The grammatical categories of the OE verb

The OE verb had several grammatical categories: tense, number, person, mood. In addition the OE verb could show aspect and voice relations. However the existence of aspect and voice as grammatical categories in OE is doubted by modern scholars.

¨ The category of Person (three persons)

agreed with the Subject

¨ The category of Number (two numbers)

¨ The category of Mood (three moods)

specifically Verbal categories

¨ The category of Tense (present and past)

Two debatable categories:

- The category of Aspect

- The category of Voice

The category of person

The category of Person was made up of 3 forms: the 1st, the 2nd and the 3d. Unlike number, person distinctions were neutralized in many positions. Person was consistently shown only in the Pres. tense of the Ind. mood Sg. In the Past Singular Indicative Mood the forms of the 1^st and 3d person coincided and only the 2^nd person had a distinctive form.

The OE verb distinguished between three persons: the first, the second and the third.

Ic bidd e nū on godes naman …	(first person)
I beg (you) now in the name of god...
Þone þū cwe st …	(second person)
then you say...
Þone cwe þ hē …	(third person)
then he says...

However person distinctions were not shown in many positions. The OE verb took personal inflections only in the Indicative singular and in the Imperative mood. The forms of the Indicative plural and the Subjunctive were universal for all the persons.

Person was not distinguished in the plural, nor was it shown in the Subjunctive Mood.

 

The category of mood

OE distinguished three moods morphologically: indicative, subjunctive and imperative.

In general, indicative is used to present a proposition as true, and subjunctive is used to cast some doubt on the truth of the proposition or to express obligation, desire and so forth.

The imperative is restricted to second person singular and plural. Morphologically it is marked by -θ and -aÞ respectively. The verb is usually clause-initial, although an adverb may precede.

The use of Subjunctive Mood in OE was different from its use in later ages. Subjunctive forms conveyed a very general meaning of unreality or supposition. In addition to its use in conditional sentences Subjunctive was common in clauses of time, result, and in clauses presenting reported speech.

The category of mood was made up of three forms: the Indicative, the Imperative and the Subjunctive.

The use of the Indicative and the Imperative was very much alike their use in modern English. The verb in the Indicative denoted a real action. The Imperative was used to express requests and orders.

And hē sōna arās and beforam him eallum eode …	(Indicative)
and soon he stood up and went (forward) in front of everybody...
Arīs, nim þin bed ondgā …	(Imperative)
Stand up, take your bedding and go.

As for the Subjunctive, its use in OE had its own peculiarities. On the one hand it presented the action as hypothetical (the first example). On the other hand the verb in the Subjunctive was common in some types of subordinate clauses where it treated the action as a fact of reality (the second example).

1….gif þam apostolican papan þat licade

... if the pope would like it

2. Wulfstan sæde þat hē gefōre of Hæþum …

Wulfstan said that he came from Hathum...

The category of tense

- past and non-past.

The category of Tense consisted of 2 categorial forms, Present and Past.

¨ The forms of the Present were used to indicate present and future actions. Future actions could also be expressed by verb phrases with modal verbs.

¨ The Past tense was used to indicate various events in the past (including those which are nowadays expressed by the forms of the Past Cont, Past Perfect, Pr. Perf and other analytical forms).

There were two tenses in OE: present and past.

Hē com ofer Wætlinga stræte...	(past)
he came by Watling road
Þone cymeþ sē mann …	(present)
then comes that man

The idea of future action was conveyed by the verb in the present with the support of lexical or contextual means.

Mycel yfel deþ sē unwritere, gyf hē nele his wōh gerihtan

Much evil will do that bad writer if he does not want to correct his mistake.

The category of number.

The category of number made the OE predicate agree with the subject either in the singular or in the plural.

And þone rīd eþ ælc hys weges mid þām fēo	(singular)
And then each rides his way with that property.
Þone ærn aþ hy ealle tōweard þæm fēo	(plural)
Then all of them ride towards that property...

Unlike the modern English verb the old English one made number distinctions not only in the present, but also in the past.

Hē com ofer Wætlinga stræte …	(singular)
he came by Watling road
And manega togedere comon	(plural)
and many people together (with him) came

Many of the OE verbs could take the prefix ge - the meaning of which was very much alike the meaning of the perfective aspect in the Russian language while the verbs without ge - expressed imperfective meaning. Cf.:

feohtan	сражаться	gefeohtan	сразиться
wrītan	писать	gewritan	написать
lician	нравиться	gelician	понравиться
niman	брать	geniman	взять

However many scholars doubt the existence of this category in the OE language. The grounds for this point of view are the following.

1. Some OE verbs were never used with the prefix ge -, though they did express the idea of perfectiveness.

And hī cōmon āna laman to him berende.

and they came carrying a lame man to him

2. Some of the verbs with the prefix ge- could be imperfective in their meaning, and there was no conspicuous difference between the verb with the prefix and the prefixless verb. On the other hand a verb without ge- could support the idea of perfectiveness.

manig oft gecwæþ…

many (people) often said (говорили)

and hē cwæþ to him: folga mē…

and he said to him: follow me (сказал)

3. In many instances the prefix ge - was used to derive a verb with entirely new meaning.

sittan	(sit)	gesittan	(occupy)
winnan	(fight)	gewinnan	(win)

The category of aspect, as has been mentioned, is debatable.

The aspective/perfective meaning was expressed by:

1) Prefix ge-;

e.g. OE lician – ge lician (“to like, have liked”)

BUT: the prefix ge- can hardly be regarded as a marker of aspect. It could change the aspective meaning of the verb by making it perfective, but it could also change its lexical meaning:

e. g. beran “to carry” – geberan “to bear a child”

Verbs without a prefix could sometimes have a perfective meaning

2) habban

Bēon + Participle I = prolonged state (Continuous)

weorðan

 

habban

 

Bēon + Participle II = a state resulting from a previous

action(Past Perfect)

weorðan

 

 

The progressive constructions

The BE-verbs beon, wesan and sometimes weorpan are used with V-ende to indicate that an action is ongoing.

Like the PDE progressive be + ing construction, the OE BE + ende construction is largely restricted to activity verbs, i.e. verbs of doing rather than verbs of being (e.g. PDE She is running but not **She is knowing (he answer).e.g.

E. g. Europe hio onginð... of Danai þære ie, seo is irnende of norÞdæle...

Europe she begins... from Don that river, that is running from northern-part...

Europe begins... at the river Don, which runs from the North...

The perfect and pluperfect constructions

The semantic perfect (completed event with present relevance) and pluperfect (past of past) were often rendered in OE by the simple past.

habban or BE-verbs with V-past participle.

E.g. Ic hæbbe gebunden þone feond = “I have bound that enemy”

 

Pre-modal

The set of pre-modals includes:

- cunnan ' know how to, have the power to, be able, can',

- *durran ' dare',

- magan ' be strong, sufficient, in good health, be able to' (with more focus on physical ability [cf. PDE might] than cunnan),

- *motan 'be allowed to, be obliged to',

- *sculan 'owe, be necessary',

- pur/an 'need',

- willan 'will, wish, desire'.

The Category of Voice

Voice. Voice distinctions in OE were made by the opposition «active - passive». The passive action was denoted with the help of two patterns: weorþan (become)+ Participle II and beon (be)+ Participle II.

Hē fōr on Britanie … and wearþ geflīmed

he went to Britain... and was put to flight

Hiora cyning wæs gewundod on þæm feohte

Their king was wounded in that fight

However the existence of voice in the OE language as a verbal category is doubted. The grounds for such doubt lie in the linguistic character of the means used to denote the idea of passivity. It is most likely that both patterns built free syntactical phrases rather than analytical forms of the verb. The verbs weorþan and beon in these phrases were link verbs, and Participle II functioned as a predicative.

Note: Cf. modern English statements like «He was tired» where the predicate may be treated as a compound predicate consisting of a link-verb (was) and a predicative (tired).

 

The passive meaning was frequently indicated with the help of:

Bēon

+ Participle II of transitive verbs

weorðan

 

Passive constructions

Be-verbs plus past participle.

This distinction between weorÞan and beon/wesan becomes less and less clear during OE, as is to be expected of a form that was to disappear in ME (weorpan was eventually replaced by the get passive).

E. g. he gefeaht wiþ Gotan, & gefliemed weard & bedrifen on anne tun he fought against Goths and put-to-flight was and driven into one fortress

PDE: he fought against the Goths and was put to flight and driven into afortress;

 

The grammatical categories of verbals

In OE there were 2 non-finite forms of the verb: the Infinitive and the Participle. They were closer to the nouns and adjectives than to the finite verb. Their nominal features were obvious at the morphological level. The verbal nature of the Inf. and the Part. was revealed at the syntactical level: like finite forms they could take direct objects and be modified by adverbs.

 

The infinitive

The Infinitive had no verbal grammatical categories. Being a verbal noun by origin, it had a sort of reduced case-system: two forms roughly corresponded to the Nom. and the Dat. cases of nouns, e.g.

Beran – uninflected Infinitive (Nom. case) = an infinitive with the suffix -(t)an, originally the nominative case marker for a neuter verbal noun

To berenne or to beranne – inflected Infinitive (Dat. case) = an infinitive with prepositional to, originally 'toward', and the inflected infinitive suffix -attne/-enne, originally the dative case marker for a verbal noun.

Like the Dat. case of nouns the inflected infinitive with the preposition tō could be used to indicate the direction or purpose of an action, e.g.

Mani3e cōmen tō byc3enne Þa Þin3 – ‘many (people) came to buy those things’

The uninflected Inf. was used in verb phrases with modal verbs, e.g.

Þū meaht sin3an – ‘ you can sing’

 

The participle

The participle was a kind of verbal adjective which was characterized not only by nominal but also by certain verbal features. Participle I (Pr. Part.) was opposed to Participle II (Past Part.) through voice and tense distinctions: it was active and expressed present or simultaneous processes and qualities, while Part. II expressed states and qualities resulting from past action and was contrasted to Part I as passive to active, if the verb was transitive.

The forms of the two participles were strictly differentiated.

Part. I was formed from the Present tense stem (i.e. the Inf. without the ending –an, -ian) + suffix –ende.

Part II had a stem of its own – in strong verbs it was marked by a certain grade of the root-vowel interchange and by the suffix – en; with weak verbs it ended in –d/t. Part II was marked by prefix 3e-, though it could also occur without it, especially if a verb had other word-building prefixes.

¨ Bindan (Inf) - bindende (Part I) – 3e-bunden (Part II)

Participles were employed predicatively and attributively like adjectives and shared their grammatical categories: they were declined as weak and strong and agreed with nouns in number, gender and case. Sometimes, however, they remained uninflected.

 

Non-Finite Forms

 

The OE verb had three non-finite forms: the infinitive, participle I and participle II. However the verbal features of all these forms were less conspicuous than their nominal properties. The infinitive was very close to the noun, and both participles were close to the adjective.

The OE infinitive had no verbal categories at all. But it had a nominal category, the category of case which was made up of two forms: Nominative and Dative.

 

N	bicgan	(buy)
D	to bicgenne	(for buying)

 

Morphologically the infinitive was marked by -an, -ian in the Nominative case, and by anne, enne in the Dative case. It should be noted that the Dative form of the infinitive was always used with the preposition to. In most cases the Dative form indicated the purpose of the action.

… eac monige cwomon to bicgene þā þing

also many (people) came to buy those things

… hē selfa geare wære … þæt weorc to fremmenne.

he himself was ready to fulfill that work

The Nominative form of the infinitive was mostly used in patterns with modal verbs, verbs of volition and the like.

…hī magon cyle gewyrcan

they can produce cold

AElfred cyning hāteþ grētan Wærferd biscep

King Alfred orders to greet bishop Warferd...

Participle I was built by means of - ende. It was always active and was used to indicate an action which was present, or simultaneous with the action of the predicate.

… hī common ānne laman to him berende

they came carrying a lame man to him

Participle II could have both an active and a passive meaning. It was passive if the verb was transitive, and active if the verb was intransitive.

Þa wæron agane fif hundra wintra …	(active meaning)
when five hundred winters passed (were gone)
hī līþ inne unforbærned …	(passive meaning)
he lies inside (the house) unburnt

Participle II was built by means of vowel interchange and inflection -en, or by means of dental suffix -d/-t. The particular means of building participle II depended upon the morphological type of the verb.

The nominal categories of the participle can be revealed through the case, number and gender distinctions. The participles were declined like adjectives, they also agreed with the nouns and pronouns in case, number and gender.

… hē … geflimed wearþ

he was put to flight

geflimed agrees with hē  (he) in theNominative singular.

… hī wurdon geflimede

They were put to flight

geflimede agrees with hī (they) in the Nominative plural.