On Old English <em>swa</em> 'so'

Abstract

This paper investigates the semantics of Old English swa 'so'. The word is indicative of diverse sentence interpretations (for example as equatives, conditionals and subordinate clauses of manner). Compositional semantic analysis reveals that nonetheless, its semantic contribution can be unified into two basic functions: marking definiteness and marking predicate abstraction. The interplay of the two and the possibility of covert marking of definiteness and abstraction links the two cases, revealing a path to reanalysis and semantic change. The analysis can be seen as an investigation into the basic semantic building blocks that go into the construction of complex sentence meanings.