The order of words in Old English is more like that of Modern German than of Modern English. Yet it is only the Transposed order that the student will feel to be at all un-English; and the Transposed order, even before the period of the Norman Conquest, was fast yielding place to the Normal order.
The three divisions of order are (1) Normal, (2) Inverted, and (3) Transposed.
(1) Normal order = subject + predicate. In Old English, the Normal order is found chiefly in independent clauses. The predicate is followed by its modifiers: Sē hwæl bið micle lǣssa þonne ōðre hwalas, That whale is much smaller than other whales; Ǫnd hē geseah twā scipu, And he saw two ships.
(2) Inverted order = predicate + subject. This order occurs also in independent clauses, and is employed (a) when some modifier of the predicate precedes the predicate, the subject being thrown behind. The words most frequently causing Inversion in Old English prose are þā then, þonne then, and þǣr there: Ðā fōr hē, Then went he; Ðonne ærnað hȳ ealle tōweard þǣm fēo, Then gallop they all toward the property; ac þǣr bið medo genōh, but there is mead enough.
Inversion is employed (b) in interrogative sentences: Lufast ðū mē? Lovest thou me? and (c) in imperative sentences: Cume ðīn rīce, Thy kingdom come.
(3) Transposed order = subject ... predicate. That is, the predicate comes last in the sentence, being preceded by its modifiers. This is the order observed in dependent clauses:[1] Ðonne cymeð sē man sē þæt swiftoste hors hafað, Then comes the man that has the swiftest horse (literally, that the swiftest horse has); Ne mētte hē ǣr nān gebūn land, siþþan hē frǫm his āgnum hām fōr, Nor did he before find any cultivated land, after he went from his own home (literally, after he from his own home went).
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Two other peculiarities in the order of words require a brief notice.
(1) Pronominal datives and accusatives usually precede the predicate: Hē hine oferwann, He overcame him (literally, He him overcame); Dryhten him andwyrde, The Lord answered him. But substantival datives and accusatives, as in Modern English, follow the predicate. The following sentence illustrates both orders: Hȳ genāmon Ioseph, ǫnd hine gesealdon cīpemǫnnum, ǫnd hȳ hine gesealdon in Ēgypta lǫnd, They took Joseph, and sold him to merchants, and they sold him into Egypt (literally, They took Joseph, and him sold to merchants, and they him sold into Egyptians’ land).
Note.—The same order prevails in the case of pronominal nominatives used as predicate nouns: Ic hit eom, It is I (literally, I it am); Ðū hit eart, It is thou (literally, Thou it art).