The adjectival and verbal participle with bēon in Old

English — A morpho-syntactic analysis1

Javier Martín-Arista & Ana Elvira Ojanguren-López

University of La Rioja

This article analyses the inflectional morphology of the present and the past participle
of Old English, in adjectival function as well as in verbal function with bēon ‘to be’.
The aim of the analysis is to determine whether or not the attachment of adjectival
inflection depends on the function performed by the participle. The study is based on
the evidence provided by the York Corpus of Old English. The role of Latin in the
growing importance of the participle in Old English may be confirmed by the fact that
in a selection of texts on the grounds of the absolute number of participles, four, out
of ten, are translations from Latin. On the other hand, the results of the analysis
indicate that translations from Latin present the lowest frequency of inflected
participles, while the highest is found in Ælfrician texts. The main conclusion of this
article is that the frequency of full inflection depends on the function of the participle.
Whereas practically all adjectival participles are inflected for adjectival morphology,
only one third of verbal participles receive adjectival inflection.

Keywords: Old English; participle; inflection; syntactic function

1. Introduction
As Lass (1992: 144) remarks, the non-finite forms of the verb in Old English
are the uninflected infinitive (wrītan ‘to write’), the inflected infinitive (to
wrītanne ‘to write’), the present participle (wrītende ‘writing’), and the past

1
This research has been funded through the grant FFI2014-59110, which is
thankfully acknowledged. We would like to thank Susan Pintzuk for her assistance
with the searches on the York Corpus of Old English (YCOE).

Javier Martín-Arista & Ana Elvira Ojanguren-López, Selim 23 (2018): 27–53.

ISSN 1132-631X
28 Javier Martín-Arista & Ana Elvira Ojanguren-López

participle (gewritten ‘written’), in such a way that in Old English the infinitive
and the participle can be inflected or not. The following example illustrates
the topic of this research, which focuses on the inflected and uninflected
participles, both with adjectival and verbal function.

(1) a. Apol. (2, 8)

Þa gyrnde hyre maenig maere man micele maerða beodende.
‘Then, many a famous man desired her, offering many wonderful
things.’

b. Apol. (10, 16)

Swa hwilc man swa me Apollonium lifigendne to gebringð...
‘Whoever brings Apollonius to me alive...’

c. Apol. (8, 4–5)

...se waes Thaliarcus gehaten.
‘...who was called Thaliarcus.’

d. Apol. (18, 6)
Gemiltsa me, þu ealda man, sy þaet þu sy; gemildsa me nacodum,
forlidenum, naes na of earmlicum birdum geborenum.
‘Have pity on me, old man, whoever you may be; have pity on me,
naked, shipwrecked, and not born from poor origins.’
(from Wedel 1978: 395–396)

As is shown in (1), the participle can perform an adjectival function, as in

micele maerða beodende ‘offering many things, who offered many things’, and a
verbal function, as a lexical verb with bēon ‘to be’ in both active and passive
constructions, like se waes Thaliarcus gehaten ‘who was called Thaliarcus’. At
the same time, the participle gets both verbal and adjectival inflection in
instances like lifigendne ‘living’ and geborenum ‘born’, so that the present
participle agrees in case, number, and gender with the noun in apposition
(Apollonium lifigendne ‘Apollonius alive’) or with the nominal antecedent (man
micele maerða beodende ‘men who offered many wonderful things’). The
participle presents verbal inflection only in instances like beodende ‘offering’
and gehaten ‘was called’, which show exclusively the canonical inflectional
endings for the present and the past participle, respectively -ende and -en
(strong verbs).
The starting point of this research is Mitchell’s (1985: 409) remark that
“there is no work which gives a complete treatment of the Old English
 Adjectival and verbal participle with bēon 29

participles”. In general, previous research attributes the increase of the use of

the participles during the Old English period to Latin influence (Callaway
1901, Wedel 1978, Mitchell 1985, Ogura 2009). The distinction made in this
article between the two main functions of the participle draws on authors like
Callaway, Mitchell, and Visser. Callaway (1901) concentrates on the appositive
participle, which he defines as “the participle that is equivalent to an adjectival
clause as well as that which is equal to an adverbial clause. The uses of the
appositive participle correspond closely to those of the subordinate adverbial
clause” (1901: 149). Mitchell (1985) also deals with the functions of the
participle and distinguishes between its adjectival and verbal uses, which he
relates to syntactic behaviour. For Visser, who pays heed to the different
functions of the participle too, “in Old English the past participle appears with
flexional endings; these gradually disappear in Middle English, so that
subsequently the zero form is the normal one” (Visser 1966: 2.II.1280).
On the diachronic axis, the adjectival segment of the inflection of the
participle disappeared during the generalised loss of inflectional endings,
whereas the verbal part has been kept. For example, in (1d) the inflected
participle geborenum would eventually yield way to geboren, so that the former
shows verbal (-en) and adjectival (-um) endings, whereas the latter presents
the verbal part only (-en). This is related to the fact that, as Traugott (1992:
190) explains, the origin of the syntactic passive is to be found in adjectival
predications with a copulative verb and a fully inflected adjectival form of the
participle. This can be seen in (2), in which the first instance presents an
inflected participle and the second an uninflected one. On this question,
Traugott (1992: 190) points out that “the number of inflected constructions
became less frequent during the Old English period”, although the -e plural
inflection (as in afliemde ‘banished’ in (2a) is frequent in this period.

(2) a. Or 1 10 44.24
On ðære ilcan tide wurdon twegen æðelingas afliemde of Sciððian.
‘At that same time two noblemen were banished from Scythia.’

b. Or Head 64.10
& hu II aðelingas wurdon afliemed of Sciððium.
‘And how two noblemen were banished from Scythia.’
(from Traugott 1992: 199)

Wojtyś (2009: 48) dates the loss of the past participle suffixes -n and -d to
the thirteenth century and points out that “the suffixal marking in Old
30 Javier Martín-Arista & Ana Elvira Ojanguren-López

English needs to be regarded as regular”. Fischer (1992) holds in this respect

that in the Late Old English and Early Middle English periods, the
inflectional endings of some forms, including the present participle, began to
be confused, which also led to syntactic confusion. Ogura (2009), in the same
line, finds that, due to their phonemic resemblance, the endings -ende and
-enne became interchangeable as variant forms in late Old English (eleventh
century).
Overall, the works reviewed in Section 1 agree on the loss of the inflection
of the participle and the approximate dating of the change, while proposing
several causes for the change. However, the loss of the adjectival morphology
has not been quantified so far, neither has it been related to the functions of
the participle. The remainder of this article deals with these questions, with a
view to determining whether or not the function performed by the participle
plays any role in the attachment of adjectival inflection.
The scope of the article is restricted to non-verbal (adjectival) uses and
verbal (with bēon ‘to be’) uses of the participle. The reasons for restricting the
scope in this way are both empirical and descriptive. For empirical reasons, the
amount of data of the non-verbal and verbal participle with bēon ‘to be’ advises
to put aside the participles with habban ‘to have’. For descriptive reasons, the
adjectival participle and the verbal participle with bēon ‘to be’ constitute a
relatively unified phenomenon from a diachronic point of view. As Traugott
explains, the development of the auxiliaries may be related to the
disappearance of the inflected participles, as the participles were reanalysed
from adjectives into verbs:

The inflected participial construction with BE was probably truly adjectival in

PrOE. By Old English, however, it appears to have been reanalyzed as a verbal
complex (as happened to habban during the Old English period), or at least to
have been partially reanalyzed. The evidence for reanalysis is that the participle
is typically uninflected. (Traugott 1992: 192–193)

Within the scope of the adjectival participle and the verbal participle with
bēon ‘to be’, present and past participles are taken into account, including their
uninflected forms as well as the various inflections for case (nominative,
accusative, genitive, dative, instrumental), gender (masculine, feminine,
neuter) and number (singular, plural).
This article is organised as follows. Section 2 describes the methodology of
research, which is applied to the corpus in Section 3 (morphological analysis)
 Adjectival and verbal participle with bēon 31

and Section 4 (syntactic and textual analysis). Then, Section 5 draws the main
conclusions of this study.

2. Method
This study in the participle of Old English is based on the textual evidence
available from the York-Toronto-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Prose
(YCOE) and the York-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Poetry (YCOEP).
YCOE is a 1.5 million word syntactically-annotated corpus. For its part,
YCOEP is a selection of poetic texts from the Old English Section of the
Helsinki Corpus of English Texts (HC) that contains 71,490 words. As in its
prose counterpart, the texts are syntactically and morphologically annotated.
The prose and the poetry corpus together are referred to in the remainder of
this paper as YCOE.
The set in (3) presents the tags that have been searched for in the YCOE
in order to analyse the form and the function of the Old English participles.
These include the present and the past participle of all verbs and the special
verbs bēon ‘to be’ and habban ‘to have’.

(3) The initial set of the YCOE morphological tags for the participle
The verb BE
BAG present participle
BEN perfect participle

The verb HAVE

HAG present participle
HVN perfect participle

All other verbs

VAG present participle
VBN perfect participle

The verbal and adjectival uses of the present and past participles are not
distinguished in the YCOE morphological analysis, both being tagged as VAN
or VAG, as can be seen in (3). The YCOE parsing makes no distinction in the
tag for the auxiliary and the main verb use of bēon ‘to be’. In the parsing, the
auxiliary forms of bēon can be distinguished from main verb forms by the
presence of a present or a past participle. At the syntactic level, therefore, it is
32 Javier Martín-Arista & Ana Elvira Ojanguren-López

necessary to define the search with respect to the nodes IP (Inflectional

Phrase) and PTP (Participle Phrase) and specify the following conditions: that
the copulative verb and the past participle are immediately dominated by an
inflectional phrase or that the past participle is immediately dominated by a
participle phrase, in such a way that the copula is shared with the verb phrase
and immediately dominated by an inflectional phrase. This can be seen in (4).

(4) Query string for the past participle with bēon ‘to be’
node: IP*|PTP*
query: ((IP* idoms BED*|BEP*)
AND (IP* idoms *VBN^*|*HVN^*|*BEN^*))
OR (PTP* idoms *VBN^*|*HVN^*|*BEN^*)

As shown in (5), the adjectival function of the participle holds when there is
agreement in case, gender, and number with the head of the noun phrase in
which the participle functions as modifier. In the query language of the
YCOE, a noun phrase immediately dominates a present or a past participle.
2
This is the case with lyfiendan gast ‘living spirit’ in (5).

(5) Syntactic parsing of the participle as adjective in the YCOE

( (IP-MAT (CONJ &)
(NP-NOM (PRO^N hi) (Q^N ealle))
(VBD geliff+aste)
(PP (P +turh)
(NP-ACC (D^A +tone) (VAG^A lyfiendan) (N^A Gast)))
(. :))
(ID coaelhom,+AHom_1:70.49))

2
Clauses in the YCOE are labelled IP with an additional label to indicate type, such as
IP-MAT for declarative matrix IPs. The tags in Figure 2 and Figure 3 stand for the
following categories and features: syntactic categories: NP (noun phrase); lexical
categories: N (noun), NR (proper name), ADJ (adjective), VB (verb), BE (the verb
bēon ‘to be’), ADV (adverb), D (determiner), NUM (numeral), P (preposition), CONJ
(conjunction); morphological case at word level: ^N (nominative), ^A (accusative), ^G
(genitive), ^D (dative); morphological case at phrase level: -NOM (nominative), ACC
(accusative), -GEN (genitive), -DAT (dative); tense: P (present); mode: I (indicative),
S (subjunctive); non-finite forms: N (past participle).
 Adjectival and verbal participle with bēon 33

The verbal function of the participle is the case when there is agreement in
person and number with bēon ‘to be’, while the agreement in case, gender, and
number with the subject is not necessarily explicit. This is shown in (6), in
which the nominative plural subject heofonas ‘heavens’ agrees in number with
the copulative verb synd ‘are’, and in case, gender, and number with the
nominative plural gefæstnode ‘fastened’.

(6) The syntactic parsing of the participle as verb in the YCOE: IP

( (IP-MAT (NP-NOM (N^N Heofonas))
(BEPI synd)
(VBN^N gef+astnode)
(PP (P +turh)
(NP-ACC (D^A +t+at)
(ADJ^A halige)
(NP-GEN (NR^G Godes))
(N^A word)))
(. ,))
(ID coaelhom,+AHom_1:79.54))

As shown in (6), when the participle functions as a verb, the query

language of the YCOE indicates that an inflectional phrase (a clause)
immediately dominates a present or a past participle. There are other
instances, however, in which more than one participle is immediately
dominated by the same inflectional phrase. In these cases, the second
participle is analysed as giving rise to a participle phrase. In other words, the
second copulative verb is considered to be omitted in the YCOE syntactic
parsing. Consider a fragment like Ic fram cildhade wæs Apollonius genemnod, on
Tirum geboren ‘I was called Apollonius from my childhood, [I was] born in
Tirum’; the parsing in terms of a participle NP is presented in (7).
As can be seen in (7), the past participle genemnod ‘named’ belongs, along
with the copulative verb, in the verb phrase wæs genemnod ‘was called’ and,
therefore, constitutes an instance of participle with verbal function. The same
applies to geboren ‘born’. Even though it is not sister-dominated along with a
form of bēon ‘to be’ by an inflectional phase, the parsing involves a coordinated
construction that omits the second copula. This is done on the basis of a
participle phrase which avoids ambiguity with participles that cannot be linked
to a verb phrase containing the copulative verb and, as such, are considered to
perform the adjectival function in this analysis.
34 Javier Martín-Arista & Ana Elvira Ojanguren-López

(7) Syntactic parsing of the participle as verb in the YCOE: PTP

(IP-MAT-SPE (NP-NOM (PRO^N Ic))
(PP (P fram)
(NP-DAT (N^D cildhade)))
(BEDI w+as)
(NP-NOM-PRD (NR^N Apollonius))
(VBN genemnod)
(, ,)
(PTP-NOM (PP (P on)
(NP (NR Tirum)))
(VBN^N geboren)))

For the adjectival and the verbal functions of the participle, the
morphological cases nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, and instrumental
have been searched and quantified, together with the forms without adjectival
inflection. In the YCOE morphological tagging, participles formally
ambiguous as to case, as well as zero marked cases, count as uninflected
participles. The whole set of tags can be seen in (8), in which the columns
correspond, respectively, to the present participle of general verbs, habban and
bēon; and the past participle of general verbs, habban and bēon.

(8) Final set of the YCOE morphological tags for the participle
VAG HAG BAG VBN HVN BEN
VAG^N HAG^N BAG^N VBN^N HVN^N BEN^N
VAG^A HAG^A BAG^A VBN^A HVN^A BEN^A
VAG^G HAG^G BAG^G VBN^G HVN^G BEN^G
VAG^D HAG^D BAG^D VBN^D HVN^D BEN^D
VAG^I HAG^I BAG^I VBN^I HVN^I BEN^I

With the searches on the YCOE just defined, two types of analysis are
carried out. In the first place, the morphological questions of the undertaking
are addressed, including the variables of inflected vs. uninflected participle,
morphological case of inflected participles, present vs. past participle, and
prose vs. poetry. The data for the morphological analysis include the whole
YCOE, both its prose and its poetry segments. This part of the analysis
intends to offer an overall picture of the morphology of the participle in Old
English prose and poetry. Secondly, the form of the participle is analysed with
respect to its function. The data for this part of the study have been extracted
from the ten texts that evince the highest number of participles, all of which
 Adjectival and verbal participle with bēon 35

are written in prose (see Appendix): COAELHOM (Ælfric, Supplemental

Homilies), COAELIVE (Ælfric’s Lives of Saints), COBEDE (Bede’s History of
the English Church), COCATHOM (Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies), COCHRON
(Anglo-Saxon Chronicle), COCURA (Cura Pastoralis), COGREGD (Gregory’s
Dialogues), COOROSIU (Orosius), COVERHOM (Vercelli Homilies), and
COWSGOSP (West-Saxon Gospels). With this selection, the number of
participles per text ranges between 947 and 3,379. The variables of this part of
the analysis are both syntactic and textual. On the syntactic side, the adjectival
and the verbal functions of the participle are distinguished, while, on the
textual side, quantification by text (and type of text) has explanatory purposes.

3. Morphological analysis
This section presents the morphological side of the analysis, which revolves
around the questions of the inflected vs. uninflected participle, morphological
case of inflected participles, present vs. past participle, and prose vs. poetry. As
just said, the data for the morphological analysis include the prose and the
poetry segments of the YCOE, in order to provide an overall assessment of the
morphology of the participle in Old English.
The total figure or instances of the participle in the YCOE, both prose and
poetry, is 35,241: 6,811 of the present participle and 28,430 of the past
participle. By text type, 33,655 appear in prose texts and 1,586 in poetry texts.
It may be useful at this point to take into account the size of the prose and the
poetry parts of the YCOE. If these absolute figures are normalised per 1,000
words, it turns out that the relative importance of the participle is much
higher in the poetry than in the prose texts. The poetry texts in the corpus
have 30.7 participles per 1,000 words, while the prose texts present 22.4
participles per 1,000 words. Of the 35,241 participles, 20,256 are uninflected,
and 14,985 are inflected for the five morphological cases; that is, only 42.5 per
cent of the participles in the corpus are inflected.
Beginning with the present participle, a total of 6,811 textual forms have
been identified. Of these, 6,612 correspond to prose texts whereas 199 have
been found in poetry texts. In prose texts, a total of 2,241 present participles
are not inflected, as opposed to 4,371 inflected present participles. In
percentual terms, 66.1 per cent of the present participles in prose texts are
inflected, with the corresponding 33.9 per cent of uninflected participles. The
nominative case clearly stands out (60.2% of inflected participles in prose texts
36 Javier Martín-Arista & Ana Elvira Ojanguren-López

are inflected for the nominative), although the dative and the accusative also
present a considerable number of occurrences. In poetry, out of 199 instances,
105 are inflected (57.2%) and ninety-four uninflected (47.3%). The
nominative and the accusative stand out with respect to the other cases in
poetry texts. As is the case with the prose, the nominative is by far the most
frequent case (58% of inflected participles are marked for this case). The
instrumental, which is negligible in prose, does not have any occurrences in
poetry. These figures have been tabulated in Table 1.

Table 1. Present participle by morphological case and text type in the YCOE
Prose Poetry Total
Nominative 2,631 61 2,422
Accusative 542 13 555
Genitive 312 17 329
Dative 885 14 899
Instrumental 1 -- 1
Inflected total 4,371 105 4,476
Uninflected total 2,241 94 2,335
Grand total 6,612 199 6,811

Turning to the past participle, the corpus evinces a total of 28,430. This
total represents more than four times as much as the total of the present
participle. Of the 28,430 past participles, 27,043 have been extracted from
prose texts, with poetry texts containing the much lower figure of 1,387. In
prose texts, the number of uninflected past participles is 17,062, a much
higher figure than that of the inflected past participles, 9,981. In terms of
percentages, the uninflected past participle represents 63 per cent whereas the
inflected past participle reaches 37 per cent only. In poetry, 859 past participles
do not show adjectival inflection (62%) while 528 do (38%). By case, the
nominative stands out in prose and poetry (68.6% of past participles in prose
and 80% of past participles in poetry are inflected for the nominative),
although the accusative also turns out significant figures. These results are in
accordance with Kilpiö’s (1989: 134) remark that “towards the late OE period
the inflection of the past participle in passive constructions, already simpler
 Adjectival and verbal participle with bēon 37

than that of the adjective in early OE, underwent further simplification so that
basically only two forms occurred: an endingless participle in the singular and
one ending in -e in the plural”. The results corresponding to the past
participle by case and text type are presented in Table 2.

Table 2. Past participle by morphological case and text type in the YCOE
Prose Poetry Total
Nominative 6,852 423 7,275
Accusative 1,617 82 1,699
Genitive 335 13 348
Dative 1,171 10 1,781
Instrumental 6 -- 6
Inflected total 9,981 528 10,509
Uninflected total 17,062 859 17,921
Grand total 27,043 1,387 28,430

Textually, the past participle is far more frequent than the present
participle. This is the case with prose and poetry texts, but the gap is wider in
poetry than in prose. Although these aspects require further research, from a
diachronic perspective this may mean that, whereas the periphrasis of
copulative verb plus past participle is well established in the language, the
periphrasis involving a present participle is not fixed yet. As Denison (1993:
380) states, “in Old English the progressive is unevenly distributed, its overall
frequency low but in certain texts (notably Orosius) remarkably high”.
Denison (1993: 380) illustrates the point with examples like the ones in (9).

(9) a. Or 100.20
þætte se consul wæs wenende þæt eall þæt folc wære gind þæt lond
tobræd, & þiderweard farende wæs...
‘so that the consul assumed wrongly that the army was all scattered
throughout the country, and he was heading there...’

b. Or 123.2
Hit wæs þa swiþe oþþyncende þam oþrum consulum...
‘Then it displeased the other consuls greatly...’
38 Javier Martín-Arista & Ana Elvira Ojanguren-López

Synchronically, the higher frequency of appearance of the past participle may

be interpreted as the result of the existence of numerous passive constructions,
including syntactic passives like (2a) and (2b).

4. Syntactic and textual analysis

This section analyses the form of the participle with respect to its adjectival
and verbal function with bēon ‘to be’. The data for this part of the analysis
comprise the ten texts with the highest figures of participles. As a matter of
fact, the ten are written in prose.
The present participle is practically always inflected when it performs the
adjectival function (97.1% of the participles functioning as adjectives display
adjectival case marking). This contrasts with the inflection of the present
participle as verb, which is inflected in approximately two thirds of the cases
(64.3% is the exact figure). If a closer view is taken of the verbal function, the
results indicate that Ælfrician texts (Ælfric’s Homilies, Lives of Saints, Catholic
Homilies) show over 80 per cent of inflected present participles in the verbal
function. The present participle total largely reflects the results of the verbal
function because the present participle is widely inflected in its adjectival
function and, consequently, differences among texts arise as to the verbal
function, not the adjectival function. Considering the total figures of the
present participle, the abovementioned texts by Ælfric turn out the highest
figures of inflection and, at the opposite end, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and some
translations from Latin (Bede’s Ecclesiastical History and Orosius) contain the
lowest number of inflected participles. These aspects are tabulated in Table 3.
As in the following tables, the quantification in Table 3 shows the figure of
inflected participles by function with respect to the total of participles in
verbal and adjectival function.
As regards the past participle, in its adjectival function it is inflected even
more frequently than the present participle, which nears the total (97.6% of
the past participles in the corpus show adjectival inflection when functioning
as adjectives). In its verbal function, the past participle is slightly less inflective
than the present participle (only 30.2% of the instances present adjectival
inflection). Considering these two aspects, the gap between the inflection of
the adjectival function and the verbal function is wider in the past participle
 Adjectival and verbal participle with bēon 39

Table 3. Present participle in adjectival and verbal function by text in the YCOE
Text Adjectival function Verbal function Present participle total
coaelhom 75 / 79 132 / 162 207 / 241
coaelive 151 / 156 328 / 375 479 / 531
cobede 127 / 130 161 / 469 288 / 599
cocathom 264 / 270 605 / 745 869 / 1,015
cochron 10 / 14 30 / 90 40 / 104
cocura 82 / 82 58 / 97 140 / 179
cogregd 183 / 187 432 / 663 615 / 850
coorosiu 15 / 15 29 / 241 44 / 256
coverhom 72 / 74 23 / 73 95 / 147
cowsgosp 40 / 42 293 / 334 333 / 376
Category total 1,019 / 1,049 2,091 / 3,249 3,110 / 4,298
(%) (97.1%) (64.3%) (72.3%)

than in the present participle. Remarkable differences appear, though, when

the results are analysed text by text. Whereas the texts by Ælfric (Homilies,
Lives of Saints, Catholic Homilies) show over 80 per cent of inflected present
participles in the verbal function, they evince percentages of inflection of the
past participle in the same function below 40 per cent. This percentage of
inflection is still higher than the percentage displayed by some translations
from Latin. Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, Orosius, and Cura Pastoralis throw
percentages of inflected past participles in the verbal function under 20 per
cent. Other Latin translations, such as Gregory’s Dialogues and West-Saxon
Gospels, turn out higher percentages but still around 30 per cent. The data on
the past participle are tabulated in Table 4.
Table 5 summarises the data on the adjectival and the verbal functions of
the participle in the corpus and offers absolute as well as relative totals by text.
As shown, the selection of ten prose texts from the YCOE comprises a total of
20,023 participles, of which 2,743 function as adjectives and 17,280 perform
the verbal function with bēon ‘to be’. With respect to inflectional morphology,
the vast majority of participles with adjectival function display, together with
the verbal ending, the adjectival inflectional endings. On the other hand, when
the function performed by the participle is verbal with bēon ‘to be’, around one
40 Javier Martín-Arista & Ana Elvira Ojanguren-López

Table 4. Past participle in adjectival and verbal function by text in the YCOE
Text Adjectival function Verbal function Past participle total
coaelhom 104 / 110 271 / 700 375 / 810
coaelive 184 / 187 541 / 1,431 725 / 1,618
cobede 174 / 176 399 / 1,645 573 / 1,821
cocathom 449 / 465 1,138 / 3,219 1,587 / 3,684
cochron 56 / 58 205 / 1,166 261 / 1,224
cocura 184 / 189 307 / 1,114 491 / 1,303
cogregd 339 / 341 692 / 2,188 1,031 / 2,529
coorosiu 16 / 16 120 / 650 136 / 666
coverhom 90 / 91 226 / 679 316 / 770
cowsgosp 58 / 61 328 / 1,059 386 / 1,120
Category total 1,654 / 1,694 4,227 / 13,951 5,881 / 15,545
(%) (97.6%) (30.2%) (37.8%)

third of the participles present adjectival inflection. By text, the count of

inflected participles is around one half of the total (ranging between 42% in
Cura Pastoralis and 56% in Lives of Saints), except in three texts: Bede’s
Ecclesiastical History, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and Orosius, which evince about
35 per cent, 22 per cent and 15 per cent of inflected participles, respectively.
On the other hand, religious prose as represented by Ælfric’s Homilies, Catholic
Homilies, and Lives of Saints, shows over 55 per cent of inflected participles.
In other words, leaving Anglo-Saxon Chronicle aside, the translations from
Latin throw figures below 50 per cent of inflected participles, thus Gregory’s
Dialogues (48%), West-Saxon Gospels (48%), Cura Pastoralis (42%), Bede’s
Ecclesiastical History (35%), and Orosius (15%). Although the total of inflected
participles in Gregory’s Dialogues and Cura Pastoralis is similar to those in
Vercelli Homilies (44%), Bede’s Ecclesiastical History (35% of inflected
participles), and Orosius (15%) confirm the tendency of Old English
translations to present fewer inflected participles than the religious prose.
 Adjectival and verbal participle with bēon 41

Table 5. Verbal and adjectival function of the participles by text in the YCOE
Text Adjectival function Verbal function Text total
coaelhom 179 / 189 403 / 862 582 / 1,051
(55.3%)
coaelive 335 / 343 869 / 1,806 1,204 / 2,149
(56.0%)
cobede 301 / 306 560 / 2,114 861 / 2,420
(35.0%)
cocathom 713 / 735 1,743 / 3,874 2,456 / 4,609
(53.2%)
cochron 66 / 72 235 / 1,256 301 / 1,328
(22.6%)
cocura 266 / 271 365 / 1,211 631 / 1,482
(42.5%)
cogregd 522 / 528 1,124 / 2,851 1,646 / 3,379
(48.7%)
coorosiu 31 / 31 149 / 1,161 180 / 1,192
(15.1%)
coverhom 162 / 165 249 / 752 411 / 917
(44.8%)
cowsgosp 98 / 103 621 / 1,393 719 / 1,496
(48%)
Category total 2673 / 2,743 6,318 / 17,280 8,991 / 20,023
(%) (97.4%) (36.5%) (44.5%)

Interestingly, the translations from Latin show fewer inflected participles

while containing more participles than the other texts. As can be seen in
Table 6, the translations have at least two participles per 100 words (which
amounts to approximately 20,000 words per million, WPM), while presenting
lower figures of inflected participles. The word count seems to support the
view that the translations from Latin opt for rendering the present and the
past participle undeclined even though it is declined as an adjective in the
source language.
42 Javier Martín-Arista & Ana Elvira Ojanguren-López

Table 6. Textual frequency of the participle in the YCOE

Text Word count Text total %
coaelhom 62,669 1,051 1.6%
coaelive 100,193 2,149 2.1%
cobede 80,767 2,420 2.9%
cocathom 204,756 4,609 2.2%
cochron 104,201 1,328 1.2%
cocura 70,675 1,482 2%
cogregd 117,146 3,379 2.8%
coorosiu 51,020 1,192 2.3%
coverhom 52,123 917 1.7%
cowsgosp 71,104 1,496 2.1%

This higher textual frequency of the participle in the Old English

translations from Latin may confirm the role played by Latin influence in the
increase in the use of the participle (Callaway 1901, Wedel 1978, Mitchell
1985, Ogura 2009), although Lamont (2015: 351) finds 1,511 Latin present
participles in the four gospels, as opposed to the 453 present participles used
to render them in Old English. As regards the adjectival inflection of the
participle, the data discussed above do not indicate direct influence from
Latin. As has already been said, the translations from Latin show lower
frequencies of inflected participles than vernacular texts, with the exception of
the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. On the other hand, the texts by Ælfric show the
highest rates of inflected participles, particularly with the verbal function. On
the question, Sato (2009: 4) holds that Latin influenced Ælfric’s syntax to
such an extent that he adopted syntactic constructions from the Latin
language, including the absolute participle. Furthermore, Sato (2009: 4) goes
on to say that Ælfric could use absolute participles with and without their
direct Latin counterparts and “skillfully modified the syntax of the Latin
source, inventing a more sophisticated style in his vernacular language than
the style of his Latin sources. Thus, Ælfric’s use of this loan syntax should not
be dismissed as such a direct Latin influence”. In a similar line, Lamont
remarks:
 Adjectival and verbal participle with bēon 43

The translators of both the OE Genesis and the Old English Gospels use Old
English present participles even when the Latin does not. There is always the
possibility that the Latin exemplar(s) differed from the extant versions of the
Vulgate, but it also appears possible that the OE present participle was
somewhat idiomatic for the translators of both parts of Genesis and all four
Old English Gospels […] While scholars have argued that the OE present
participle and progressive developed as reactions to Latin, they do not appear
to observe that these unattested participles in the translations suggest more
than a reaction to Latin, but perhaps a native idiom, albeit in late Old English.
(Lamont 2015: 352)

The results of this study are in accordance with this view. Considering the
unattested participles noted by Sato (2009) and Lamont (2015), as well as the
low level of participial inflection in the translations from Latin, which inflects
the participle for case, number and gender on a regular basis, it may be the
case that the inflection of the participle in Ælfric is a matter of grammatical
purism rather than direct influence from Latin.
With respect to Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, it is relatively predictable that a
highly narrative text has less adjectival modification than more descriptive
texts like the ones from the religious prose. Although this question deserves
more attention, the narrative style of Anglo-Saxon Chronicle could explain the
low count of participles performing the adjectival function (where, as shown
above, inflection is much more frequent) and, ultimately, the low level of
adjectival inflection of the participle.

5. Conclusions
This article has analysed the inflectional morphology of the present and the
past participle of Old English, both in adjectival and in verbal function with
bēon ‘to be’, in order to answer the question whether or not the function
performed by the participle determines the presence of adjectival inflection to
the right of verbal inflection.
The data, extracted from the York-Toronto-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old
English Prose and the York-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Poetry,
indicate that the verbal function is performed by the participle far more
frequently than the adjectival function. With respect to the relation between
the function and the inflection of the participle, the analysis of the corpus
leads to the conclusion that the adjectival segment in the inflection of the
44 Javier Martín-Arista & Ana Elvira Ojanguren-López

participle is functionally motivated. Indeed, nearly all participles with adjectival

function are inflected for adjectival morphology, whereas only around one
third of participles with verbal function get both verbal and adjectival
inflection.
Some authors cited in this paper attribute the growing importance of the
participle in Old English to Latin influence. This may be confirmed by the
fact that in a selection of texts from the corpus made on the basis of the
absolute number of participles, four are translations from Latin, out of a total
of ten texts. However, the results of the analysis show that the translations
from Latin present the lowest frequency of inflected participles. On the other
hand, religious prose, as represented by Ælfric’s Homilies, Catholic Homilies,
and Lives of Saints, shows the highest rates of inflected participles. It remains
for further research to determine whether other texts originally written in the
vernacular language also opt for the inflected participle in a number of cases
comparable to Ælfrician texts.

References
Callaway, M. 1901: The Appositive Participle in Anglo-Saxon. Baltimore, Publications of
the Modern Language Association of America.
Denison, D. 1993: English Historical Syntax: Verbal Constructions. London, Longman.
Fischer, O. 1992: Syntax. In N. Blake ed. The Cambridge History of the English
Language. Vol. II: 1066–1476. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 207–408.
Kilpiö, M. 1989: Passive Constructions in Old English Translations from Latin. With
Special Reference to the OE Bede and the Pastoral Care. Helsinki, Société
Néophilologique.
Lamont, G. J. M. 2015: The Present Participle as a Marker of Style and Authorship in
Old English Biblical Translation. (Ph.D. dissertation.) Centre for Medieval Studies,
University of Toronto.
Lass, R. 1992: Phonology and Morphology. In N. Blake ed. The Cambridge History of
the English Language. Vol. II: 1066–1476. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press:
23–155.
Mitchell, B. 1985: Old English Syntax. Concord, the Parts of Speech and the Sentence.
Vol. 1. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Ogura, M. 2009: The Interchangeability of the Endings -ende and -enne in Old and
Early Middle English. English Studies 90.6: 721–734.
Sato, K. 2009: The Absolute Participle Construction in Old English: Ælfric’s
Exploitation of the Latinate Syntax in his Vernacular Prose. English Studies 90.1:
2–16.
 Adjectival and verbal participle with bēon 45

Traugott, E. C. 1992: Syntax. In R. M. Hogg ed. The Cambridge History of the English
Language. Vol. I: The Beginnings to 1066. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press:
186–201.
Visser, F. T. 1984 [1966]: A Historical Syntax of the English Language. Part Two (Vol.
II): Syntactical Units with One Verb (Continued). Leiden, E. J. Brill.
Wedel, A. R. 1978: Participial Construction in High German and West Saxon of the
Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries: Latin and Germanic Differences. The Journal of
English and Germanic Philology 77.3: 383–397.
Wojtyś, A. 2009: Suffixal Past Participle Marking in Mediaeval English. Anglica 18:
45–68.
YCOE: The York-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Poetry. 2001: A. Taylor, A.
Warner, S. Pintzuk, F. Beths & L. Plug comps. Department of Language and
Linguistic Science, University of York. http://www-
users.york.ac.uk/~lang18/pcorpus.html.
YCOEP: The York-Toronto-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Prose. 2003: A.
Taylor, A. Warner, S. Pintzuk & F. Beths comps. Department of Language and
Linguistic Science, University of York.
46 Javier Martín-Arista & Ana Elvira Ojanguren-López

Appendix. Information on texts from the YCOE

Source: http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~lang22/YCOE/info/YcoeTextInfo.html

coaelhom.o3
Text name Ælfric’s Homilies Supplemental
File name coaelhom.o3
DOE short title ÆHom
Cameron number B1.4
Manuscript various, see edition
Dialect West Saxon
Genre Homilies
Latin translation No
Word count 62,669
Edition Pope, J.C. 1968. Homilies of Ælfric, A supplementary
Collection. Early English Text Society, 260. London:
OUP.

coaelive.o3
Text name Ælfric’s Lives of Saints
File name coaelive.o3
DOE short title ÆLS
Cameron number B1.3.2 - B1.3.35
Manuscript London, British Museum, Cotton Julius E.VII
Manuscript date s. xi in.
Dialect West Saxon
Genre Biography, lives
Latin translation No
Word count 100,193
Edition Skeat, Walter William. 1966 (1881-1900). Ælfric’s
Lives of Saints. EETS 76, 82, 94, 114. London:
OUP.

cobede.o2
Text name Bede’s History of the English Church
File name cobede.o2
DOE short title Bede
Cameron number B9.6
Manuscript Cambridge, University Library Kk.3.18
 Adjectival and verbal participle with bēon 47

Manuscript date s. xi
Dialect West Saxon/Anglian
Genre History
Latin translation Yes
Word count 80,767
Edition Miller, Thomas. 1959-1963 (1890-1898). The Old
English Version of “Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the
English People”. EETS 95, 96, 110, 111. London:
OUP.

cocathom1.o3
Text name Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies I
File name cocathom1.o3
DOE short title ÆCHom I
Cameron number B1.1.2 - B1.1.42
Manuscript Cambridge, University Library, Gg.3.28
Manuscript date s. x/xi
Dialect West Saxon
Genre Homilies
Latin translation No
Word count 106,173
Edition Clemoes, P. 1997. Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies: The
First Series. EETS s.s. 17. Oxford: OUP.

cocathom2.o3
Text name Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies II
File name cocathom2.o3
DOE short title ÆCHom II
Cameron number B1.2.2 - B1.2.49
Manuscript Cambridge, University Library, Gg.3.28
Manuscript date s. x/xi
Dialect West Saxon
Genre Homilies
Latin translation No
Word count 98,583
Edition Godden, M. 1979. Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies: The
Second Series. EETS s.s. 5. London: OUP.
48 Javier Martín-Arista & Ana Elvira Ojanguren-López

cochronA.o23
Text name Anglo-Saxon Chronicle A
File name cochronA.o23
DOE short title ChronA
Cameron number B17.1
Manuscript Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, 173
2
Manuscript date s. ix/x-x
Dialect West Saxon
Genre History
Latin translation No
Word count 14,583
Edition Plummer, Charles. 1965 (1892-1899). Two of the
Saxon Chronicles Parallel. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Reissued D. Whitelock, Oxford 1952.

cochronC
Text name Anglo-Saxon Chronicle C
File name cochronC
DOE short title ChronC
Cameron number B17.7
Manuscript London, British Museum, Cotton Tiberius B.I
1 2
Manuscript date s. xi - xi
Genre History
Latin translation ?
Word count 22,463
Edition Rositzke, H.A. 1967 (1940). The C-Text of the Old
English Chronicles. Bochum-Langendreer: Beitræge
zur englischen Philologie 34.

cochronD
Text name Anglo-Saxon Chronicle D
File name cochronD
DOE short title ChronD
Cameron number B17.8
Manuscript London, British Museum, Cotton Tiberius B.IV
2
Manuscript date s. xi med. - xi
Genre History
Latin translation ?
 Adjectival and verbal participle with bēon 49

Word count 26,691

Edition Classen, E. and F.E. Harmer, eds. 1926. An Anglo-
Saxon Chronicle. Manchester: Manchester
University Press.

cochronE.o34
Text name Anglo-Saxon Chronicle E (Peterborough Chronicle)
File name cochronE.o34
DOE short title ChronE
Cameron number B17.9
Manuscript Oxford, Bodleian, Laud Misc. 636
1
Manuscript date s. xii , xii med.
Dialect West Saxon/X
Genre History
Latin translation ?
Word count 40,641
Edition Plummer, Charles. 1965 (1892-1899). Two of the
Saxon Chronicles Parallel. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Reissued D. Whitelock, Oxford 1952.

cocura.o2
Text name Cura Pastoralis
File name cocura.o2
DOE short title CP
Cameron number B9.1.2, B9.1.3
Manuscript Oxford, Bodleian, Hatton 20
Manuscript date s. ix ex.
Dialect West Saxon
Genre Religious treatise
Latin translation Yes
Word count 68,556
Edition Sweet, Henry. 1958 (1871). King Alfred’s West-Saxon
Version of Gregory’s Pastoral Care. EETS 45, 50.
London: OUP.

cocuraC
Text name Cura Pastoralis
File name cocuraC
50 Javier Martín-Arista & Ana Elvira Ojanguren-López

DOE short title CP (Cotton)

Cameron number B9.1.3.1
Manuscript London, British Museum, Cotton Tiberius B.XI
Manuscript date s. ix ex.
Genre Religious treatise
Latin translation Yes
Word count 2,119
Edition Sweet, Henry. 1958 (1871). King Alfred’s West-Saxon
Version of Gregory’s Pastoral Care. EETS 45, 50.
London: OUP.

cogregdC.o24
Text name Gregory’s Dialogues
File name cogregdC.o24
DOE short title GD (C)
Cameron number B9.5.1 - 9.5.6
Manuscript Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, 322
2
Manuscript date s. xi
Dialect West Saxon/Anglian Mercian
Genre Biography, lives
Latin translation Yes
Word count 91,553
Edition Hecht, Hans. 1965 (1900–1907). Bischof Wærferth
von Worcester Übersetzung der Dialoge Gregors des
Grossen. Bibliothek der Angelsaechsischen Prosa, V.
Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.

cogregdH.o23
Text name Gregory’s Dialogues
File name cogregdH.o23
DOE short title GD (H)
Cameron number B9.5.7, - B9.5.10
Manuscript Oxford, Bodleian, Hatton 76
1
Manuscript date s. xi
Dialect West Saxon
Genre Biography, lives
Latin translation Yes
Word count 25,593
 Adjectival and verbal participle with bēon 51

Edition Hecht, Hans. 1965 (1900-1907). Bischof Wærferth

von Worcester Übersetzung der Dialoge Gregors des
Grossen. Bibliothek der Angelsaechsischen Prosa, V.
Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.

coorosiu.o2
Text name Orosius
File name coorosiu.o2
DOE short title Or
Cameron number B9.2.1 - B9.2.7
Manuscript London, British Museum, Add. 47967
1
Manuscript date s. x
Dialect West Saxon
Genre History
Latin translation Yes
Word count 51,020
Edition Bately, Janet. 1980.The Old English Orosius. EETS
s.s. 6. London: OUP.

coverhom
Text name Vercelli Homilies
File name coverhom
DOE short title HomS (ScraggVerc 1, 3, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 16,
19, 20)
HomU (ScraggVerc 2, 4, 6, 7, 15, 22)
HomM (ScraggVerc 14, 21)
LS (ScraggVerc 17, 18)
Cameron number HomS: B3.2.1, B3.2.2, B3.2.3, B3.2.4, B3.2.11.5,
B3.2.24, B3.2.34, B3.2.36, B3.2.38, B3.2.39,
B3.2.40.6, B3.2.43
HomU: B3.3.6, B3.4.7, B3.4.8, B3.4.9, B3.4.10,
B3.4.11
HomM: B3.5.11, B3.5.13
LS: B3.3.17.3, B3.3.19
Manuscript Vercelli, Biblioteca Capitolare, CXVII
2
Manuscript date s. x
Genre HomS: Homilies
HomU: Homilies
52 Javier Martín-Arista & Ana Elvira Ojanguren-López

LS: Biography, Lives

Latin translation ?
Word count 45,674
Edition Scragg, D.G. 1992. The Vercelli Homilies and Related
Texts. EETS 300. Oxford: OUP.

coverhomE
Text name Vercelli Homilies, Homily I
File name coverhomE
DOE short title HomS 24.1 (Scragg)
Cameron number B3.2.24.1
Manuscript Oxford, Bodleian, Bodley 340 and 342
Manuscript date s. xi in.
Genre Homilies
Latin translation ?
Word count 4,463
Edition Scragg, D.G. 1992.The Vercelli Homilies and Related
Texts. EETS 300. Oxford: OUP.

coverhomL
Text name Vercelli Homilies, Homily IX
File name coverhomL
DOE short title HomU 15.1 (Scragg)
Cameron number B3.4.15.1
Manuscript Oxford, Bodleian, Hatton 115
2
Manuscript date s. xi
Genre Homilies
Latin translation ?
Word count 1,986
Edition Scragg, D.G. 1992. The Vercelli Homilies and Related
Texts. EETS 300. Oxford: OUP.

cowsgosp.o3
Text name West-Saxon Gospels
File name cowsgosp.o3
DOE short title Mt (WSCp), Mk (WSCp), Lk (WSCp), Jn (WSCp)
Cameron number B8.4.3.1, B8.4.3.2, B8.4.3.3, B8.4.3.4
Manuscript Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, 140
 Adjectival and verbal participle with bēon 53

1
Manuscript date s. xi
Dialect West Saxon
Genre Bible
Latin translation Yes
Word count 71,104
Edition Skeat, Walter William. 1871-1887. The Four Gospels
in Anglo-Saxon, Northumbrian and Old Mercian
Versions. Cambridge: CUP. Reprinted Darmstadt
1970.

Authors’ address
Departamento de Filologías Modernas
Universidad de La Rioja
Edificio de Filologías
C/ San José de Calasanz, 33
26004 Logroño, Spain
e-mail: javier.martin@unirioja.es, ana-elvira.ojanguren@unirioja.es
revised version accepted: 15 November 2017
received: 11 December 2017