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When did English lose the -en infinitive, and which dialect kept it the longest?

Also, were modern compound verbs ("to go out") separable verbs in OE a la Deutsch?

Well we had a thread a few weeks ago in which I posted that, to some extent, the -en infinitive is continued as modern English -ing because it merged with -ing. However the usage has changed. There does seem to have been a time though when the infinitive of a verb would be, for example, "to drinken" with the -en part eventually swallowed up to nothing, so ignoring the -ing theory we could put the death of -en somewhere around 1450 based on searching the Internet for Middle English texts. However it was probably a gradual process with some dialects doing it much earlier than others.

Soap wrote:Well we had a thread a few weeks ago in which I posted that, to some extent, the -en infinitive is continued as modern English -ing because it merged with -ing. However the usage has changed. There does seem to have been a time though when the infinitive of a verb would be, for example, "to drinken" with the -en part eventually swallowed up to nothing, so ignoring the -ing theory we could put the death of -en somewhere around 1450 based on searching the Internet for Middle English texts. However it was probably a gradual process with some dialects doing it much earlier than others.

You are confusing the present participle -ende ending, which was reduced to -in before merging in Standard English with the gerund -ing ending, with the infinitive -(e)n ending, which is what is being referred to here.

Well, I remember reading somewhere that the infinitive was confused with those others, even if it stayed on as a distinct morpheme in other situations, which is why sentences like German's "Schwimmen ist gut" are analogous to "Swimming is good" rather than "To swim is good" in English. But it's just a theory and I could be wrong so I don't want to overstate its importance here.

According to "The Inflections and Syntax of the Morte d'Arthur," a final -n can be seen on a few anomalous verbs, so I it wasn't completely dead by around 1470 (see page 55 of the aforementioned text). Based off of gut instinct, I'd guess that the last vestiges died out in the West Country, due to the Southern Middle English dialect's conservatism. Kentish would be another guess for the final hold-out of -n, but I suspect London influence might have played a role in killing more quickly. I'd wager that probably by 1550, and almost certainly by 1600, it was completely dead. However, this is just gut instinct talking.

Herra Ratatoskr wrote:According to "The Inflections and Syntax of the Morte d'Arthur," a final -n can be seen on a few anomalous verbs, so I wasn't completely dead by around 1470 (see page 55 of the aforementioned text).

I did not know you were an infinitive.

Well, I'm a very secretive person, so there's a lot you don't know about me...



...oops. Fixed.

I wonder how long it survived in County Wexford in Ireland.

Any takers on my second question?

Pretty much, yes, there were. If you're up to some academicese, I know of a couple dissertations on the subject. From my understanding, the current "phrasal" verb nature came about due to scandanavian influence (but don't quote me on that. It's just a vague recollection I have).

Beli Orao wrote:Also, were modern compound verbs ("to go out") separable verbs in OE a la Deutsch?

What you have to understand about phrasal verbs in Old English is that they were not seperable like they are today. While today we would say "to burn" and "to burn up," Old English would say "bærnan" and "forbærnan." There was very little incidence of the phrasal preposition being separated from the verb. The only incidence that comes to mind is the sentence: Ac he teah forð þa his ealdan wrenceas or "But he drew forth his old tricks." But this is very rare among Old English literature. The reason why this rarity existed may have something to do with Old English's strong OV tendencies versus Modern English's strong VO tendencies.

Viktor77 wrote:

Beli Orao wrote:Also, were modern compound verbs ("to go out") separable verbs in OE a la Deutsch?

What you have to understand about phrasal verbs in Old English is that they were not seperable like they are today. While today we would say "to burn" and "to burn up," Old English would say "bærnan" and "forbærnan." There was very little incidence of the phrasal preposition being separated from the verb. The only incidence that comes to mind is the sentence: Ac he teah forð þa his ealdan wrenceas or "But he drew forth his old tricks." But this is very rare among Old English literature. The reason why this rarity existed may have something to do with Old English's strong OV tendencies versus Modern English's strong VO tendencies.

1) don't plagiarize http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~cpercy/ ... amont.html
2) "among Old English literature"? WTF, learn English, dude.
3) Old English was V2, and very much so, rather than OV. (It was OV in subclauses, though, but ...)
4) saying shit like "comes to mind" to sound smart is ... so stupid, dude. Especially as it didn't 'come to mind'.
"Some Old English verbs did function as modern phrasal verbs do. Denison (English 36) points out that Koopman finds and analyses examples of Old English phrasal verbs with post-verbal particles. In the Chronicles of England, the speaker says, “ac he teah forð þa his ealdan wrenceas” (but he drew forth his old tricks)." That sentence didn't "come to mind" to you, you copied it. Also, "comes to mind" isn't used about sentences you'd come up with yourself by knowledge of grammar, and I don't think that's a sentence you'd know by heart just because it's in The Chronicles of England - so you're pretty unlikely to have that 'come to mind'.

First thought upon seeing thred: "but Old English didn't have <q>"

First thought on seeing thread: "ZOMG Old English had /q/ ?"

(I can't believe I just used chatspeak...)

Herra Ratatoskr wrote:... Kentish would be another guess for the final hold-out of -n, but I suspect London influence might have played a role in killing more quickly ...

If you're talking about the west Kent dialect then I very much doubt it - too close to London, plus a lot of west Kent idiosyncracies [sp?] managed to seep into standard English thanks to its proximity to the capital (population flows in 18/19c were decidedly Kent > London).

If you're talking about the east Kent dialects - it's possible, but I'd suggest Sussex as a much more likely candidate.

I also thought this was going to be about /q/ in OE ... which would be odd ...

These are the statistics from Hogg and Denison's A History of the English Language (text with year / % -en infinitives / % -0 infinitives):

PC 1154 / 100 / 0
Astrolabe 1381 / 44 / 56
Grocers' 1418 / 25 / 75
Caxton Prol 1473 / 2 / 98

So infinitives were basically always marked -en in the twelfth century; this dropped off until by the end of fifteenth they were hardly ever marked.