Old English is synthetical and strict in morphology, as like in Russian or older Russian; but it has become more and more analytical (of the type of Chinese today) later on. As an example, quite a lot of verbs have been used as nouns withought morphological (formal ) change, or even dispite the existing nounal forms for them. The new usage is often colloquial, or in some special fields( IT, for instance). Quote used as noun is just the case.