Endings -s and -st in the 2nd Person Singular Present Indicative in Old English

Abstract The replacement of the ending - s with - st in the 2nd person singular present indicative is an often-discussed diachronic development in Old English. Whereas most accounts center on the origins of - st , the present study focuses on the competition between the two endings throughout the Old English period. The current examination of the witnesses dating between the ninth and eleventh centuries shows that the - s - and - st -forms did not contrast on the phonological and morphological features generally cited in the analyses of this change. The adjacency of the pronominal subject did not affect the choice of the inflection either. Instead, initially the - s -forms occurred in the SV and VS environments whereas the - st -forms were restricted to the SV environments. This distribution explains why the verbs ending in - stu , which appeared only in the VS environments, could not have triggered the change of - s to -st . As the ending - st spread to the VS environment as well, the ending - s was confined to the VS environments where it survived into the twelfth century.