Re: Ungrammaticalization?

On Mon, 19 Jul 1999, Tom Wier wrote:

> Christophe Grandsire wrote:
>=20
> > >"[H]e axed after eggys: And the goode wyf answerde, that she coude not
> > >speke no Frenshe ... And then at last a nother sayd that he woulde hau=
e
> > >hadde eyren: then the goode wyf sayd that she vnderstood hym wel." --
> >
> >         Wow! Is that Old English or simply messed up English written bi=
zarrely?
>=20
> No, it's Middle English.  The irony is that even though spoken Middle Eng=
lish
> would be basicly unintelligible to the modern English speaker, Chaucer an=
d Caxton
> can still be studied in the original with only a little help because Engl=
ish spelling is
> so, well, "conservative" (to be nice about it) -- it hasn't fundamentally=
 changed
> since 1485 or so.
>=20
> Here're the first few lines from Beowulf (Old English) for comparison:
>=20
>      Hw=E6t! We Gardena         in geardagum,
>      =FEeodcyninga,         =FErym gefrunon,
>      hu =F0a =E6=FEelingas         ellen fremedon.
>      Oft Scyld Scefing         scea=FEena =FEreatum,
>      monegum m=E6g=FEum,         meodosetla ofteah,
>      egsode eorlas.         Sy=F0=F0an =E6rest wear=F0
>      feasceaft funden,         he =FE=E6s frofre gebad,
>      weox under wolcnum,         weor=F0myndum =FEah,
>      o=F0=FE=E6t him =E6ghwylc         =FEara ymbsittendra
>      ofer hronrade         hyran scolde,
>      gomban gyldan.         =FE=E6t w=E6s god cyning!
>      [...]
>=20
I just finished studying this for a year.  I can't believe how much I
remember:

Behold!  We from the spear-danes in days of yore
of the glory of kings, hear
How the princes framed courage.

I think my favorite bit of the poem is "He bit bone-joints, drank blood
from veins."

Consider OE more like German than English.  I'ts got a heavily inflected
case system, grammatical gender up the yahoo, no marked future tense (at
this point, "willan" means "to want to"), and more strong verbs than you
can throw a Klaeber at.

--Patrick