the exception of its appearance in the Chronicles, very small.91 In the poetical remains in which search was made for causative don, no clear examples of causative lætan were found, though some ambiguous instances may be cited from these documents. Of the fourteen examples of lætan cited by Callaway on pages 306-307 of his Infinitive in Anglo-Saxon, thirteen are without doubt to be rendered 'allow, permit'; one may rightly be construed as carrying the meaning 'cause.' I find no causative use of lætan in the Blickling Homilies; one in Boethius' De Consolatione Philosophiae; 92 two in Volume 1 of Elfric's Homilies; 93 six in the Pentateuch.94 In twenty-six uses of lætan in Wulfstan's Homilies, three are probably causative uses. In these three and in similar instances it is not, however, easy to determine whether we should assign the meaning 'cause' or the meaning 'allow.'

When the two aspects of action are so closely related as they are in these instances, use in both meanings may be looked forand found in Middle English. With the most favorable disposition toward construing wavering cases as causative, one cannot find more than an occasional use of lætan as a causative in Old English writing, a smaller use than is made of don in this meaning. The presumption of use in Old English language from latan's extensive use in Middle English is strengthened by the exceptionally large appearance of the verb in the causative sense in an Old English composition more nearly colloquial than any other extended writing of the age, the Chronicles. Of the sixtyfive instances of lætan cited from the Chronicles by Callaway, all but five seem to have gone beyond the 'allow' stage of meaning. Fifty-one of the sixty cases of probable causative use are,

97

96

The relation between the verb of 'causing' and the verb of 'allowing ' in lætan, O. H. G. lazzan, O. N. lata is discussed in "The Causative Use of Hatan." Got. letan leaves record of use only in the sense 'allow, let alone.'

Bosworth-Toller glosses lætan 'place, cause, make, get, have, cause to be' as the third meaning of lætan; practically all the illustrations are of the sense place.'

02 133, 25.

DS 509, 19; 522, 2.

Ex., ix, 24; xxiii, 11; Numb., xi, 24; Lev., i, 15; xix, 29; Deut., xxxii, 39.

65

10, 7; 14, 2; 230, 19.

"Op. cit., pp. 284 and 307.

"The five are: E. 999; D. 1038; C. 1046; D. 1066; D. 1079.

it should also be noted, in records of a date later than 1040, wherein the language shows other departures from the Old English standard, which are presumably leanings toward folk-usage.9s

99

Some of the instances in the Chronicles just referred to may very likely be periphrases for a past tense, in which let is merely a form element in an analytical expression of past action, and in which it has lost its causative signification. This is particularly true of the use of let with no subject of the following infinitive expressed, a usage which is scarcely more than a periphrasis for the passive voice; as, and leot macan pone mynster; let ferian syoðan sce Alfeges reliquias.100 The construction is paralleled by the impersonal man-construction in: and pet mynster þær let halgian (C. 1065): on pissum geare man halgode pet mynster (E. 1066); let hine beran ham . . . and man ferode hine to Lincolne.101 A similar use in Old Norse is illustrated in: hann let verò farit (he went); hann let hana verða takna (= he seized her). The double function of leten is frequently found in Middle English.

4. Macian.

In any significance, macian is an infrequent word in Old English writing. 102 It fails of record in the four hundred and sixty pages of Sweet's Oldest English Texts, in the one hundred and eighty-eight pages of selections in Bright's Anglo-Saxon Reader, and in the one hundred and fifty-seven pages of Kluge's Altenglisches Lesebuch. It is absent from Beowulf, Christ, Exodus, and Daniel. I find it used six times in Wulfstan's Homilies 103 and twenty-one times in the Chronicles.10 Of the twenty-one

104

See the Chronicles' use of macian, p. 354 below.

99 E. 963.

100 C. 1023. Also, among many other cases, C. 1041; C. 1043.

101 E. 1123. See Bede, Eccl. Hist., III, 18.

10"It is to be noted that in earlier times these Germanic verbs [O. H. G. machon, L. G. Dut. Flem. maken, O. S. macon, O. Fris. makia, O. E. macian] were not so commonly used as they are in later periods." (Yoshioka, A Semantic Study of Verbs of Doing and Making in the IndoEuropean Languages, p. 17.)

103 54, 5; 98, 25; 106, 6; 106, 25; 107, 3; 303, 8.

104 F. 648; E. 870; E. 963 (6 instances); C. 1056; E. 1075; E. 1086; E. 1095; E. 1137 (4 instances); E. 1140 (2 instances); E. 1154.

examples from the Chronicles, seventeen come from the late Laud MS.; thirteen are found after the entry for 1056 (six of the eight of earlier record than 1056 are used in the entry for the year 963, a full and easily written narrative); and seven uses are after the 1131 break in the composition of the Laud Ms.

The notion create,' the notion build,' are generally expressed in Old English writing by wyrcan, (ge) sceapan, aræran, and (ge) timbrian. Facere in the general sense Facere in the general sense 'make' is usually translated by one of these verbs, while in the causative sense, it is turned by don, lætan, or hatan.

In a causative sense macian is found in very few instances in the Old English written record. Cura Pastoralis furnishes one example; 105 Volume I of Elfric's Homilies, one; 106 Wulfstan's Homilies, two; 107 the Pentateuch, two.108 Of the twenty-one uses of macian in the Chronicles, only three are of causative meaning.109

No examples occur in the Old English written record, so far as I know, of an infinitive construction after macian. I have found nothing to contradict the statement of the New English Dictionary that the earliest use of the verb with an infinitive is to be found in the Lambeth Homilies (ca. 1175).110 After the few instances of causative macian in the record may be found a pat-clause; an object and an object complement; 112 and an object plus a to-prepositional phrase.112

111

5. Other Verbs.

There remain for slight notice a few other verbs, of small consequence in later causative use, found sparingly employed as causatives in Old English writing. Of these it will be well to mention:

105 Cited by Wülfing, op. cit., II, 90; see also I, 97.

106 6, 11.

108

Gen., xii, 2; Ex., v, 21.

107 54, 5; 98, 25.

209

F. 870; E. 963; E. 1075.

110 Case cited also by Oliphant, op. cit., 226. Einenkel (Streifzüge durch die M. E. Syntax, p. 236) refers the first use of " pure" infinitive after macen to Layamon.

Chronicles, F. 870 and E. 1075; the two examples cited above from Elfric and Wulfstan.

Chronicles, E. 963; Genesis, xii, 2.

Biegan, which as a causative is sometimes found, followed by an object and a to-prepositional phrase,113 and once at least by an infinitive.114

Berenian, arrange, cause,' which is apparently a lexical word.

See Bosworth-Toller.

115

Bringan, which is found in collision with a pat-clause; with an object plus an attributive participle; 116 and with a to-prepositional phrase.117

Wyrcan, which is recorded a few times in causative use.118 In at least one instance an infinitive follows wyrcan, where it translates facere plus an infinitive.119 With a following clause I have not found the verb, but I have noted a following object and objective complement,120 and an object plus a to-prepositional phrase, 121

In the Old English written record are found several verbs of implied causation, verbs which express an instigation to action exerted upon an agent actor but which do not represent the action as having been completed. Verbs of this sort are mannian, suggest,' exhort'; eggian, egg, incite'; bescufan, 'impel'; sprytan, 'incite'; tihtan, exhort.'

Bringing about an action through an unwilling agent is usually represented in the Old English record by niedan. Grades of emphasis of the causative element are well illustrated by the following climactic sentence from Wulfstan's Homilies: 122 pa he wile preatian and ægeslice wyldan and earmlice pingan . . . and neodunga nydan pæt he... Fading of the compulsory sense in niedan is shown by its convertible use with don in the translation

11 See Wülfing, op. cit., п, 215; Ælfric's Homilies, 1, 362, 34.

114 Psalms, 143, 14, cited by Callaway, op. cit., p. 110.

a15 Salamon and Saturn, 31-32.

116 Ibid., 174-175.

117 Ibid., 149.

...

118 Gothic uses gawaurkjan as a causative with a following infinitive; as, Mark, 3, 14; Luke, 9, 14. See appended tables below. O. S. giuuirkean with object and objective complement is found in the Heliand (for example, 161, 2108).

119

Lindisfarne Gospel, Luke, 5, 34.

100 Genesis, 254; Ælfric's Homilies, 1, 254, 8; 1, 482, 19.

1 John, 10, 33; Wulfstan's Homilies, 163, 2.

of cogis in Metrum 5, Bk. I of Boethius' De Consolatione Philosophiae by gedest in the Old English prose translation and by genedest in the poetical version.

The normal construction after the verb is a pat-clause.123 It is followed also by an object plus a to-prepositional phrase, and, in one or two instances, by an infinitive. Of the last use Callaway 124 cites Mark, 6, 45 as an example. Cura Pastoralis 125 presents an example of a following inflected infinitive. In Middle English, neden shares in the movement toward the infinitive short-cut, along with don, macian, and other verbs that are clause bound in Old English writing.

Comparatively small use was made in the Old English written record of the three causative form-words-don, lætan, macianwhich in Middle English writing find wide employment in this function and continue so to be used until toward the end of the period, when make(n) is fixed as the general causative, when do (n) sheds its causative use for its heavy task of tense formation, and lete(n) practically loses its causative function for its particularization as a subjunctive auxiliary. Of these three verbs, macian, the most common in Modern English, is most sparsely represented in Old English writing. An account of the behavior of these words in the language material lying between Old and Modern English will soon be given in an article on Middle English causatives. This paper has, it is hoped, at least cleared the way for presenting that study.

The University of North Carolina.

123 Luke, 14, 23. Here and elsewhere (Gal., 6, 12 for example) Gothic puts an infinitive after nauþan.