On the use of beon and wesan in Old English

This paper commences by characterizing the exceptionality of the Old English double paradigm of sL and bLforms of the verb ‘to be’ in the present tense among the (West) Germanic languages, followed by an analysis of the use of beon and wesan in the Old English section of the Helsinki Corpus with a focus on the linguistic contexts of these verbs in their indicative, subjunctive and imperative forms and on their dialectal distribution. A comparison of my findings with parallel forms and their uses in the Celtic languages supports the assumption that the emergence of the double paradigm in Old English, with wesan expressing current relevance and beon referring to habitual or future events, can only be assigned to Insular Celtic influence.