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The concessive relation, as such, does not determine mode. In the case of certain constructions, such as indefinite concessions, modes vary; in the case of others, such as the deah-clause and the inverted clause, the mode is practically fixed; with others still, such as concessive relative and temporal clauses, mode is determined by other considerations, without reference to the concessive meaning given them..

With respect to word-order, the study of concessive constructions can add little of importance to the conclusions of Smith.1 Two facts, however, are noticeable. In cases of a double predicate in deah-clauses, there is a fairly strong tendency to turn from the transposed to the direct order, as in the following passage: LS. 1. 34. 161 þeah de þu wifes bruce and blysse on life. There is also a tendency to place substantive duet-clauses dependent upon a deah-clause after the rest of the clause, even when, apart from the dat-clause, the concession has the transposed order.

As to the placing of clauses within the sentence, Old English was very flexible. Subordinate concessive clauses of all kinds may stand either before or after the main clause, or, less often, within it.

The use of tenses in Old English is, in general, dependent upon actual relations of time, and not upon purely grammatical considerations. As a rule, then, the tense of the subordinate concessive clause agrees with that of the principal clause, for they usually have to do with the same time. When there is departure from this rule, it is usually because of an actual difference in the time of the two facts mentioned, as

The Order of Words in Anglo-Saxon Prose. 2 Cf. Adams, p. 159.

in this example: Bo. 76. 9 he bið anfeald untodæled, þeah he ær on mænig tonemned wære.

Another fact of interest is the great number of correlative constructions of one kind and another possessed by Old English, and employed in concessions: deah with its correlative adverbs, sam ... sam, the disjunctive inverted clause, and the various correlative constructions with swa-disjunctive clauses, definite and indefinite clauses of degree, and the progressive construction.

II

Passing from the form of the sentence in general to the separate constructions which have been studied, I will recapitulate briefly some of the more salient results.

1. The affinity between causal and concessive constructions is close in Old English, as is shown by the use of for in both senses, and by the use of causal adverbs in intimate combination with concessive clauses.

2. The concessive relation is often marked, not only by the connectives used, but also by contrasting abverbs of time, demonstrative pronouns, emphatic adjectives, or other antithetical expressions.

3. An adversative to a concessive clause or a clause concessively used almost never precedes it.

4. The deah-clause, while retaining its concessive force, may be substantive.

5. Several uses of deah are highly idiomatic, especially the nan wundor deah and the nat deah constructions.

6. Sam . . . sam, though surviving into Middle English, disappears almost entirely from the literature after the time of Alfred.

7. The disjunctive question formed with hwæder .. de or hwæðer . . . hwæðer is not used concessively in Old English prose.

8. The antiquity of some locutions which are still or have recently been in use is a matter of interest. Shakespeare's 'No marvel though' has its exact prototype in Old English. Other modern usages which can be traced to Old English are the concessive use of for, the employment of all as a strengthening particle with for or though, the phrase never so, the comparative phrase nevertheless, the use of definite as with an adjective or adverb, and the progressive construction with the . . . the.

9. Though there is considerable Latin influence upon the concessive expression of Old English, as in the relative clause containing an adversative, the use of the concessive period with witodlice, and the occasional use of absolute and appositive participles, the independence of the native idiom is marked. This independence is exemplified in the persistent use of the optative with deah, no matter what the Latin constrution rendered, in the use of the indefinite swa ... swa with adjectives quite independently of the corresponding Latin idiom, and in the frequent substitution of full clauses for absolute and appositive constructions.

Our study has led to one or two conclusions which, in view of the general tendencies of language, would not have been foreseen: the small use of conditional constructions in Old English to express concession; and the use of the inverted concessive clause only in the disjunctive form, with a beginning of the simple form growing out of the use of odde. It is noteworthy also that the prose texts offer very little material for the tracing of hypotactic from paratactic forms. Unskilfully as the earlier prose-writers sometimes

handled language, they possessed already the essential hypotactic constructions of Old English, such as the Jeah-clause and the constructions with swa. And it is in the Blickling Homilies and the Peterborough Chronicle, both later texts, that we find some of the most striking examples of crude structure.

III

Finally, the constructions which have been analyzed illustrate in several respects the intellectual processes involved in speech. We have seen grammatical 'contamination,' which is a matter of association of ideas, exemplified in the coördination, whether in parallel clauses or within a subordinate clause, of ideas bearing a different logical relation to the sentence as a whole. We have seen it also in the mingling of related constructions expressing the same idea, such as the swæder-clause and the inverted disjunctive clause. The fluidity of language, again, its unconscious adaptation to the needs of the speaker, is illustrated by the diverse forms assumed by the swader-construction, and by the gradations from hortatory to concessive meaning in the case of the indefinite clause. A kindred phenomenon is the use of a clause in a double sense, as temporal-concessive. The growth of sentences in which one idea enters because suggested by another is illustrated by conditional clauses to which concessive meaning is given by the later part of the sentence. Further, among coördinate sentences can be found many examples of the adding of thought to thought with only the vaguest indication of relationship between them.

APPENDIX I.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

The list includes only works which have actually been consulted and have been found of some value.

A. Bibliographies.

ADAMS, A. The Syntax of the Temporal Clause in Old
English Prose, pp. 233-236. New York, 1907.

CHASE, F. H. A Bibliographical Guide to Old English
Syntax. Leipsic, 1896.

Cook, A. S. A First Book in Old English, pp. 235–243.
Boston, 1900.

PAUL, H.

Grundriss der Germanischen Philologie, 2d

ed., Vol. 3. Strassburg, 1909.

ZEITLIN, J. Accusative with Infinitive and some Kindred
Constructions in English. New York, 1908.

B. General Theory.

MORRIS, E. P. On Principles and Methods in Latin
Syntax. New York, 1901.

OERTEL, HANNS. Lectures on the Study of Language.
New York, 1901.

RIES, J. Was ist Syntax? Marburg, 1894.

C. Latin and Greek.

BURTON, E. D. Syntax of the Moods and Tenses in New
Testament Greek. Chicago, 1909.

DELBRÜCK, B., und WINDISCH, D. Syntaktische For-
schungen. 5 vols. Halle, 1871-78.

DRAEGER, A. Historische Syntax der Lateinischen Sprache.
2 vols. Leipsic, 1878.

HALE, W. G. The Cum-constructions: their History and
Functions. (Cornell University Studies in Classical
Philology 1.) Ithaca, 1887-89.

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