vocalic, consonantal, preterite-present, irregular, anomalous etc.
In References it is indicated, in the same way as an in-text reference, the surname
of the author, the year of publication and the page where the word appears. There exists an
annexe to Freya where the full reference is added. In each register, references are ordered
chronologically.
Category is selected only when the original source provides it.
Meaning is also added only when it is given by the original source. When more
than one author gives a meaning, they are ordered chronologically and expressed as in the
following example: Scragg (1992): humble.
In Notes the researcher will add all the relevant information that cannot fit in any
other field or the commentaries that the researcher has deemed convenient to add about the
register they have been editing.
32
3.3. Usefulness of the database
Having such an amount of information as Freya has makes it easier to find
everything about a word that one is looking for, presented in a structured way so that it can
be interpreted easily by anyone. The field Headword is by default where the entry form for
every word is added, similar to the entry word that one finds in a dictionary. As mentioned
before, the preferred form for a word to appear in the Headword field is the form of the
West Saxon dialect, whenever this can be established.
The field Alternative spellings is very useful to study the variation of a word in
space and time. For example, the West Saxon anda has appeared in texts with many
different spellings. These spellings are gathered in one place from the sources that have
been indexed in Freya. Thus, one can find the following alternative spellings for anda:
onda, ānda, anoþa, aneþa and onde. This information can then be analysed and interpreted
by the researcher and make a study of the expansion and evolution of this word.
Because every source where information has been indexed from is saved in the
database, the researcher will also find the references in chronological order in the box
References, and the translation of the word, whenever this is provided, in the box Meaning.
Moreover, the box Inflectional forms provides all the attested forms from the indexed
sources for the declension or conjugation of a word. For example, the verb āgyltan has the
following attested forms from its conjugation in Freya: āgyltendra, āgyltað, āgyldtæþ,
āgyltæð (pres. pl.); āgylte, āgulte (pret. 3sg.); āgulten (pret. pl.). This proves to be an
invaluable resource when it comes to having real sources to study the conjugation of a verb
or to reconstruct the non-attested forms basing one’s judgement on the already attested
forms indexed in Freya. The power of the database, in this case, lies in that all this
information is found in one place and the researcher has at hand all the data that otherwise
would be scattered in tens of works.
3.4. Searching the database
To search the database the user has several options. Each field in the layout of the
database can be used to customise the search. There is also a general search tool that allows
33
to research all Freya. Starting with a general search, the user can type a word. Once the
general search has been performed, the user may immediately find the desired word
because the search has produced only a few results, or, on the other hand, it could have
produced too many unnecessary results, or zero results.
To solve the problem of too many or too few results, the user can perform a
customised search by using the different fields of the database to search, for instance, for a
specific category of that word. If taken for example the word ar, in a general search it
produces 588 results. However, if the user wants to find all the information indexed in
Freya about this word as a noun and meaning honour, they can use the “Search mode”,
which will allow to select in the field Category “Noun”, while in translation they can write
“honour”, and in “Headword” should be written ar. After performing this search again, the
results are reduced to 3, making them more accurate. Moreover, 2 of these 3 results (ārstæf
and ārweorðnes) do not correspond to the headword ar itself, but instead they have
appeared because ar is present in their spelling. To restrict even more the search, the user
can add two equality signs behind the word (e.g. ==ar) to look for exact matches in every
field. Thence, all results that do not match exactly what is spelt in the field with equality
signs will be omitted. When using the search tool, the letters ð, þ and d are interpreted as
the same, as well as æ and ae. This allows for a fast and accurate way to find the desired
result from the more than forty thousand registers in Freya.
34
35
CHAPTER 4
Using the database
4.1. Data sources: dictionaries and glossaries
There are two main sources from which information is indexed in Freya,
dictionaries and glossaries. The Oxford Dictionary (2016) defines a glossary as “[a]n
alphabetical list of words relating to a specific subject, text, or dialect, with explanations; a
brief dictionary”, and a dictionary as “[a] book or electronic resource that lists the words of
a language (typically in alphabetical order) and gives their meaning, or gives the equivalent
words in a different language, often also providing information about pronunciation, origin,
and usage” (Ibid.). Therefore, the main difference between the two resides in that a
glossary relates to a specific text while a dictionary lists the words of a language as a
whole.
Depending on the needs of each user, a dictionary or a glossary may be more
convenient for their purposes. However, one big advantage of a glossary over a dictionary
is that the former will restrict the information it gives only to what is necessary to
understand the text that it relates to. This is essential when dealing with Old English words.
While a glossary gives less information about a word because that information is only
related to the text in the glossary, in the long run there will be more information gathered
about that word in Freya when the information from more than one glossary is indexed.
That is to say that, even if the information in one glossary is restricted to the text in that
glossary alone, when the information from various glossaries is extracted and put together,
there will be a richer source where all this information can be found. This source is Freya.
Therefore, the big advantage of glossaries is that they give very specific
information about a word in its context, and when one has many different glossaries with
information about the same word, there can be found a significantly larger amount of
information about a specific word than what it could be found in a dictionary. A glossary,
36
or more precisely many glossaries put together in one database, provide more information
about a given word than any exhaustive dictionary could give.
Freya has 21,862 registers that have come out of glossaries. This means that more
than half of the entries in Freya have also appeared in glossaries, making the indexed
information richer, insofar as these entries provide not only general information but also
information about the words in their specific contexts. Therefore, glossaries are an
indispensable source for enriching the information that one can find in Freya and providing
meaningful contexts in which these words appear.
4.2. Scragg’s Vercelli Homilies
The glossary to The Vercelli Homilies and Related Texts by Scragg (1992) was used
as a data source to elaborate this paper. Scragg is the main scholar in the study of the
Homilies and he has edited this version arguing that they appear written mostly in the late
West Saxon dialect. This has been helpful to be consistent with the stylistic norms provided
by GIGFUR (2015) in establishing the West Saxon variant of a word when creating or
updating a register and using this variant as the headword in Freya.
Regarding the Vercelli Homilies, Zacher (2009) has defined them as “one of the
most important collections of Old English poetry and anonymous prose that survives” (3).
The relevance of these texts lies in the important source that they constitute in the study of
Old English. They are located in time in the second half of the 10th century, although
Scragg (1992) argues that they could belong to some point between 959 and 988.
According to Fulk and Cain (2013), “[m]ost are sermons, though two are homilies proper
(XVI and XVII), two are largely hagiographical (XVIII and XXIII), and two (I and VI) are
chiefly close translations of scenes in the life of Christ from the gospels of John and
Pseudo-Matthew” (118). Following Scragg’s assessment, Zacher (2009) proposes a
Kentish origin for the homilies, although it is still disputed and uncertain. Krapp (1932) and
Martin (1978) (In Zacher 2009), on the other hand, have argued for Rochester as the place
of origin of the book. The authors of the homilies are unknown and it is believed that they
are several due to the variety of writing styles (Fulk and Cain 2013). Scragg (1992) has
37
observed that some present a very high degree of literary artistry, while others are mere
copies and translations of their original Latin sources. Interestingly enough, Zacher (2009)
argues that the homilies present literary devices in Old English that could have been
introduced from their original Latin sources or other vernacular languages.
Fulk and Cain (2013) believe that the homilies were composed to be read in private
in religious houses in England, and not as it may appear at first glance that they were made
to be read in mass. They explain that homilies differ from sermons in that the former
comprises descriptions of passages from the Bible and the latter “moral instruction of a
more general nature, treating of doctrine or nonscriptural narrative, exhorting the
congregation to right behavior, or explaining the liturgy and its significance” (113).
However, they also add that in Old English the two were often intermixed and, for this
reason, in present day study of Old English they are both considered homilies.
The glossary to the Vercelli Homilies by Scragg (1992) has served as a valuable
data source to index Old English words in Freya. As it was just discussed, some authors
place them in time at the end of the 10th century and argue for a possible Kentish origin, but
they also say that the homilies use predominantly the West Saxon dialect. This is an
important feature that contributes to the thorough attestation of Old English West Saxon
variant and, as Zacher (2009) and Fulk and Cain (2013) point out, it is one of the most, if
not the most, important sources of Old English prose and poetry that survives. Szarmach
(2009) notes the importance of the homilies for the study of Old English for its early
chronological composition and lesser influence from language contact, and Scragg notes its
importance as a pre-Conquest work. The Vercelli Book is also important for the variety of
styles, prose and poetry, that it has, which cannot be found that easily in one single work in
Old English. Moreover, the Vercelli Book influenced the writing styles of later prose
writers (Ibid.), and for that, it is of crucial importance to have such a work indexed in
Freya, for it will provide not only lexical data but also a reference of where to find these
data in context.
The glossary per se consists of 69 pages, excluding the 4 pages of explanations and
abbreviations used in it. The author explains in the preface that he has not meant to give
etymological information such as vowel length or references to the Oxford English
Dictionary. The glossary is primarily a word list because it centres in the analysis of the
38
lexicon rather than in its etymology. However, this analysis is exhaustive only in the cases
that the author considers problematic.
4.3. Structuring of the glossary
In terms of the structuring of the glossary, Scragg explains that, to complete the
lexicon, he has also included the words that have been emended out of the text. The
nominative singular masculine is used to list lemmas for nouns, the infinitive for verbs,
even when they do not appear in the text because, he explains, it is the clearest way to deal
with the multiplicity of forms. This corresponds with the guidelines provided by GIGFUR
(2015) and it has made the indexing of Scragg’s glossary in Freya easier. For alternative
spellings within the text, he has used four examples of every spelling. Moreover, he has
used different sigla to denote special forms. An asterisk (*) is used to mark an editorial
emendation, as for example in *antimber or *antodælan. A cross sign (†) is used to
indicate a form that the editor believes to be wrong, even if it appears as such in the
original manuscript and may as well be a correct Old English word. This is the case, for
example, of †cynsende or †embeðwyrað. The sigil + marks the many words and
signification that are specific to Scragg’s edition of the homilies. For example, +doxian or
+deofelgast.
In terms of signification, Scragg claims that he has not attempted to give an
exhaustive list of all the meanings of words of frequent occurrence but rather only a help to
identify them. As it was argued before, the sum of the different glossaries that are being
indexed in Freya adds up to the final product that the database aims to become. Thus,
Scragg’s contributions, despite his claim of non-exhaustive list of meanings for a single
word, enrich greatly the database. In the same line, he has provided in many cases,
whenever he has identified a close source, the Latin corresponding word to the Old English
one in inverted commas because, as he says “it is often more interesting to note how an
Anglo-Saxon translated Latin than to search for a modern equivalent for this word” (1992,
p. 406). For the alphabetisation of the glossary, he regards æ as a separate grapheme and he
lists it between a and b. The grapheme ð stands for both ð and þ in the text and he has
39
placed it between t and u. Regarding the ge- prefix, he disregards it initially, but not
medially.
Generally speaking, the glossary and the database have many tangent points in the
stylistic norms they follow. The both prefer the West Saxon variant as the entry word. In
terms of the abbreviations they use, they coincide in most cases where there are two words
the same that can be abbreviated in the glossary and the database. Exceptions are
interjection (inter. in the database – interj. in the glossary), noun (n. – nn), subjunctive
(subj. - sbj), superlative (superl. - spl) and vocative (voc. – v). In the glossary, nouns are
marked with the initial of their gender; for example “ansyn f.” is a feminine noun. A
difference in the stylistic norms between the database and the glossary is found in the
marking of strong and weak verbs. In the glossary strong verbs are marked with Arabic
numbers; for example “cuman 4”; and weak verbs with Roman numbers; for example
“bedigligan II”. In the database this is marked in the opposite way; strong verbs are marked
with Roman numbers and weak verbs with Arabic numbers. Therefore, extreme care was
taken when indexing verbs to not confuse their class from the glossary in the database or be
misled by the reverse marking of strong and weak verbs. There are, however, dubious cases
of verbs that some authors analyse as strong and others as weak. This is the case, for
example, of verbs such as sċeþþan or bringan. Scragg (1992, p. 418) says that bringan is a
weak verb from the first class but Liuzza (2011, p. 257) sees it as a strong verb. In these
cases, the information from both glossaries is collected in the same register once it has been
established that they are the same verb. For this reason, in some registers in Freya there can
appear to be contradictory information in the same field, but it is in fact the different
attestations that various authors have encountered of the same word. The case of sċeþþan is
even more interesting because the same author gives the two classes of strong and weak as
they have observed it (see for example Krapp 1929, p. 323). This register will appear thus:
40
4.4. The Vercelli Homilies on the Freya database
Working on the database with the glossary to the homilies requires utmost attention
and precision to avoid mistakes, for they are very difficult to identify and rectify once a
register is saved. Therefore, working on Freya requires a significant amount of time. At the
moment of writing this paper, 1,107 entries from the glossary have been indexed in Freya.
In terms of statistics, 596 of these entries are verbs, 269 nouns, 104 adjectives, 46 adverbs,
and the remaining 92 belong to other categories such as prepositions, articles, pronouns etc.
When indexing verbs, most often than not one will find several registers that may
correspond to the search that has been performed. This means that in some cases finding
the right register to which a word from the glossary corresponds is an arduous work,
especially if the analysis of the words or alternative spellings are similar. A good example
is the verb scyrpan. There is a register in Freya with a headword sċierpan and an
alternative spelling scyrpan. Schuldt (1905) and Hedberg (1945), indexed in this register,
translate it in PDE as sharpen. However, Scragg’s glossary gives two separate entries for
scyrpan and neither of them (dress and incite) corresponds with the translations provided
by Schuldt (1905) and Hedberg (1945). Furthermore, they do not give any morphological
analysis of the words, making it more challenging to establish whether they are the same
words as Scragg’s or different. This register appears in Freya as follows:
41
To resolve this and avoid further confusion, a new register was created for each
entry that Scragg gives. In the glossary, the entries appear thus:
In both instances, the verbs present the same analysis, weak verbs of the 1st class,
and both present the same orthography. Yet Scragg lists them as different words, not as two
meanings of the same word. Because neither of them relates to Schuldt’s (1905) and
Hedberg’s (1945) translation, not even by semantic relation, they need a separate register
for each one of them. Therefore, one of the registers will look thus:
42
And the following one thus:
When it comes to more complicated verbs, those with multiple inflectional forms
provided in the glossary, as is the case of ongitan, once the right register is found, all of the
forms are included in it. As a means of example, Scragg provides the following information
about ongitan:
Once this information is indexed in Freya, along with the already existing
information from other sources, it will appear as follows (only part of all the information in
this register is shown):
43
44
4.5. Challenges of working on the database
Indexing a glossary in such a database as is Freya is a highly complex task if taken
into account the responsibility that lies in the person performing the task. This
responsibility comes from the fact that each register in Freya, whenever it is being edited,
can be easily damaged by negligence or inattention. Because every register is automatically
saved whenever the user makes changes without the need to press a “Save” button, extreme
care should be taken not to delete information in any of the fields of a register. If this
happens, the information from the register is lost forever. A small chance exists to revert
this step by pressing Ctrl + Z if the user has not clicked outside of the field that was being
edited. Each of the 40,882 registers that exists in Freya contains extremely valuable
information that, if lost, may be lost forever. In a register such as beon, for example, there
are 50 references in the field “References”. This means that 50 sources have been consulted
to gather all the information that this register has. Therefore, losing this register in part or
in whole would mean losing several years of work dedicated to it. A register as complete as
beon looks thus (only a section of all the register is shown):
Working on the database can be done in two different ways. On the one hand, a
registered user can have access to edit and update the database from an internet browser.
45
This makes it very convenient to work from any place as long as one has internet
connection and a supported browser. On the other hand, there is the option of working on
the database from the University of La Rioja. This option also requires permission to
access the database and its convenience lies in that the editing is done from the program
itself, rather than from a web browser, which makes the work more efficient.
The program used during the writing of this paper was FileMaker Pro 14 Advanced
on three different operating systems: Apple OS X, Windows 7 and Windows 10.
Additionally, the database was also accessed using the web browser option from
Firefox 46, Internet Explorer 11, Opera 33, Google Chrome 46 and Safari 9. Until
November 2015, accessing Freya from an internet browser allowed work on the database
using an older version of FileMaker. Until then, working with the web browser allowed to
make all the edits in a register that the user wanted and after that they needed to click a
“Save” button to save all the changes. After the update of November 2015, the edits that
the user makes are automatically saved while the user is working on the register. This
presents a twofold challenge: on the one hand, the changes are automatically saved, even
when the user commits an error and/or by mistake deletes information. In the previous
version, this changes could be undone or directly discarded by not clicking the “Save”
button. In the current version, if the user makes a mistake this is automatically saved in the
database. On the other hand, the continuous automatic saving of all the changes the user
makes slows down the program, because the browsers cannot keep up with the constant
saving of changes. Every letter that is typed in any of the fields is considered a change.
Therefore, every computer key that the user presses is detected by the program as a change
that needs to be saved. When the browser cannot keep up it with the constant saving of
changes it blocks and it needs to be restarted.
From all the internet browsers that were tested, only Safari showed the capacity of
being able to keep up with the constant saving. No other browser could do so and,
therefore, it rendered impossible working on the database from a web browser using the
updated version. Furthermore, Apple discontinued its support of Safari for Windows in
2012 (Verry 2012), making it more challenging for Windows users to access the database
from a reliable web browser that does not block. Therefore, to access the database presently
from a web browser, it is recommended an Apple OS X and a Safari 9 web browser or
46
higher. To access the database from FileMaker Pro 14 Advanced, tests were made using
Windows 7, Windows 10 and Apple OS X. All three operating systems presented no
problems to run the database.
47
CHAPTER 5
Conclusions
One of the main conclusions that can be drawn from the work on the database is
that it is an invaluable tool in the study of Old English in all its aspects. Although this
paper has focused on the inflectional morphology of the Old English verb, the possibilities
that Freya gives to study other aspects of Old English were also briefly mentioned.
Freya is part of the bigger Nerthus Project that is being developed in the
Department of Modern Languages at the University of La Rioja and it has extensive
research done hitherto, papers delivered at conferences and lectures, whether dealing
explicitly with the database or involving the use of it. While it is still being developed and
updated, it is becoming an exhaustive database where a considerable amount of
information can be found in one place for a single Old English word.
Some of the most challenging aspects that one can find from working on the
database are, on the one hand, deciding whether the information being indexed is put into
the right register or not and, on the other, being extremely careful not to alter registers by
mistake, because these changes might be irreversible and invaluable information may be
lost. To solve the first challenge, if more than one register appears in the results when
deciding where to index an entry from the glossary, all the results were examined one by
one and those that did not correspond with what was being sought were discarded until the
results were narrowed down. When discarding was difficult and more than one register
appeared appropriate for a word from the glossary to be indexed, additional sources such as
the Dictionary of Old English and the Nerthus database were consulted to clarify doubts.
Once this was done and the right register was found, the information from the glossary was
indexed. However, if the doubts could not be solved after consulting several additional
sources, the solution was to make a new independent register for the challenging entries
that did not fit into any of the already existing registers in Freya.
To solve the second big challenge, being careful not to alter registers by mistake,
one needs to be aware that if they click outside of the field in Freya that they are editing,
the changes cannot be undone. Therefore, it is important to revise all the information that
48
has just been indexed in any given field before clicking outside of it. This is so because, if a
mistake was made, the user can undo all the changes by pressing Ctrl+Z, but only if they
have not clicked outside of the field being edited.
Being part of the development of Freya teaches, on the one hand, awareness of such
a unique language as is Old English. Although it has heavily evolved to become what
constitutes PDE, Old English is at the core of English language today and a reference for
English philologists. Moreover, this database raises awareness about the difficulty of
analysing and classifying attested words from original sources. As it was discussed in
Chapter 1, the difficulties of documenting Old English are great and the sources that exist
are scarce. Therefore, working on a database of Old English teaches to appreciate the effort
of Anglo-Saxonists to study the core of English language, because it requires working with
real sources. This allows also to experience the language from close because it gives a real
purpose to use it. In this case, the purpose is to work in an established group with set goals
of what needs to be achieved. The aim is a database that will allow present and future
researchers to find a rich source of sources, a place where all the important information
about a single Old English word can be found together. This will allow for a thorough
study of a morpheme, lexeme, syllable, word or even sentence or discourse if a word is
traced in its context. For this reason, Freya is becoming an important database that will be
of immensurable help to anyone who wants and knows how to use it.
49
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