Old English Gerunds in -enne

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Das Baron
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Old English Gerunds in -enne

Post by Das Baron »

I've only ever seen the Old English gerund suffix -enne mentioned by one source*, and I can't recall ever having seen it used in a text. I've always assumed that -ing/-ung was the usual gerund suffix. Was -enne common, and did it differ in usage from -ing/-ung?

*This one: http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/ ... Eng01_GP05
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Sleinad Flar
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Re: Old English Gerunds in -enne

Post by Sleinad Flar »

According to this: http://johnhutton1965.wordpress.com/200 ... revisited/ and http://www.old-engli.sh/trivia.php?ID=Infinitive the -enne form is in fact the inflected infinitive (the to-infinitive), which goes back to an older dative form of a lost gerund. The use of the term "gerund" for this form is misleading, as it only shows this dative form and is only used after the "preposition" to. The second link has an interesting story about its syntactic development.
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Re: Old English Gerunds in -enne

Post by Das Baron »

The link I posted, however, contrasts the "inflected infinitive" -anne with the "gerund" -enne.
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