Categories of Aspect and Mood in Old English

Abstract

The article discusses the categories of aspect and mood in the Old English language. The category of aspect’s formation, which performed the primary grammatical function in Old English, must be considered together with temporal oppositions’ development, since Old English forms simultaneously transmitted aspectual information. As for the Old English mood, the optative one with the verbs sculan/willan is of particular interest, because its development went along several directions with the transformation into modern constructions shall/will + infinitive, should/would + infinitive.