Finite Verb Stress and Clitic Verbs in Old English "Beowulf

Abstract

The present work shows that using poetry as evidence for linguistic structure is justified by an appropriate understanding of the metrical structure and of its interaction with the poetic language. Also, Beowulf, along with other Old English poems, provides evidence for stress and archaic linguistic features, neither of which is available in prose. By closely examining the text that supposedly represents the earliest stage of the North- and West-Germanic, the present work elucidates the development of verb-second in early Germanic and of second-position clitics in general.