Hwang, Bo-geun. 1998. Word-order Patterns of Compounds in Beowulf. Studies in Modern Grammatical Theories, 12, 1-18. The main purpose of this paper is to analyse the compounds employed in Beowulf and to get the data concerning word-order patterns of compounds in it. The compounds are first classified into word-classes by their behaviors in the context: nouns, adjectives, and verbs. The noun compound is the largest in number, 83.2%, and the adjective and verb are 16.4% and 0.4%, respectively. In this study are excluded the verb combined with adverbs and prepositions, such as aet, be, for, in, ofer, purh, under, up, wip, etc. The lowest in frequency of the verb compound is explained by it. The adverb compounds are not found chiefly because the genitive and accusative cases of nouns are used as adverbs. Of the noun compounds the combination `Noun+Noun` is the highest in frequency; of the adjective `Noun+Adjective` is higher than `Adjective+Noun`. The analysis of the semantic structures of the noun compounds is shown in Table 2.2.1. The word-order pattern `O+V` surpasses the `V+O` pattern in number; the `Modifier+ Noun` does the `Noun+Modifier`. The `V+S` pattern is not found while the `S+V` is lower in frequency. In the adjective compounds (as shown in Table 2.2.2), the `V+S` is greater than the `S+V`; the `O+V` is greater in number than other combinations, and the `V+O` is not found. The `Adverb+Adjective` is much higher in frequency than the `Adjective+Adverb`. In the analysis of the semantic structures of the compounds in Beowulf (shown in Table 2.2.4), the highest in frequency is found in the word-onler `OV` and those consisted of elements with the `Modifier+Head` relationship. This suggests that the English in Beowulf, i.e., the English up to the 11th century had the word-order patterns of an OV language.

• 황보근 | Bo Geun Hwang