B. Number

ME and Early NE Verb

Лекция 9

Unlike the morphology of the noun and adjective, which has become much simpler in the course of history, the morphology of the verb displayed two distinct tendencies of development: it underwent considerable simplifying changes, which affected the synthetic forms and became far more complicated owing to the growth of new, analytical forms and new grammatical categories. The evolution of the finite and non-finite forms of the verb is described below under these two trends.

A. Simplifying Changes in the Verb Conjugation. Finite Forms. Number, Person, Mood and Tense

The decay of OE inflections, which transformed the nominal system, is also apparent in the conjugation of the verb — though to a lesser extent. Many markers of the grammatical forms of the verb were reduced, levelled and lost in ME and Early NE; the reduction, levelling and loss of endings resulted in the increased neutralisation of formal oppositions and the growth of homonymy.

The changes in the verb conjugation since the OE period can be seen from comparing the paradigms of the verbs find and look in the table below to the paradigms of the verbs in OE.

Conjugation of Verbs in Middle English and Early New English

	Strong	Weak
	ME	Early NE	ME	Early NE
Infinitive	finde(n)	find	looke(n)	look
Present tense
Indicative
Sg 1st	finde	find	looke	look
2nd	findest/findes	findest	lookest /lookes	lookest
3rd	findeth/findes	finds /findeth	looketh /lookes	looks /looketh
Pl	finde(n)/ findeth/findes	find	looke(n) /looketh /lookes	look
Subjunctive		find		look
Sg	finde		looke
Pl Imperative	finde(n) find(e) findeth/finde	find	looke(n) look(e) looketh /looke
Participle I	finding(e)/ -ende	finding	looking(e)
	/findind(e)		/-ende/-ind(e)	looking
	/findand(e)		/-ande
Past tense
Indicative		found		looked
Sg 1st	fand		looked(e)
2nd	founde/fand		lookedest
	/fandes
3rd	fand		looked(e)
PL	founde(n)		looked(en)
Subjunctive		found		looked
Sg	founde		looked(e)
PL	founde(n)		looked(en)
Participle II	founden	found	looked	looked

ME forms of the verb are represented by numerous variants, which reflect dialectal differences and tendencies of potential changes. The Early ME dialects supplied a store of parallel variant forms, some of which entered literary English and — with certain modifications — were eventually accepted as standard.

Number distinctions were not only preserved in ME but even became more consistent and regular; towards the end of the period, however, — in the 15th c. — they were neutralised in most positions.

In the 13th and 14th c. ending -en turned into the main, almost universal, marker of the pl forms of the verb: it was used in both tenses of the Indicative and Subjunctive moods.

However the ending -en was frequently missed out in the late 14th c. and was dropped in the 15th. All number distinctions were thus lost with the exception of the 2nd and 3rd p., Pres. tense Indic, mood: the sg forms were marked by the endings -est and –eth/-es and were formally opposed to the forms of the pl. Number distinctions in the 2nd p. existed as long as thou, the pronoun of the 2nd p. sg was used.

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