In this paper, I show the paratactic clause combining nature of Old  English through a comparison study of some portions of the Old English translations of Bede’s original Latin work, The Ecclesiastical History  of the English Nation.  In the data, I find that whereas Latin employed many hypotactic and subordinating clause combining strategies, Old English translations of these structures was predominantly paratactic.

The study is significant for the literary history of the English language and for the linguistic theory of grammaticization.  First, it indicates that written Old English was closer to a spoken type of discourse where little subordination is found.  I argue that this is most likely due to the fact that in the Old English period, the language had not long enough been used for literary aims and therefore had not yet developed a large repertoire of hypotactic and subordinating strategies for combining clauses as compared to Latin, which at the time already had a long history of literary expression.

Secondly, the three types of clause combining strategies, parataxis, hypotaxis and subordination, have been shown to stand in a unidirectional, diachronic relationship, yielding a cline of grammaticization: parataxis > hypotaxis > subordination.  The data from this paper supports the position that Old English represents an early stage in thegrammaticization of clause combining strategies in English and that  in Modern written English the language has developed into a more subordinating type as compared to Old English