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Strong Verbs and their Development

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1. As far as the strong verbs were a non-productive class, some strong verbs turned into weak with time, i.e. started to employ -t/-d suffix in their form-building (e.g. to climb, to help, to swallow, to wash, etc.). Thus in NE only 70 strong verbs out of 300 in OE remained.

2. The strong verbs were subdivided into 7 classes according to the type of vowel gradation/ablaut.

The classes that survived best through different periods of the history were classes 1, 3, 6:

 

Class 1 Infinitive Past Sg Past Pl Participle 2
OE wrītan wrāt writon writen
ME writen wrot writen writen
NE write wrote written

 

Class 3 Infinitive Past Sg Past Pl Participle 2
OE findan fand fundon funden
ME finden fand founden founden
NE find found found

 

Class 6 Infinitive Past Sg Past Pl Participle 2
OE scacan scoc scōcon scacen
ME shaken shook shoken shaken
NE shake shook shaken

 

Analysing the tables above, we can see that the following changes occurred:

· In ME the inflections - an, -on, -en were all reduced to just one inflection à - en.

· In NE the ending -n was lost in the Infinitive and preserved in the Participle 2 in order to distinguish these two forms.

· In NE Past Singular and Past Plural forms were unified, usually with the Singular form preferred as a unified form because Past Plural and Participle 2 often had similar forms and it was hard to distinguish them (e.g. ME writen (Past Pl) – writen (Part. 2))à the category of Number disappeared in the Verb.

In ModE the subdivision into classes was lost though we still can trace some peculiarities of this or that class in the forms of the irregular verbs.

 

Weak Verbs and their Development

1. The division of weak verbs into classes was based on the original stem-building suffix of a verb that was already hard to distinguish even in OE:

Class 1 Infinitive Past Participle 2 Basis for Subdivision
OE styrian styrede stured stem-suffix -j most verbs – with front root-vowel derived from nouns, adjectives
ME stiren stirede stired
NE stir stirred stirred
Class 2 Infinitive Past Participle 2 Basis for Subdivision
OE lōcian lōcode lōcod stem-suffix –oja most numerous class most verbs – with back root-vowel
ME looken lookede looked
NE look looked looked
Class 3 Infinitive Past Participle 2 Basis for Subdivision
OE libban lifde lifd 3 verbs only: habban (to have), libban (to live), secζan (to say)
ME livien livde lived
NE This class merged with class 1 in ME

 

2. Weak verbs were not as complex as strong ones and had a greater regularity and simplicity. That’s why they were productive, i.e. all borrowed verbs used weak model of form-building (suffix -t/-d) (e.g. Scand. to skate, Fr. to charm, Lat. to decorate, etc.) and, as it has already been mentioned above, many originally strong verbs turned into weak (e.g. to bake, to laugh, to help, to lie, etc.). The opposite process of turning of weak verbs into strong was very rare and was mainly based on phonetic similarity between some strong and weak verbs, i.e. was a result of mere confusion that later was accepted as a norm due to its persistent and regular character (e.g. to wear was originally weak and became strong because of the mistaken analogy with to swear, to ring (mistaken analogy with to sing), to hide (mistaken analogy with to ride)).

Non-Finite Forms

Participle 1

The formation of the Participle 1 was as follows:

 

OE ME NE
berende bering bearing

 

In OE Participle 1 was considered Present Participle, had only the form of the Active Voice, possessed the categories of Number, Gender, Case. It was used predicatively and attributively (agreed with the noun in Number, Gender, Case).

In ME it lost its nominal and adjectival features together with the categories of Number, Gender, Case and became unchangeable.

Participle 2

As it has been mentioned in the table above, in OE Participle 2 was formed:

· in strong verbs – with the help of the suffix –en (+ sometimes root-vowel interchange) + often marked by prefix ζe-:

e.g. OE bindan (Infinitive) – ζe b u nd en (Participle 2) (to bind)

In ME prefix ζe- was weakened to prefix i-/y- (e.g. ME y-runne (run, Part.2 from “to run”) and in NE it disappeared at all.

· in weak verbs – with the help of the suffix -t/-d:

e.g. OE cēpan (Infinitive) – cēpe d (Participle 2) (to keep)

Participle 2, unlike Participle 1, had two meanings of the category of Voice:

 

OE NE
Active Voice Passive Voice
ζegān ζeboren gone, born
somebody was gone, i.e. he did it himself = he was the subject/active doer of the action somebody was born, i.e. somebody gave birth to him = he was the object/passive recipient of the action No Voice distinctions observed

 

Thus in OE Participle 2 was considered Past Participle, had the forms of the Active and Passive Voice, possessed the categories of Number, Gender, Case. It was used predicatively and attributively (agreed with the noun in Number, Gender, Case).

In ME it lost the category of Voice and the categories of Number, Gender, Case and became unchangeable.

 

Infinitive

In OE the Infinitive resembled the Noun and had the category of Case (only two Cases – Nominative (Nom) and Dative (Dat)):

e.g. OE Nom writan (uninflected) Dat to wrītan ne (inflected, indicated direction or purpose).

 

In ME the Infinitive lost the Dative Case (the inflected form) and only one form was left:

e.g. ME (to) writ en.

 

Particle to remained in NE as a formal sign of the infinitive with no meaning of direction or purpose:

e.g. NE (to) writ e.

Though sometimes the traces of these meanings are still visible:

e.g. He came to feed the horses (purpose).

 

Gerund

The Gerund appeared only in the 12th c. Actually it presented a mixture of the OE Verbal Noun (with suffix -unζ/-inζ) and Participle 1 and its characteristics were:

· It took direct object (verbal feature) (e.g. buying a book);

· It could be preceded by an article or a possessive pronoun (noun feature) (e.g. the cleaning of my room, your coming late).

 

Preterite-Present Verbs

OE

The preterite-present verbs had the following characteristics:

· Their Present -Tense forms resembledPast -Tense forms (Germ. “Präteritum” = past tense, that’s why they were called so);

· Some of these verbs did not have a full paradigm and were called “ defective ”;

· These verbs expressed attitude and were followed by the Infinitive without “to” (NB! Most of these verbs are present-day modal verbs);

· Out of 12 preterite-present verbs only 6 survived in ModE:

āζ (ought), cunnan (can), dear (dare), sculan (shall), maζan (may), mōt (must).

E.g.:

Numb. Pers. Present Past
(formed like Past Tense of strong verbs) (formed like Past Tense of weak verbs)
cunnan sculan cunnan sculan
Sg 1st cann sceal cuðe sceolde
2nd canst scealt cuðest sceoldest
3rd cann sceal cuðe sceolde
Pl - cunnon sculon cuðon sceoldon

 

ME

The following changes happened to the preterite-present verbs:

· They lost their Verbals (non-finite forms) (e.g. OE cunnen – Part 2 of cunnan);

· They lost the Number and Mood distinctions (e.g. OE cann (Indicative) – cunne (Subjunctive); OE cann (Sg) – cunnon (Pl)).

 

NE

The paradigm of the preterite-present verbs (that had already become modal verbs) was reduced to one or two forms (e.g. must (just one form), can, could (just two forms), etc.).

 

Anomalous Verbs

They were irregular verbs that combined the features of the weak and strong verbs. There were 4 of them – willan (will), bēon (to be), ζān (to go), dōn (to do).

 

Willan:

· had the meaning of volition;

· resembled the preterite-present verbs in meaning (attitude) and in function (was followed by the Infinitive without “to”);

· eventually became a modal verb and also together with sculan developed into an auxiliary for the formation of the Future-Tense forms.

 

Dōn

This verb combined the features of the weak and strong verbs:

 

Infinitive Past Participle 2
strong verb feature (root-sound interchange) + weak verb feature (dental suffix -d) strong verb feature (suffix -nand prefix ζe -)
dōn dyde ζedōn

 

ζan

This verb was suppletive and also combined the features of the weak and strong verbs:

 

Period Infinitive Past Participle 2
OE ζān ēode (suppletivism + weak verb feature (dental suffix -d)) ζeζān (strong verb feature (suffix -nand prefix ζe -)
ME goon wente (suppletivism (from OE wendan) + weak verb feature (dental suffix -t) goon (strong verb feature (suffix -n))

 

Bēon

This verb was highly suppletive and in OE employed two separate words/roots (Infinitives):

Present OE ME NE
Numb. Pers. wesan bēon been been
Sg 1st eom bēo am am
2nd eart bist art are
3rd is biþ is is
Pl - sint bēoþ are/arn are
Past wesan been be
Sg 1st w æ s was was
2nd w ǽ re wēre were
3rd w æ s was was
Pl - w ǽ ron wēren were

 

 

Analytical Forms

In OE there were no analytical forms. They appeared later:

· ME – Future Tense, Perfect, Passive and Subjunctive forms;

· NE – Continuous and Do-forms;

and had the following characteristics:

· They consisted of 2 elements:

- a verb of broad semantics and high frequency (an auxiliary);

- a non-finite form (Infinitive, Participle 1, 2).

 

Future-Tense Forms

In OE there was no Future Tense. Future actions were expressed by Present-Tense forms and modal phrases with sculan (shall), willan (will), maζan (may), cunnan (can), etc.

Formation

sculan/willan + Infinitive

Willan had more strong modal meaning (volition) that was later weakened and almost lost.

2. 13th – 14th c. – these forms were very common and sculan (shall) and willan (will) were completely interchangeable.

3. 17th c. – John Wallis introduced the ruleshall – 1st person, will – 2nd and 3rd person”.

4. In ModE there is a tendency to use will + 1st, 2nd and 3rd person without any distinction (earlier will + 1st person had the modal meaning of volition).

 

Perfect Forms

Formation

habban/bēon + Participle 2

↓ ↓

with transitive with intransitive (this distinction is still left in German)

verbs verbs

2. In ME and NE only the auxiliary habban was left while bēon ceased to be used in the Perfect forms not to confuse them with the Passive forms (though some of these forms are still left, e.g. He is gone).

Passive Forms

Formation

bēon/werthen + Participle 2

2. Werthen died out in late ME.

3. Passive constructions were often marked with prepositions “by/with” (to show the doer of the action or the instrument of the action).

 

Subjunctive-Mood Forms

1. These forms were not always analytical in OE but were widely used in:

· independent clauses – to express wish, command, hypothetical condition, concession, purpose (e.g. Sīēn hira ēāζan āþistrode. Be their eyes darkened!);

· dependent clauses – temporal clauses (related to future) (e.g. Bring me þ æ t ic ēte. – Bring me that, I would eat), etc.;

· impersonal sentences (e.g. Methinks – I think (мне думается), me lycige – I like (мне нравится)) – went out of use in NE.

2. In ME and NE analytical forms of the Subjunctive Mood appeared.

Formation:

biden (bid)/ leten (let)/ neden (need)/ sholde (should)/ wolde (would) + Infinitive

These were the modal phrases that were used to express problematic or imaginary actions. The forms with sholde / wolde outnumbered all other forms, soon they weakened their modal meaning and became auxiliaries: should – 1st person, would – 2nd, 3rd person.

3. Meaning of the Subjunctive forms:

· in the Past – present or future imaginary or unreal actions (e.g. He thought he would cope with the task);

· in the Present – future probable or problematic actions (e.g. She thinks he would still come).

4. Peculiarities:

· should/would + Infinitive à simultaneous actions (e.g. If I was young I would be the happiest person in the world);

· should/would + Perfect Infinitive à past or preceding actions (e.g. If I had known all this I would have left that house immediately).

 

 

Continuous Forms

Sometimes they were found in OE:

Formation

bēon + Participle 1

2. In OE it denoted a “ quality ” or a “ lasting state ” and was characterising a person or a thing indicated by the Subject of the sentence. The continuance was not limited in time (as it is in the ModE Continuous forms) and resembled more present-day Indefinite Tense forms, e.g.:

Sēō eorðe is berende missenlīcra fuζela – This land bears many birds.

3. In ME Continuous forms fell into disuse.

4. In NE these forms reappeared together with a synonymous form:

be + Participle 1 = be + on/in + Gerund (indicated a process of limited duration)

e.g.:

He was on huntinge – He was hunting (literally, He was on hunting).

5. 18th c. – Continuous forms became well-established.

6. 19th c. – Continuous forms in the Passivewere accepted as a norm (e.g. The house is being built – previously such forms were considered clumsy and non-grammatical).

Do-Forms

1. In NE “do-periphrasis” was used in the Past and Present of the Indicative Mood.

2. 16th c. – “Do” was used in negative, affirmative and interrogative sentences and was freely interchangeable with the simple forms (without “do”), e.g.:

Heard you all this? = Did you hear all this?

I know not why he cries. = I don’t know why he cries.

He knew it. = He did know it (without any meaning of emphasis).

3. 17th c. – “do” was left only in negative and interrogative sentences to keep the word-order S + P + O (e.g. I (S) pity (P) him (O). Do you (S) pity (P) him (O)?). In affirmative sentences “do” acquired an emphatic meaning (e.g. Did you really see him? – I did see him, I swear!).

 

27. Evolution of adjective system from Middle English to Late New English.

In ME the following changes happened:

· In most cases inflections -er, -est were used to form the comparative and the superlative degrees;

· Root-sound interchange fell into disuse (l o ng – l o nger – l o ngest), though in some cases it was preserved as an exception from the rule (e.g. old – elder – eldest; far – further – furthest);

· A new way of formation of the degrees of comparison appeared:

more + Adj (comparative) || most + Adj (superlative)

It was applicable to all adjectives and was interchangeable with -er, -est way of formation till 17th – 18th c. In NE, during the Normalisation Period, the modern rule appeared and this way was applicable only to a certain group of adjectives.

28. The growth of the syntax significance from Middle English to Late New English.

OE

Old English was a synthetic language, i.e. there were a lot of inflections that showed the relations between the words in a sentence.



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