A Book of Middle English. J. A. Burrow
nu to none unrede; / Nu him ne lust na more pleie, ‘nor is he attracted now to any evil counsel, nor does he like fooling around any more’, 2/212–13. Hunger, ‘be hungry’, fall, ‘happen’, need, ‘be necessary’, and reche, ‘care’, are some other common verbs that may be used impersonally: ow (dative) schal eaver hungrin, ‘you’ll always go hungry’, 4/64–5; hym neded no gyde, ‘no guide was necessary to him’, 18a/166; me no reche, ‘I don’t care’, 5/342.
The verb think is derived from two Old English verbs, þencan, ‘to think’, and þyncan, ‘to seem’. The two are still distinguished as þenk and þynk in the Gawain manuscript: þenk wel, Sir Gawan, 9/487; what maystery þe þynkez, ‘what accomplishment does it seem to you’, 8/482. In the line þenne byþenk þe, mon, if þe forþynk sore, 8/495, the first verb (OE biþencan) means ‘consider’ and has a reflexive pronoun þe; the second has an impersonal construction (and is subjunctive after if), ‘if it upsets you’. In me thynkes /Hom burde, ‘it seems to me they ought to’, 11/259–60, there are two impersonal verbs together.
Some adjectives governing the dative have similar impersonal constructions: lever me were, ‘I should rather’, 5/177; me is þe wurs, ‘it is the worse for me’, 2/34; þe is bettere, 14j/23; wel is me, 14q/17; hou wo þe beet, ‘how great is your grief ’, 14p/18.
5.6.9 Verbs of Motion
Intransitive verbs expressing movement, fare, go, turn and the like, are often accompanied by a reflexive pronoun: Jonas hym ʒede, ‘Jonah went’, 8/355; Childric … gon him to charren /And beh him over Avene, ‘Childric … turned back and made his way over the Avon’, 3/78–9. The infinitive verb of motion is often not expressed after an auxiliary verb: and wold up and owy, ‘and wanted (to get) up and (to go) away’, 5/96; þider ichil (the pronoun ich run together with the verb wil ), ‘I’ll (go) there’, 5/316; I wyl me sum oþer waye, ‘I’ll go some other way’, 8/86 (where the reflexive pronoun remains). In Ticius to Tuskan, 9/11, the verb of motion has to be understood from the context even without an auxiliary verb.
5.6.10 The Passive
The passive is most often expressed by the verb be: he … wæs wæl underfangen fram þe pape Eugenie, ‘he was well received by Pope Eugenius’, 1/63. Until the end of the fourteenth century it was also expressed by worthe, ‘to be, come to be’, particularly in a future sense: blessid þou worth, ‘may you be blessed’, 11/340; þou worst wiþ ous yborn, ‘you shall be carried off with us’, 5/174.
Only one verb, hoten, has a passive form, hat(te), ‘is called’ or ‘was called’: as hit now hat, ‘as it is now called’, 9/10. Increasingly hiʒte, in origin the active past tense, was used in a passive sense: his sone hihte, ‘his son was called’, 7b/82.
The indefinite pronoun man was frequently used where Modern English uses a passive construction; see 5.4.3.
5.7 Negation
In earlier texts the usual way of negating a verb was to place ne (or no/na) immediately in front of it, and indeed this practice continued throughout the period: I ne can ne I ne mai, ‘I do not know how to nor am I able to’, 1/33; ne wonde / þis aventure for to frayn, ‘don’t hesitate to attempt this adventure’, 9/488–9. Ne was run together with have, wil and parts of be beginning with a vowel or w‐: e.g. nadde, nil, nis, nere (4.5.7–8).
Ne could be reinforced by another negative word elsewhere in the sentence. The commonest was nouʒt, originally a noun meaning ‘nought’ or ‘nothing’, which developed into the adverb not: he no schuld nouʒt fram hem go, ‘he would not go from them’, 5/225; with the subject following the verb: ne reche ich noʒt, ‘I don’t care’, 2/58; with noʒt modifying another adverb, wel: his nest noʒt wel he ne bihedde, ‘he did not guard his nest well’, 2/102.
From the fourteenth century it became common to negate the verb with not alone, usually following the verb: I know not þe, ‘I don’t know you’, 9/400; Arthure wolde not ete, 9/85. In verse, where word‐order is more flexible, bringing noʒt forward gives it additional emphasis: þat noʒt hit yow falles, ‘that it is not fitting for you’, 9/358. The modern construction with auxiliary ‘do not’ was not fully established until the seventeenth century.
The notions that multiple negation, as in ‘he ain’t been nowhere’, is substandard, and that ‘two negatives make a positive’, have no historical basis. In Middle English piling up of negatives is very common, and its purpose is to reinforce the negative. Notable examples are: never him nas wers for noþing, ‘he was never more distressed about anything’, 5/98; ne isæh nævere na man selere cniht nenne, ‘no‐one had ever seen a better knight’, 3/28.
5.8 Questions
In direct questions the subject follows the verb, whether or not an interrogative word such as ‘why’ or ‘what’ is used: how schal I do?, 6/102; can thow serven?, 7a/12; whi seist þou so?, 14j/25. The modern use of do as an auxiliary in questions is unusual even at the end of the period; compare quotation with translation here: wenst þu þat ich ne cunne singe?, ‘do you think that I can’t sing?’, 2/47.
As in Modern English, the ‘declarative question’, in which the word‐order is that of a statement, is also possible. Here the context, and in this particular case the addition of the adverbial clause, make it clear that this is a question: thow art broke, so may be?, ‘you are injured, maybe?’, 7a/33.
A negative question has verb–subject word‐order with ne before the verb: why ne dyʒttez þou me to diʒe?, ‘why don’t you condemn me to die?’, 8/488; nas I a paynym?, ‘was I not a pagan?’, 11/285.
The word whether may be used to introduce a question, especially if there is doubt between two alternatives: wheþer ys ʒow levere have …, ‘would you rather have’ (where the choice is between rhyme or prose), 12/145.
5.9 Word‐Order
5.9.1 Inversion
As in Old English and in Modern English, the usual word‐order of a statement in Middle English was subject–verb–object. Because Middle English has fewer inflexions to mark the function of words in a sentence, there is less variation of standard patterns than in Old English, though writers of verse had more freedom than prose writers to alter the word‐order for stylistic or metrical effects, provided the relationship between the words was clear from grammatical form or context. Most instances cited here to show standard patterns are therefore taken from the prose texts.
Inversion, where the subject follows the verb, is found particularly in the following circumstances, some of which have been discussed already:
1 In questions (see 5.8).
2 In commands and wishes: construe þou cleerly, 6/126; see who bi grace see may, 6/74. (See 5.6.6.)
3 In conditional or concessive clauses introduced by al, ‘although’, or without a conjunction (see 5.6.6), including hypothetical sentences containing never so: be þeo neode never so gret, ‘however great the need is’, 12/9.
4 Often after an adverb or phrase of place, time, manner etc.: here liþ counforte, ‘here lies comfort’, 6/125–6; for ever schal he do it, and never schal he seese for to do it, 6/73–4; riʒt wel hast