background: Cod. Sang. 12, pp. 156-7, Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen / Codices Electronici Sangallenses

Material for the grammar test

[download pdf]

Mon 6 Dec 2010

• f01a:
  • a very general understanding of the Indo-European language family (slides, p. 2)
  • a detailed understanding of the Germanic language family (slides, p. 3)
  • a knowledge of the beginning and end of Old English as a spoken and written language (slides, p. 10)
  • the importance of inflection to the workings of Old English (§§10–14 and slides, pp. 7–9)
• f01b:
  • a knowledge of which Old English monophthongs are produced in what part of the mouth, and how they relate to modern English vowels (slides, p. 5, and §§7–8, 27–32)
  • the functions of the cases in Old English, by name and use (slides, pp. 10–14, and §§188–192; pay close attention to the example sentences!)
• f01c:
  • the paradigms of the demonstrative, personal, and interrogative pronouns (§§15–21)
  • the paradigms for weak nouns (§§22–25)
  • the distinction between weak and strong for verbs, nouns, and adjectives (slides, pp. 10–11, and §§64, 87)
• f02a:
  • the strong noun paradigms for stān, scip, word, giefu, and lār (§§33–34, 47–48);
• f02b:
  • a passive knowledge of the variants of stān-nouns, including the recognition that
    1. short neuter monosyllables add u in nom./acc. plural (§34)
    2. æ is sometimes a when followed by a back vowel (§36)
    3. -h disappears between voiced sounds (§§37-39)
    4. in certain words, -u is -w- before vowels (§40)
    5. medial vowels sometimes disappear (§42)
    6. neuter dissyllable nouns decline like either word or scip following a complex set of rules the details of which you do not have to know (§43; for all these phenomena see also slides, but don't memorize the rules in more detail than the summary on slide 12)
• f02c:
  • an understanding of where in the noun phrase adjectives are strong and where weak (slides, pp. 2–4)
  • the paradigms for weak and strong adjectives (§§65–66 and slides, pp. 5–8)
  • a passive understanding of the stem changes that affect adjectives (§§67–76 and slides, pp. 9–11)
  • be able to recognize comparative and superlative adjectives, including the irregulars (§§74–76 and slides, pp. 12–14)
  • for your own benefit, you will want to familiarize yourself with the correspondences in declension between the various nominal parts of speech (noun, pronoun, adjective) (§§77–81 and slides, pp. 15–17)
• f03a:
  • an understanding of the differences between strong, weak, and irregular verbs (slides, p. 2)
  the ability to recognize the person, number, tense, and mood of a verb (esp. §§ 111–113 and slides, pp. 3–9; also see slides f03b and f04c)
  • the ability to reproduce the full paradigm of bēon (§§127) and recognize its various forms
• f03b:
  • a general understanding of the stem changes occurring in weak verbs and the role therein of i-mutation (§§117 and slides, pp. 6–10)
  • the paradigm for fremman (§116 and slides, p. 4)
• f03c:
  • a familiarity with the seven classes of strong verbs: be able to recognize any verb following the basic vowel gradation series of classes 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6 (whether or not contained on one of the verb handouts) given the second through fourth principal parts by reducing them to their infinitive forms and giving the class number (§94, list of straightforward strong verbs of classes 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6, and slides, p. 5)
  • given the infinitive of any verb from the strong verb cheatsheet, be prepared to give a Modern English translation
  • be able to explain in general outline the concepts of grammatical alternation, Grimm's Law, and Verner's Law, and how they relate to one another (slides, pp. 13–15, and §105–107)
• f04a:
  • the ability to distinguish between strong and weak verbs based on single preterite and participial forms as well as present-tense i-mutation (slides, pp. 2–3, 5–6)
  • the ability to recognize and correctly translate the anomalous verbs bēon, dōn, gān, and willan in any form (slides, pp. 12–15, and §§127–129)
• f04b:
  • the ability to recognize and correctly translate the Old English modal auxiliaries in any form (slides, pp. 2–5, and §§206–211)
• f05b:
  • the ability to tell adverbs from adjectives (where possible) in all degrees of comparison (slides, esp. pp. 6–7)
  • the ability to recognize and correctly translate numerals from one up to and including ten (§§82–86, and slides, pp. 9–11)
• f05c:
  • the ability to recognize and correctly translate common prepositions in context, including the different senses of motion-dependent prepositions (slides, pp. 2–3, 5–6, 8, and §§213–214)
• f06a:
  • a general understanding of the order of the main syntactic elements in both headclauses and subclauses (slides, esp. p. 4, and only the main points of §143–147)
  • the ability to recognize common points of Old English word order, namely anticipatory and recapitulatory pronouns, split subjects, and conjunction–adverb correlation (§§ 148–153 and slides, pp. 5–6)
• plus:
  • the first five pages of the In Parentheses vocabulary
  • the ability to conjugate scīnan, crēopan, and brūcan in the indicative mood (strong verb conjugation handout)

If that looks overwhelming, don't panic. Essentially, you will need to learn most of the material you prepared for the weekly quizzes and a little more. You will be required to write out some paradigms and parse some verbs and noun phrases in isolation or in context, but you may also get the occasional theoretical grammar question (e.g. "give one example of the effects of i-mutation in nouns, and one in verbs"). However, most points will be awarded for practical grammar (parsing and paradigms) and vocabulary. You will not have to memorize the vowel gradation of all the verbs on the strong verb cheatsheet; instead, you will focus on the regular gradation of classes 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6 as represented by the list of straightforward strong verbs of those classes (see under f03c above).

Thus although you should be prepared to demonstrate your knowledge of all aspects of the language listed above, above all you should be able to

• parse verbs and noun phrases, both in and out of context;
• write out paradigms for the most important pronouns, nouns, and verbs, and for the adjectives;
• translate verbs and other vocabulary items.