Adverbs, Conjunctions, and Prepositions Overview

Adverbs, conjunctions, and prepositions are the small words that enhance, join, and show the relationship between nouns, adjectives and verbs in a sentence. Unlike nouns and adjectives, they are uninflected for case, gender, or number.

Adverbs

Adverbs are words that describe verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs in more detail. For example, in the sentence, 'Sancta Maria forhtode ond eaðmodlice ondswarode him - Saint Mary was afraid and humbly answered him', 'eaðmodlice' modifies the verb 'ondswarode'.

Many adverbs are formed from other nouns and adjectives by adding an 'e' like 'hearde - severely', 'lice' like 'leoflice - lovely' or 'unga' like 'eallunga - entirely', but some adverbs are standalone and just need to be memorized. Adverbs also have comparative and superlative forms, which are made by dropping the final vowel in the adverb and adding 'or' or 'ost'.

Conjunctions

Conjunctions are words that join other words, phrases or clauses together. Some are short and easy to recognise, for example, 'ond - and', 'ac - but', or 'swa þæt - so that'. However, conjunctions also come in pairs that relate sentence elements to each other. For example, in the sentence, 'Swa swa lim gefæsnað fel to sumum brede, swa getigð seo conivnctio þa word togædere - Just as lime fastens skin to a board, so the conjunction ties words together', the first conjunction 'swa swa - just as' and the second conjunction 'swa - so', work together to relate the first clause to the second.

Prepositions

Prepositions like 'in', 'on', 'æfter', and 'mid' help establish relationships in time, space, and among people and things. For example, in the sentence, 'Fram þisum men ic underfeng feoh - From this man I took money, the relationship between the speaker, the man, and the money is established by the word 'fram'.

In Old English, most prepositions are followed by the dative case.

There are a few prepositions which change meaning depending on whether they are followed by a word in the accusative or dative. A preposition usually precedes the accusative if the preposition itself specifically relates to motion or time.

There are four prepositions which only precede the accusative case. These are 'geond - through', 'oð - until', 'þurh - through' and 'ymb - surrounding/about'.