2.3. Grammar
Old English was a synthetic
language
(the lexical
and grammatical
notions of
the word were contained
in one
unit). It
was highly inflected, with many various
affixes.
The principal grammatical means were suffixation, vowel interchange
and
supplition.
There was no fixed word-order in Old English, the order of the words
in the
sentence being relatively free.
2.4. Vocabulary
Almost
all of it was composed of native words, there were very
few
borrowings.
Borrowings were mainly from Latin:
a) The
forefathers of English, when on the Continent, had contacts with the
Roman
empire and borrowed words connected mainly with trade: win
(wine) b) They
borrowed Latin words from the Romanized Celts: Stræt
(street), weall (wall) c)
Some borrowings were due to the introduction of Christianity: biscop
(bishop), munic (monk)
New words appeared
as a result of two processes: A)
word
derivation: fisc+ere=
fiscere (fish —fisher)
B) word
composition: sunne
+dæ = Sunnanda (sun
+ day = Sunday)
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