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The Syntax of the, and oe þon Mā þe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

George William Small
George William Small*
Affiliation:
University of Maine
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Extract

The remarkable construction referred to in the title, þon mā þe, þon lēofre þe, etc., was first studied by the present writer in a previous article (MLN XLI, 300-313). There, by bringing together some twenty occurrences from different OE writings, prose and poetry both early and late, it was shown that the construction was something more than the sporadic expression it had previously been thought to be. Its wide-spread use in OE and the fact that different adjectives and adverbs occurred in the construction (e.g. nēar, lēofre, betran, swīður, ēð, etc.) showed that it was not confined to one time or one place or one writer. So far as the evidence in that article went the construction was used as a subordinate conjunction equivalent to than in the comparison of inequality, following only negative main clauses.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 45 , Issue 2 , June 1930 , pp. 368 - 391
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1930

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References

1 For convenience the whole construction will be referred to as þon mā þe, although any adjective or adverb may stand in place of mā.

2 The present compilation embraces the occurrences presented in the former article, and is therefore complete in itself.

3 Klaeber, in his edition of Beowulf, p. 382, favors a causal relationship here, “because death seized him.” Both are possible translations of the particle, but the context seems decidedly to call for the temporal shade of meaning. Some translators have read a touch of Germanic humor (!) into these lines, but it clearly means that as death seized him the creature was slower and slower in his swimming.

A Bibliographical Table of Texts Cited

Subordinate Clause of Inequality After

4 Morphologically agan at the period of this MS might stand for either indicative or subjunctive; but because of the consistent distinction between — on of the verb of the main clause and — an of the verb of the subordinate clause, I am inclined to believe that the forms, agan and witan, are meant in these cases to be subjunctive (optative).

5 See the present writer's Comparison of Inequality (Johns Hopkins) 1924, Chap. I.

6 See the discussion of the syntax below; also compare Delbrück, PBB. 29, 285, and Small, Germanic Case of Comparison (LSA. Mono. IV) Chap. V, §§5-9.

7 Care must be taken to distinguish the true verb of the subordinate clause from the verb of a clause within the clause. Often the latter may be taken for the true verb of the subordinate clause when the former has been omitted. The difficulty is illustrated above under II, B: Ælf. Lives 518, 512; Martyr. 214, 12; 218, 8.

8 Scholars in the field of English linguistics look forward with interest to the appearance of a comprehensive treatise on the whole phenomenon of the subjunctive now in the course of preparation by Professor Morgan Callaway, Jr.

9 Such general interpretations serve to indicate the approximate function with sufficient accuracy for the translator, but are of little value in the study of syntax.

10 The two or three times in all the Old English literature when þe is clearly a writing for þonne are undoubtedly scribal errors (cf. MLN 41, 302, n. 2). I doubt if anyone, in view of the vast number of occurrences of þonne as the particle of comparison in OE, would maintain that these two or three chance writings in late MSS indicate an idiomatic use of the relative particle as a free substitute for the conjunction of inequality. From a recent reading of all the extant OE writings I am convinced that the particle, þe, never at any time embraced the meaning or function of the subordinate conjunction of comparison, þonne.

11 Similar formations were þœs līcost þe (= “as”), þē g$yMt þe (= “until”), þā þrāge þe (= “while”), and we also find swā as the subordinating particle in many of these unwieldy conjunctions. For a succinct statement of this doctrine, see my Comparison of Inequality (Johns Hopkins, 1924) Appendix A, and B.

12 A blending or crossing of the two constructions, þon mā þe and the regular mā þonne is occasionally found in OE in the form of þon mā þonne.

Meters of Boethius 14, 10:

Ne mot he þara hyrsta hionane lædan

of þisse worulde wuhte þon mare

hordgestreona þonne he hiðer brohte.

“He cannot carry hence from this world any more of those treasures than he brought hither.”

Altogether in the extant OE only four other occurrences of this blending have been encountered, and it cannot be considered idiomatic. Compare Beowulf 505; Azarias 86; Soul and Body 52; Orosius (Sweet) 260, 28. Delbrück, þan und Verwandtes, P.B.B. 29, 285 f., notices two occurrences of this construction. He analyzes it as a redundant expression in which þonne repeats the sense of the preceding demonstrative þon, which he interprets as the case of comparison complete in itself meaning “than that.” þonne thus picks up the reference in the preceding þon and makes it specific by introducing the definite basis of comparison.

The present interpretation agrees with that of Delbrück but goes further by showing that the construction is a blending and by showing how it probably originated. Delbrück did not recognize our complete construction, þon mā þe, although he was quite familiar with the first part of it. It is a fact that in all the examples of this “blending” some part of the context stands between the first part, þon mā (þon lēofre, etc.) and the second part, which should be the particle, þe. The speaker begins with the full construction þon mā pe in mind, but upon becoming separated from the first part by the context he loses the connection somewhat and falls back unnecessarily on the regular þonne construction.

13 O. Johnsen, ES 44, 212 ff., notices the emphatic and meaningful quality of þ$yM plus comparative all through English. But he does not go deeply enough in his analysis to see that originally the demonstrative pronoun stood in the true case of comparison, and that this relationship has to a great extent survived to give the idiom its peculiar force in contemporary English.

14 B. Delbrück, Vergleichende Syntax der Indogermanischen Sprachen, I, §125; and þan und Verwandtes in P.B.B. 29, 285-6.

15 J. Schmidt, Die Pluralbildungen der indogermanischen Neutra, Weimer, 1889, p. 131.

16 R. Pischel und K. F. Geldner, Vedische Studien, Stuttgart, 1889+, I, 309.

17 The Germanic Case of Comparison, Language Monograph IV, Linguistic Society of America, 1929.

18 H. W. Fowler, A Dictionary of Modern Usage, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1926.

19 P. Fijn von Draat, Review of the above, Engl. Stud. 63, 83.

20 It does not occur to Mr. Fowler that the explanation for the illogicality which his fine discrimination has pointed out might be revealed in the history of the construction. When “impression” fails he has no other resource.

21 There is one other OE subordinate conjunction that is based upon a comparative adverb, and which in form and function exactly parallels the construction that is the subject of this article, namely, sīþ þan þe, “after,” “since.” The form, sīþ, is a comparative meaning “later,” having developed regularly from Com. Gmc. *sīpiz, (= Go. seiþs). The semantic base of the conjunction, since, is therefore “later than that, namely, . . . .” In ME this conjunction survived in the abbreviated form, siþþen, sithen, with later addition of the adverbial -es: sithenes, sins, since.

22 No doubt, this comparative always overlapped semantically the positive degree; for, early itself always implies a comparison. It signifies a point of time sooner and earlier than usual, and the comparative provides a more emphatic way of saying the same thing. This phenomenon is of frequent occurrence in Vulgar Latin where, in the striving after emphasis, comparative forms are often used in place of the expected positive. It is technically an elative use of the comparative, and results inevitably in the weakening of the force of the comparative and the formation of a new double comparative to take its place. Late Lat. fēmina senior = ; and with doubling, magis senior, magis māior, plūs levior, etc.

23 For a discussion of r in its comparative function, see the writer's Germanic Case of Comparison, LSA. Mono. IV, Chap. II, §2.

24 Once only the form, þon r þe, occurs in the function of a subordinate conjunction. The context in this case seems to demand the comparison of equality, but in my opinion this is an example of the use of the comparison of inequality to heighten the effect of equality, which is quite a natural tendency in language. Alfred's Boethius (Sedgefield) 25, 18: Ac ic eow mæg mid feawum wordum gereccan hwæt se hrof is ealra gesælða; wið þas ic wat þu wilt higian þon r þe ðu hine ongitest. “But I can explain to you in a few words what the summit of all happiness is; towards this I know you will wish to strive even before you understand its meaning.”

The Latin is of no assistance here, since the OE sentence is an interpolation. (Cf. also ibid. 49, 27 where r figures in a construction somewhat similar, which is also interpolated.) All translators and editors read þon r þe in the sense of “as soon as;” Sedgefield so glosses it, p. 210. Although “as soon as” conveys the approximate meaning, it misses a delicate point of syntax by bridging the context without taking into account the elements of the conjunction itself. þon r þe is by no means the ordinary expression for “as soon as,” nor is þon · · · þe ever used with positives. þon r þe is a comparative expression, and the author who used it deliberately intensified and enriched the sentence. He was playing with syntax, and playing skilfully. If þon r þe is to be interpreted “as soon as,” it has quite different connotations from the usual sōna swā, or the correlative, þā · · · þā.

25 The question of a possible distinction in function arising out of the different positions of þon in r þon þe and þon mā þe does not enter the discussion, because in OE the case of comparison is just as idiomatic before the comparative adverb or adjective as after it. Compare Elene 565, stāne heardran, “harder than stone,” and OE Bede (EET. 95) p. 296, 31, þm līchoman lengre, “longer than the body,” with Panther 24, nlīcra ōþrum, “more splendid than the others,” and Past. Care (EET. 45) p. 114, 23, betran ōðrum gōdum monnum, “better than other good men.”