beon

Forms

bēon (irregular; present indicative bēo, bist, biþ, plural bēoþ; subjunctive bēo; imperative bēo, plural bēoþ; inflected infinitive tō bēonne; present participle bēonde)^[2]

• The spelling bīon occurs in early West Saxon and Kentish: bion in the Pastoral Care and the Boethius.^[3][4]
• The Vespasian Psalter gloss has the imperatives bīo, bīoð.^[5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-West Germanic *beun, from Proto-Germanic *beuną (“to be, to become”).^[1] The same present stem is found in Old Saxon bium and Old High German bim (“I am”).^[6]

Hogg and Fulk trace it to Proto-Indo-European *bʰew(H)-, the root of Latin fuī (“I have been”), and derive the Germanic present from a present stem in -iy-, comparing Latin fīō (“I become”) and Old Irish biu (“I am accustomed to being”).^[2][7] Holthausen adds Lithuanian būti (“to be”).^[6] Wiktionary calls the exact Indo-European formation uncertain.^[1]

The verb makes one paradigm with wesan and the forms ⟨eom⟩, ⟨is⟩, ⟨sind⟩: Hogg and Fulk count four Indo-European roots in it, the b-forms coming from the root of becoming, while the past tense and the infinitive ⟨wesan⟩ come from Proto-Indo-European *h₂wes- (“to dwell”).^[2][8] The b-forms survived in full beside ⟨is⟩ because they kept a meaning of their own, the future and the habitual.^[9] Before a vowel the old sequence /ij/ was lost early in ⟨bist⟩ and ⟨biþ⟩, while ⟨bēon⟩ and ⟨bēoþ⟩ still count as two syllables in some verse.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest dated record is in a Kentish charter of 805×810 in which the ealdorman Oswulf and his wife Beornthryth grant land to Christ Church, Canterbury: they ask ðæt wit moten bion on ðem gemanon ðe ðaer Godes ðiowas siondan “that we two may be in the fellowship in which God's servants are”.^[10] The single sheet is of the ninth century and has been held to be genuine and contemporary, although Crick dates its drafting and writing to the 840s.^[10] The Vespasian Psalter gloss of the mid-ninth century has ðu bist fultum “you will be a help” to the fatherless.^[11][4]

Semantic evolution

Bēon covers existence, position, becoming and happening, and with a predicate it is the copula; with an inflected infinitive it expresses what must be done (hié beóð tó ðreágeanne “they are to be rebuked”).^[12] In Latin glosses it renders “esse” and “fieri”.^[13] In the indicative it differs from the is-forms: it refers to future and habitual states, and it is the only Old English verb with separate future forms.^[2][9] In Beowulf the indicative b-forms are used in general and proverbial statements and with a future sense (ic bēo gearo sōna “I shall soon be ready”).^[14][15] In the imperative and the non-finite forms the b-forms replaced the is-forms entirely.^[9]

The verb lived on as Middle English been, now English be.^[1][16]

Timeline

• 805×810 – bion in a Kentish charter whose single sheet is held to be contemporary.^[10]
• s. ix med. – ðu bist fultum in the Vespasian Psalter gloss.^[11][4]
• 890×897 – the infinitive bion in the Pastoral Care (Hatton 20).^[17][4]
• s. x med. – ymb ðæt bion “be busy about it” in the Old English Boethius.^[18][4]
• s. x/xi – ic bēo gearo with future sense in the Beowulf manuscript.^[19][14]

Meanings

Verb

1. to be, to exist; of life, to last.^[15][12]
2. to be in a place or state; with a predicate, to be (the copula).^[12]
3. will be, is usually: the future and habitual present.^[9][14]
4. to become.^[15][13]
5. to happen.^[12][20]
6. bēon ymbe: to be busy about, to have to do with.^[12][20]

Descendants

• Middle English been (→ English be; English been; Scots be)^[1]

Related words

• wesan
• būan

Usage notes

Some forms are spread by dialect.^[5] Northumbrian has the imperatives wæs, wes, wosað and never bēo, bēoð.^[5] The Old English Bede has the infinitive weosan, and Northumbrian has wosa.^[5] In the subjunctive sie(n) is the usual form in every dialect except Ælfric's late West Saxon, where bēo(n) prevails.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Hogg, Richard M.; Fulk, R. D. (2011), A Grammar of Old English, vol. 2: Morphology, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, p. § 6.146
3. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. 102
4. ^ a b c d e Healey, Antonette diPaolo; Price Wilkin, John; Xiang, Xin, eds. (2009), Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus, Toronto: Dictionary of Old English Project
5. ^ a b c d e Hogg, Richard M.; Fulk, R. D. (2011), A Grammar of Old English, vol. 2: Morphology, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, p. § 6.149
6. ^ a b Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 20
7. ^ a b Hogg, Richard M.; Fulk, R. D. (2011), A Grammar of Old English, vol. 2: Morphology, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, p. § 6.148
8. ^ Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 582
9. ^ a b c d Hogg, Richard M.; Fulk, R. D. (2011), A Grammar of Old English, vol. 2: Morphology, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, p. § 6.147
10. ^ a b c The Electronic Sawyer: Online Catalogue of Anglo-Saxon Charters, revised ed. by S. E. Kelly and R. Rushforth, King's College London / University of Cambridge, esawyer.lib.cam.ac.uk, p. S 1188
11. ^ a b Gneuss, Helmut; Lapidge, Michael (2014), Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A Bibliographical Handlist of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p. 329
12. ^ a b c d e Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. Suppl. 79
13. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. bēon
14. ^ a b c Klaeber, Fr., ed. (1922), Beowulf and The Fight at Finnsburg, Boston: D. C. Heath, p. 301
15. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. 85
16. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
17. ^ Gneuss, Helmut; Lapidge, Michael (2014), Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A Bibliographical Handlist of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p. 499
18. ^ Gneuss, Helmut; Lapidge, Michael (2014), Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A Bibliographical Handlist of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p. 296
19. ^ Gneuss, Helmut; Lapidge, Michael (2014), Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A Bibliographical Handlist of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p. 344
20. ^ a b Nerthus: An Online Lexical Database of Old English, Universidad de La Rioja, nerthusproject.com (derivational paradigms, via the Nerthus Project's open data), p. s.v. bēon