Introduction

There is a strong tendency to see syntactic constructions or categories, which seem not to have changed much between the various historical stages within one language, as being essentially the same all the way through. This is understandable but also hazardous (for a discussion and some examples, see Lightfoot 1979: 34ff.; Fischer 2007: 18ff.) because it may mean that one misses changes in the grammatical system underlying these structures. It is essential, therefore, both to analyse any particular morphosyntactic structure in terms of its surface form, its semantic and pragmatic usage, and to establish how it compares with neighbouring structures (i.e. structures close to the construction under discussion in both form and function) and fits into the overall system of grammar functioning at the time. In a way, then, one should regard superficial similarities and differences between Old English and Middle English, or between Old English and Modern English, with the same objective eye as one would regard similarities/differences between English and French, or between English and Arabic. The risk of misanalysing in intra-linguistic research is all the greater if the researcher is a native speaker of that language, and even more so if he or she has little knowledge of other languages, which could have alerted him/her to possible other ways of analysing the structure. In other words, it is good to maintain a certain distance between one’s native language and the language that is the object of research, regardless of whether these languages are historically related or not.

This chapter is concerned with the reconstruction of the meaning and use of pre- and postposed adjectives in Old English, and in particular with one construction type featuring a postposed adjective preceded by and (as in siocne monnan and gesargodne ‘sick man and wounded’, cf. (2) below). Until fairly recently all these adjectives, regardless of position, were usually interpreted as ‘normal’ attributive adjectives, that is, as adjectives modifying the head noun (on a par with NP(Noun Phrase)-internal adjectives in Present-day English), and the difference between pre- and postposed adjectives was generally seen as due to the greater freedom of word order in Old English; no difference in meaning or adjective type was envisaged (for a brief survey of the literature, see Fischer 2000: 155; Fischer and van der Wurff 2006: 122–6). In other words, since preposed adjectives (which were also in Old English the majority type) are seen as attributive in Present-day English, both types were also seen as attributive in Old English. A postposed adjective within the NP was thus considered a mere variant of a preposed one.