A conjunction is a word that joins other words or phrases together. They can either be co-ordinating, subordinate, or correlative. Like in Present-day English, conjunctions do not change depending on gender, count, case, or strength. Some conjunctions may have multiple spellings due to pronunciation variation, but the meaning remains the same.
These are conjunctions which join words, phrases, or clauses of equal value.
For example, in the sentence I walked through the forest and the town, the conjunction and is co-ordinating as it joins the noun phrases the forest and the town. It would translate to and or ond.
These are conjunctions which join words, phrases, or clauses of unequal value.
In the sentence if they hear, you will die, if is a subordinate conjunction. It translates to gif.
These are conjunctions which typically appear in pairs and are used to show how words, phrases, or clauses within a sentence relate to each other. For example, not only will they stand, but also fight relates the two verbs stand and fight within the sentence. The correlative conjunction not only… but also… would translate to nā þæt ān... ac ēac swilce.
There may be more than one conjunction within a single sentence. For example, when the cold wind bites and the fire will not burn, both the men and the women will freeze contains subordinate, co-ordinating, and correlative conjunctions.
when (subordinate): þā
and (co-ordinating): ond
both ... and (correlative): ǣgðer ... ge
Determiners modify a noun to provide clarity regarding what it refers to. In Present-day English, we have several different types of determiners: articles (the/an/an), possessive determiners (his/hers/theirs), demonstratives (that/those), and quantifiers (one/seven/thousands).
For example, a noun phrase could be the big cow, which has the determiner the within it. Alternatively, the noun phrase could be that big cow, which has the determiner that instead to refer to a specific cow within the context of the situation.
In Old English, determiners still function in the same way, but there is a greater variety because they are gendered, case based, and count based, and must have concord with the noun that they are modifying.
For example, if we wanted to translation the noun phrase the king laughed into OE, then we would have to establish the gender, case, and count of the noun. The OE noun cyning (king) is masculine, so we must also use a masculine determiner. In this instance, the noun is singular and in the nominative case, as it is the subject of the sentence. Therefore, if we wanted to translate the noun phrase the king then we would have to use the masculine, singular, nominative determiner se, giving us the translation se cyning. When you translate a noun to OE using this website, the paradigm table will provide the correct article meaning the/this for singular nouns, and this/these for plural nouns with the noun, but you would need to select your own translation if you require an alternative determiner.
It's important to remember that Old English did not have a word for our indefinite article (a/an). If you want to translate a noun phrase containing this, then you would simply not use a determiner.
For example, a girl walked would just be mǣgþ ēode as opposed to if your intended sentence was the girl walked, which would be seo mǣgþ ēode.
There are two types of numerals, both in Old English and Present-day English: cardinal and ordinal.
Cardinal: Cardinal numbers show ‘how many’ of something - for example seven secrets (seofon diernu).
Ordinal: Ordinal numbers show the order of things; they show position or rank of the noun they are attached to. For example, first child (forma bearn).
Unlike adjectives, ordinal and cardinal numbers do not need to agree with the noun they are associated with.
Prepositions in Old English work in a similar way to how they work in Present-day English: they appear before nouns to tell us something about where the noun is (e.g. in, on, under), or to express some other relationship between that noun and the clause more broadly (e.g. with, for, about).
Examples in PDE include:
1. The horse with the big head
2. The farmer is in the house
3. Ethel ran into the town
4. She walked through the village
In each example, the preposition is in bold and the following noun is in blue.
The main difference with Old English is that the noun which follows the preposition has to appear in a particular case. We call this licensing. The most common cases which are licensed by prepositions are accusative and dative (tō (at) and wið (against) occasionally license genitive case), as shown by the following examples:
Note that some prepositions can license either accusative or dative case. Generally, when this is the case, the use of accusative case denotes motion/movement; the use of dative case more typically denotes stasis, or a lack of movement.
We can see this with the use of in, as illustrated in the second and third examples above. When referring to the farmer being in the house, the dative case is used (in þæm hūse) as there is no movement. When referring to Ethel running into the town, accusative case is used (in þone tūn) as movement is indicated.
If the dative case had been used in the third example instead of the accusative case, the sentence would be Æþel rann in þæm tūne, which would translate as Ethel ran (when she was) in the town.
When you search for a preposition in our translator, the entry tells you what case(s) it licenses. If it licenses both accusative and dative, you then have to make a decision as to whether motion/ movement is implied by your preposition: is it referring to a location (in the town), or a direction (into the town)?
A personal pronoun is used instead of a noun or noun phrase. For example, in Present-day English, we have Maggie and William walked to the town, or we could use they walked to the town instead, if we already knew who the they referred to.
In Old English, personal pronouns are dependent on the gender, person, case, and count of the noun they’re replacing. For example, if we want to translate the sentence she left him, we would first need to identify the previously mentioned information.
She
Gender: feminine
Person: third
Case: nominative (as it’s the subject)
Count: singular (it only refers to one person)
Him
Gender: masculine
Person: third
Case: accusative (as it’s the direct object)
Count: singular (it only refers to one person)
Using this information, we can then select the correct OE translations as hēo and hīe to translate the sentence to hēo forlēt hīe.
We no longer have dual pronouns in Present Day English, but in Old English these were used for two people or things. They decline based on person and case. For example, if we wanted to translate the sentence the king loves you two, we need to know the person and case of you two.
You two
Person: second
Case: accusative (as it’s the direct object)
Translation: incit
Using this information, we can then select the correct OE translation for the dual pronoun and translate the sentence as se cyning lufaþ incit.