# Old English: past participle agreement



## nemurenai

Did Old English past participles agree with the nouns they modified? 

I've seen a few examples such as this -  "... sceal wiþ genumenum mete..." - but I can't find any general rule. In any case, it doesn't seem to be very common.

Thanks!


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## Dib

Yes, they did. As far as I know they were treated as normal adjectives. Here it is the normal strong declension. They had concord even in the perfect tense construction in the predicative position, e.g.:

"hie alle on þone Cyning wærun feohtende oþ þæt hie hine ofslægenne hæfdon" - AS Chronicle entry for year 755 (actual 757)

The predicative past participle agrees with the masculine singular accusative object "hine".


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## nemurenai

Thank you  Is there any rule about when past participles would/wouldn't agree with their referents, or did they always? So would a predicative/attributive past participle invariably agree?


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## Dib

I don't know enough OE to answer this from my own knowledge/experience, but this is what I could find:

"Past and present participles are often inflected as adjectives, even when they form periphrastic verb forms:
...
When participles are inflected, the ending -e is added to the nominative/accusative plural of all genders and may occasionally be omitted. Feminine nominative singular -u may also be omitted." - Introduction to Old English by Peter S. Baker, Chapter 11 Concord, Section 11.4 Noun and modifiers.

I have a feeling that he has only the predicative use on his mind, though... or at least only the strong declension, as it is suggested by the second part of the statement. I would expect attributive participles to be handled as regular adjectives, but I am no expert.


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## Chigch

Most OE participles (up to 90 percent) agreed with the modified noun.  
Because they showed adjectival inflections and agreed with the noun, many people think them as normal adjectives.  
But things are not that simple, I am afraid.


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## berndf

Dib said:


> I have a feeling that he has only the predicative use on his mind, though... or at least only the strong declension, as it is suggested by the second part of the statement. I would expect attributive participles to be handled as regular adjectives, but I am no expert.


Agreement of predicative adjectives was generally on the decline (and is not a specialty of participles) in Old West-Germanic languages and probably continued a development that started already before the break-up of the group. In late OE you had a situation as it is preserved in modern German where attributive adjectives agree and predicative adjectives are uninflected.


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## Chigch

Hi berndf,

In modern German, are all the attributive adjectives, including passive or past participles, inflected?
And what if they appear with _by_+Agent attributively?


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## berndf

Chigch said:


> In modern German, are all the attributive adjectives, including passive or past participles, inflected?


Yes.
_Ein redend*er* _[nominative, masculine, singular, strong]_ Mann = a talking man.
Das gesagt*e* _[nominative, neuter, singular, weak]_ Wort = the word said.
_


Chigch said:


> And what if they appear with _by_+Agent attributively?


I am not quite sure I understand the question. Can you give an example.


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## Dib

Chigch said:


> And what if they appear with _by_+Agent attributively?



If you mean instances like, "the word said by a talking man", then yes, they are still inflected in Modern German:

das von einem redend*en* [dative, masculine, singular, mixed*] Mann gesagt*e* [nominative, neuter, singular, weak] Wort
the (by a talking man) said word

* German actually has a mixed series apart from the weak and strong, I'd say: ein, mein, etc. demand the mixed series.


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## Dib

berndf said:


> Agreement of predicative adjectives was generally on the decline (and is not a specialty of participles) in Old West-Germanic languages and probably continued a development that started already before the break-up of the group. In late OE you had a situation as it is preserved in modern German where attributive adjectives agree and predicative adjectives are uninflected.



Interesting. I was wondering exactly when the last instances (in frozen sayings and as part of grammar) of predicative agreement have been attested in various Old West Germanic languages. I have read that there exist some Highest Alemannic dialects (e.g. canton Wallis) that still retain it though. It's also present in full force in North Germanic.


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## berndf

Dib said:


> * German actually has a mixed series apart from the weak and strong, I'd say: ein, mein, etc. demand the mixed series.


The entire schemes are called _strong, weak _or _mixed_. The individual forms of the mixed scheme are called either _strong_ or _weak_, but that is a minor terminological twist.


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## Dib

berndf said:


> The entire schemes are called _strong, weak _or _mixed_. The individual forms of the mixed scheme are called either _strong_ or _weak_, but that is a minor terminological twist.



Definitely.


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## berndf

Dib said:


> I was wondering exactly when the last instances (in frozen sayings and as part of grammar) of predicative agreement have been attested in various Old West Germanic languages.


In Middle High German you find some rare cases, e.g. in Hartmann von der Aue (early 13th century): _sîn jâmer wart sô vest*er* = his sorrow became so strong_.


Dib said:


> It's also present in full force in North Germanic.


Yes, the loss of inflection in predicative adjectives only affects West Germanic.


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## berndf

Dib said:


> I have read that there exist some Highest Alemannic dialects (e.g. canton Wallis) that still retain it though.


I couldn't verify this in the _Walliserdüütsch _text samples here, I recognized two predicative adjectives (_Da obmäna iss jetz flott (hipsch)!_ and _Der Püür ischt aber mieda._) and they were both uninflected. But this of course doesn't mean it is always like that. I just didn't manage to confirm it.


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## Dib

berndf said:


> In Middle High German you find some rare cases, e.g. in Hartmann von der Aue (early 13th century): _sîn jâmer wart sô vest*er* = his sorrow became so strong_.



Cool. Thanks for the example.



berndf said:


> I couldn't verify this in the _Walliserdüütsch _text samples here, I recognized two predicative adjectives (_Da obmäna iss jetz flott (hipsch)!_ and _Der Püür ischt aber mieda._) and they were both uninflected. But this of course doesn't mean it is always like that. I just didn't manage to confirm it.



Here's a nice paper on it:
https://www.uzh.ch/ds/wiki/ssl-dir/Bucheli_Berger/uploads/Main/DepictivesBucheli2005.pdf

In your examples "Dr Puir ischt abr miäd*ä* choon" (choon = gekommen?), the final -ä is apparently the masc sing agreement marker according to this paper (p. 9 or 49). The agreement also has some constraints as described there.

The paper contains the following examples:
är ischt alt-e (er ist alt)
schi ischt mied-i (sie ist müde)


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## myšlenka

Dib said:


> It's also present in full force in North Germanic.





berndf said:


> Yes, the loss of inflection in predicative adjectives only affects West Germanic.


It's present in the singular in predicative adjectives in North Germanic, but the plural marking has disappeared in all of Northern Norway and I assume parts of Sweden too. Only the neuter singular is marked, not exactly full force


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## Dib

Right. I should have been careful about that. Thanks for correcting. My idea was really based just on a superficial observation of Bokmål and Standard Swedish (I speak neither, but I have been living in Norway for a few months), where comm. sing - neut sing - plural are normally marked by zero-t-e/ä. But then, Bokmål does not distinguish masc-fem in this situation, it seems (except: liten/lita), and many adjectives also don't take the neuter t. I surely should have been more careful.


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## berndf

Dib said:


> In your examples "Dr Puir ischt abr miäd*ä* choon" (choon = gekommen?), the final -ä is apparently the masc sing agreement marker according to this paper (p. 9 or 49).


It is hard to say. The final vowel is part of the uninflected form (cf. standard German _müde_). To decide if it is a marker, you'd have to compare it with a case with a feminine subject in the same sub-dialect. Anywhay, you picked the wrong sentence. In the sentence you picked, _miädä_ is an adverb. I meant the sentence towords the end of the second sample. There is actually yet another sentence with a predicative adjective: _*Hibsch *isch es jetzt hie obena. Der Püür ischt aber *mieda*_.


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## Dib

^

Of course, I won't bet my life on it. I have no first hand knowledge of any Swiss German.


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