Relative clauses exist on the sentence, the clause and the phrase levels. They are referred to as sentential, nominal and adnominal or adjectival relative clauses. Only adjectival relative clauses will be discussed in this chapter. In their prototypical realisation they expand the nucleus of a substantival syntagm, their antecedent. The clause containing the antecedent is the matrix clause of the relative clause. If adjectival relative clauses delimit the range of the referents of the antecedent, they realise the subtype restrictive, if they contain additional information, they realise the subtype non-restrictive.

Old English adjectival relative clauses: descriptive parameters

Mood

In PDE grammars the subjunctive is not mentioned at all in the context of adjectival relative clauses. In the examples which illustrate the properties of this clause type the indicative or a modally ambiguous verb form is used (cf. Quirk et al. 1985: 1245–1260).

In Harsh's diachronic study of the English subjunctive (1969) adjectival relative clauses constitute one of the thirteen syntactic patterns which he found relevant. The pattern ‘relative clause’ is characterised as ‘describing a person or persons who fulfill(s) hypothetical conditions. The clause is usually introduced by an indefinite pronoun, e.g., all, each, or by a personal pronoun used to express an indefinite reference’ (1969: 117–118). In the Rushworth Gospels, the only OE text which Harsh analysed, he identified fifty-nine subjunctives, of which twelve occurred in relative clauses.

A very thorough treatment of the subjunctive in OE relative clauses is provided by Frank Behre in his doctoral dissertation (1934). He devotes two chapters to this topic. In chapter VI (pp. 181–195) he deals with ordinary relative clauses, and chapter XI (pp. 292–312) is about relative clauses that can be replaced by consecutive clauses. He identifies the fol lowing six environments in which the subjunctive is used in his data, i.e. in OE poetry, and he illustrates them by examples:

1. The verbal syntagm of the matrix clause is a volitional expression realised by an imperative, a subjunctive, or by sceal plus infinitive.

[3.1] Syle þam ðe þe bidde (Matth. 5:42) ‘give to those who ask you’ (imperative in matrix clause)