Old English Dithematic Names and the Reliability of Sieversian Metrics

Abstract

ABSTRACT In an iconoclastic essay published in 2003, Thomas A. Bredehoft contended that Old English dithematic names are prosodically identical to compound words despite the existence of compelling evidence to the contrary. He founded his analysis on the allegedly overlooked evidence afforded by the participation of names in non-primary patterns of alliteration in Beowulf and their manuscript presentation. Moreover, because the traditional notion that dithematic names and compounds have different prosodic configurations is to a large extent based on the evidence furnished by Eduard Sievers’s metrical paradigm, Bredehoft argued that such a paradigm is erroneous and hence ineffective as a tool for the study of the Old English language. After submitting Bredehoft’s argumentation to critical examination, this article concludes that his theory makes the wrong predictions about the behaviour of dithematic names in verse, and that, consequently, it should not be considered a valid interpretation of their prosodic configuration. It is also argued that the Sieversian model is essentially correct, and that it therefore constitutes a reliable means for the analysis of the grammatical structure of Old English.