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46.
The Verb.
The inflection of the verb in the Germanic languages is much simpler than it was in Indo-
European times. A comparison of the Old English verb with the verbal inflection of
Greek or Latin will show how much has been lost. Old English distinguished only two
simple tenses by inflection, a present and a past, and, except for one word, it had no
inflectional forms for the passive as in Latin or Greek. It recognized the indicative,
subjunctive, and imperative moods and had the usual two numbers and three persons.
Old english 53
A peculiar feature of the Germanic languages was the division of the verb into two
great classes, the weak and the strong, often known in Modern English as regular and
irregular verbs. These terms, which are so commonly employed in modern grammars, are
rather unfortunate because they suggest an irregularity in the strong verbs that is more
apparent than real. The strong verbs, like
sing, sang, sung,
which represent the basic
Indo-European type, are so called because they have the power of indicating change of
tense by a modification of their root vowel. In the weak verbs, such as
walk, walked,
walked,
this change is effected by the addition of a “dental,” sometimes of an extra
syllable.
The apparent irregularity of the strong verbs is due to the fact that verbs of this type
are much less numerous than weak verbs. In Old English, if we exclude compounds,
there were only a few over 300 of them, and even this small number falls into several
classes. Within these classes, however, a perfectly regular sequence can be observed in
the vowel changes of the root. Nowadays these verbs, generally speaking, have different
vowels in the present tense, the past tense, and the past participle. In some verbs the
vowels of the past tense and past participle are identical, as in
break, broke, broken,
and
in some all three forms have become alike in modern times
(bid, bid, bid)
. In Old English
the vowel of the past tense often differs in the singular and the plural; or, to be more
accurate, the first and third person singular have one vowel while the second person
singular and all persons of the plural have another. In the principal parts of Old English
strong verbs, therefore, we have four forms: the infmitive, the preterite singular (first and
third person), the preterite plural, and the past participle. In Old English the strong verbs
can be grouped in seven general classes. While there are variations within each class,
they may be illustrated by the following seven verbs:
I. dr
ī
fan
(drive)
dr
ā
f drifon
(ge)
drifen
II. c
ē
osan
(choose)
c
ē
as curon
13
coren
III. helpan
(help)
healp
hulpon
holpen
IV. beran
(bear)
bær
boren
V. sprecan
(speak)
spræc
sprecen
VI. faran
(fare, go)
f
ō
r f
ō
ron faren
VII. feallan
(fall)
f
ē
oll f
ē
ollon feallen
14
13
The change of
s
to
r
is due to the fact that the accent was originally on the final syllable
in the preterite plural and the past participle. It is known as Grammatical Change or
Verner’s Law for the scholar who first explained it (cf. § 16). In Modern English the
s
has been restored in the past participle
(chosen)
by analogy with the other forms. The
initial sound has been leveled in the same way.
14
The personal endings may be illustrated by the conjugation of the first verb in the above list,
dr
ī
fan:
A history of the english language 54
The origin of the dental suffixes by which weak verbs form their past tense and past
participle is strongly debated. It was formerly customary to explain these as part of the
verb
do,
as though
I worked
was originally
I work—did
(i.e.,
I did work
). More recently
an attempt has been made to trace these forms to a type of verb that formed its stem by
adding
-to-
to the root. The origin of so important a feature of the Germanic languages as
the weak conjugation is naturally a question to which we should like very much to find
the answer. Fortunately it is not of prime importance to our present purpose of describing
the structure of Old English. Here it is sufficient to note that a large and important group
of verbs in Old English form their past tense by adding -
ede,
-
ode,
or -
de
to the present
stem, and their past participles by adding -
ed,
-
od,
or -
d
. Thus
fremman
(to perform) has a
preterite
fremede
and a past participle
gefremed; lufian
(to love) has
lufode
and
gelufod;
libban
(to live) has
lifde
and
gelifd
. The personal endings except in the preterite singular
are similar to those of the strong verbs and need not be repeated. It is to be noted,
however, that the weak conjugation has come to be the dominant one in our language.
Many strong verbs have passed over to this conjugation, and practically all new verbs
added to our language are inflected in accordance with it.
INDICATIVE SUBJUNCTIVE
Present
Present
ic dr
ī
f-e ic
dr
ī
f-e
ð
ū
dr
ī
f-st (-est)
ð
ū
dr
ī
f-e
h
ē
dr
ī
f-ð(-eð) h
ē
dr
ī
f-e
w
ē
dr
ī
f-að w
ē
dr
ī
f-en
g
ē
dr
ī
f-að g
ē
dr
ī
f-en
h
ī
e dr
ī
f-að h
ī
e dr
ī
f-en
Past
Past
ic dr
ā
f ic
drif-e
ð
ū
drif-e
ð
ū
drif-e
h
ē
dr
ā
f h
ē
drif-e
w
ē
drif-on
w
ē
dr
ī
f-en
g
ē
drif-on
g
ē
drif-en
h
ī
e drif-on
h
ī
e drif-en
In addition to these forms the imperative was
dr
ī
f
(sing.) and
dr
ī
fað
(plur.), the present participle
dr
ī
fende, and the ge
rund (i.e., the infinitive used as a verbal noun) t
ō
dr
ī
fenne.
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