The syntactic structure of a language can be described at the level of the phrase and at the level of the sentence. In OE texts we find a variety of word phrases (also: word groups or patterns). OE noun patterns, adjective patterns and verb patterns had certain specific features which are important to note in view of their later changes.
A noun pattern consisted of a noun as the head word and pronouns, adjectives (including verbal adjectives, or participles), numerals and other nouns as determiners and attributes. Most noun modifiers agreed with the noun in gender, number and case, e.g.:
Nouns which served as attributes to other nouns usually had the form of the Gen. case: hwāles bān, dēora fell ‘whale's bone, deer's fell’.
Some numerals governed the nouns they modified so that formally the relations were reversed: tamra dēora ... syx hund 'six hundred tame deer'; twentiʒ scēapa ‘twenty sheep’ (dēora, scēapa – Gen. pl).
An adjective pattern could include adverbs, nouns or pronouns in one of the oblique cases with or without prepositions, and infinitives, e.g.:
Verb patterns included a great variety of dependant components: nouns and pronouns in oblique cases with or without prepositions, adverbs, infinitives and participles, e.g.:
Infinitives and participles were often used in verb phrases with verbs of incomplete predication (some of these phrases were later transformed into analytical forms): mihtest findan ‘might find’ in the last example, hē wolde fandian ‘he wanted to find out’, hīe on unnon mā repian ‘they began to rage more’.