four verbs (namely libbian, seggian, huggian and hebbian); it is a remnant of an older and larger class that was kept in Old High German. Syntax Old Saxon syntax is mostly different from that of modern English. Some were simply consequences of the greater level of nominal and verbal inflection – e.g., word order was generally freer. In addition: The default word order was verb-second, very close to that of modern Dutch or modern German. There was no do-support in questions and negatives. Multiple negatives could stack up in a sentence and intensify each other (negative concord), which is not always the case in modern English, modern Dutch, or modern German. Sentences with subordinate clauses of the type "when X, Y" (e.g. "When I got home, I ate dinner.") did not use a wh-type conjunction, but rather used a th-type correlative conjunction (e.g. thô X, thô Y in place of "when X, Y"). The wh-type conjunctions were used only as interrogative pronouns and indefinite pronouns. Similarly, wh- forms were not used as relative pronouns (as in "the man who saw me" or "the car which I bought"). Instead, an indeclinable word the was used, often in conjunction with the definite article (which was declined for case, number and gender). Orthography Old Saxon comes down in a number of different manuscripts whose spelling systems sometimes differ markedly. In this section, only the letters used in normalized versions of the Heliand will be kept, and the sounds modern scholars have traditionally assigned to these letters. Where spelling deviations in other texts may point to significant pronunciation variants, this will be indicated. In general, the spelling of Old Saxon corresponds quite well to that of the other ancient Germanic languages, such as Old High German or Gothic. c and k were both used for . However, it seems that, as in other West-Germanic dialects, when was followed by i or e, it had the pronunciation or . The letters c and x were preferred for the palatalisations, k and even sometimes ch being rather used before u, o or a for (kuning for 'king', modern köning ; crûci for ; forsachistu for ). g represented or its allophone : brengian 'to bring', seggian 'to say', wege 'way' (dative). g seems, at least in a few dialects, to have had the pronunciation or at the beginning of a word, only when followed by i