Strong verbs

In OE there were over 300 strong verbs, mostly descending from Common Germanic. The strong verbs can be grouped in 7 classes, each class with its own type of vowel-change.

Some verbs, besides gradation also have so-called grammatical alternation (чередование), according to Verner’s Law.

The stems with certain types of vowel-change are distributed in the following manner:

grade 1: (corresponding to Gmc full grade - e -): Present Indicative and Subjunctive; Infinitive, Participle I.

grade 2: (corresponding to Gmc full grade - a-) 1st and 3rd person singular Preterite Indicative.

grade 3: (corresponding to Gmc reduced grade or zero-grade) comprises two stems: the stem of the Indicative Preterite - 2nd person singular and plural, Subjunctive Preterite; and the stem of Participle II.

In this way, the OE strong verbs had 4 stems although there were only 3 grades.

Слайд 13.

Some verbs, besides gradation also have so-called grammatical alternation, according to Verner’s law.

Most OE gradation series in the first five classes go back to the IE qualitative Ablaut e-o-zero grade, reflected in Gmc. And OE as e/i-a-zero grade.

Out of the 7 classes the most important seem to be the first three classes, which were almost directly based on the IE alteration - e-grade; -o-,-a- grade; zero-grade.

Слайд 14.

In Class I, which was also called i-class, the gradation vowel was combined with -i- in the root.

In Class II it was combined with -u-. As a result we find long vowels or diphthongs in the first two forms and i and u in the zero grade for the verbs of Class I and Class II.

In classes III, IV, V the gradation vowel was followed by consonants. Thus,

In Class III the gradation vowel was followed by consonant combinations:

sonorant (m,n,r,l) or h + a plosive.

In Class IV the gradation vowel was followed by a sonorant in the root.

In Class V the gradation vowel was followed by a noise consonant (not liquid or nasal).

The origin of classes VI and VII is entirely different. The gradation series in class VI is the IE quantitative Ablaut o-ō, modified to a-ō in Germanic.

Class 7 is the least regular one, it forms a number of small groups, and many verbs belonging to this class had weak forms besides the strong ones. Verbs of this class seem to have formed their preterites by reduplication, i.e. by repetition of the initial consonant and the vowel e (spelt ai) in the past tense. So we have in Gothic: haitan – haihait – haihaitum – haitans. That is why the Past tense stems have a long monophthong or a long diphthong in the root or sometimes the first consonant of the root appearing twice in the Past tense stems: OE hātan- hēt (heht)- hēton (hehton)- hāten “call, name).

Слайд 15.

Except for some surviving forms reduplication in OE is not employed to express the category “preterite” in the other Germanic languages. Instead they all use some generalized form of gradation. In OE ē or ēō were used for both stems of the preterite:

hātan – h ē t – h ē ton – hāten “to call”

cnēawan – cn ēo w – cn ēo won – cnāwen “to know”

wēpan – w ēō p – w ēō pon – wōpon “to weep”

Слайд 16.

Слайд 17. QUESTIONS:

1. Into how many groups can the strong verbs in OE be divided?

2. In what manner can the stems with certain types of vowel-change be distributed?

3. How many stems and grades did the OE strong verbs have?

4. What type of alteration were the first three classes of OE strong verbs based on?

5. What was the scheme of the ablaut in the first five classes of OE strong verbs?

6. What was the pattern of ablaut in class 6?

7. Which of the classes of strong verbs was the least regular?

8. By what means did the strong verbs in OE form their past forms?

Слайд 18. Weak Verbs in OE.

The number of weak verbs in OE exceeded the number of strong verbs and was growing. Among weak verbs there are formations from nouns, adjectives and from strong verbs, which is the proof of the later appearance of weak verbs. Thus, Weak verbs are as a rule derivatives, i.е. forms derived from nouns, adjectives and strong verbs:

· dōm “judgement” – dēman “to judge”

· feorr “far” – āfierran “to remove”

· sittan “to sit” – settan “to set”

All the weak verbs form their past tense and participle II by means of a dental suffix -d- or -t-, which was added to the verb stem (Present Tense stem) - either directly or by means of a link vowel.

Weak verbs are peculiar to Germanic languages, they are not found outside the Germanic sphere.

Slide 19. The origin of the suffix -d-.

1. The suffix -d- originates from a verb meaning ‘do’ (OE dōn, German tun). The theory is confirmed by the Gothic weak verb hausjan ‘hear’: past tense- hausida, past plural - hausidēdum. -dēdum (the reduplicated suffix) corresponds to the Gmc. past plural taten of the verb tun ‘do’(German t corresponds to Gothic d – the second consonant shift).

2. The suffix -d- originates from -t- of Latin participles amā t us, lec t us, audī t us ( IE t corresponds to Germanic d – Verner’s law).

Slide 20.

Traditionally weak verbs are subclassified not according to the tense suffix, but according to the derivational stem-building suffix.

In Gothic there were four classes of weak verbs.

Class	Infinitive	Preterite singular	Preterite plural	Past Participle	Meaning
Class 1	haus j an	haus i da	haus i dēdum	haus i þs	hear
Class 2	salb ō n	salb ō da	salb ō dēdum	salb ō þs	salve (смягчать, успокаивать)
Class 3	haban	hab ai da	hab ai dēdum	hab ai þs	have
Class 4	full n an	full nō da	full nō dēdum	-	fill

In all other Germanic languages except Gothic there were three classes of weak verbs. They corresponded to the first three classes of weak verbs in Gothic. There were some specific peculiarities in the three classes of weak verbs.

Slide 21.

In Gothic the stem-building suffix is: -j- in class 1, - ō - in class 2, -ai- in class 3, -n(ō)- in class 4. All these verbs are intransitive, none of them has a second participle.

Slide 22.

In OE three classes of weak verbs correspond to those in Gothic.

Every weak verb is characterized by three forms: infinitive, past tense and second participle.

Class I. Regular Verbs. The verbs of this class fell into several variants depending on whether they added the suffix directly to the stem or had a vowel before it. Originally the verbs of this class had - ja - in the present and - i - in the past; its root vowel is mutated; the dental suffix was joined to the root by -i- (therefore they were called i-stems). The element -i- was never dropped before r (werian “wear”), But it had disappeared after long syllable (dēman-dēmde- dēmed “to judge”) and was weakened to -e- after short syllables (fremman-fremede-fremed “to advance”, “to commit”). The dental suffix –d- became –t- if it stood next to a voiceless consonant (dēmde-cēpte).

Slide 23.

Some class 1 verbs represent irregular weak verbs. They had -i-, which produced mutation in the infinitive only. The vowel of the past and the participle II differs from that of the infinitive: b y r ჳ ean-b o hte-b o ht ‘buy’, t e llan-t ea lde-t ea ld ‘tell’.

Many class 1 verbs are causative (каузативные). That is, they are derived from strong verbs. Their meaning is: ’make smb. or smth. perform the action denoted by the strong verb’: ræran ‘raise’(<rāsian) from rīsan ‘rise’; drenc(e)an ‘give to drink’ (<drancion) from drincan ‘drink’.

Slide 24.

Class II. To the 2nd class belong verbs which had -ia-(-ōja-) in the Infinitive (the infinitive of these verbs ends in -ian) and -o- in the preterite. They are known as -o-stems, which means that they were originally built with the help of the stem-suffix -o-: lufian-lufode-lufod “to love” (lufian came from an earlier * luf-ō-jan. The verbs had lost -ō- in the Infinitive, but retained its traces in the other principle forms: -ode, -od). The vowel was not mutated (as -i- appeared at the time when the process of mutation was over): macian – macode – macod “to make”. Verbs of class II are the most numerous and the most regular of all the classes of OE weak verbs.

Slide 25.

The 3rd class includes very few verbs. They correspond to Gothic class III verbs with their characteristic suffix –ai-//-a-. But in OE all traces of this suffix were lost. In OE such verbs added the dental suffix immediately to the last consonant of the root and doubled the consonant in the Infinitive:

libban “to live” – lifde – (ge)lifd

habban “have”-hæfde- hæfd

Slide 26. QUESTIONS.

1. By what means did the weak verbs in OE form their past forms?

2. Can weak verbs be found outside the Germanic sphere? Why?

3. What is the origin of the dental suffix?

4. According to what principle are the weak verbs subclassified?

5. How many classes of weak verbs are there in OE?

6. How many forms did every weak verb in OE have? What are they?

7. What derivational stem-building suffix did each of the classes have?

8. What verbs are called causative?

Slide 27. Conjugation of Weak Verbs in OE.

person	Indicative mood	Subjunctive mood	Imperative mood	Participle I	Participle II
Present tense	Past tense	Present tense	Past tense
1st	e	de	e	de		ende	ed, od
2nd	(e/a)st	dest	e/a
3rd	(a)þ	de
Plural	aþ	don	en	en	(i)an, aþ

Slide 28. Preterite-Present Verbs.

Preterite-Present Verbs are a small group. They have peculiar place within the system of OE, as well as in other old Germanic languages.

In OE they had vowel-gradation in their present-tense forms corresponding to vowel gradation in the preterite of strong verbs. Their new preterite was formed on the weak pattern.

These verbs had a marked modal meaning in OE; most of them exist in MnE as modal verbs.

Most Preterite-Present Verbs can be classified according to classes of gradation to which their present tense belongs. However, some of them do nor fit into this system.

Slide 29.

Slide 30. Irregular Verbs.

Four verbs of high frequency defy (игнорировать, не поддаваться) any regular formation and classification. They are: 1. wesan, bēon “be”; 2. dōn “do” (OE dōm); 3. gān “go”; 4. willan “will”.

In the literature they are often referred to as the mi-verbs due to the fact that three of them show traces in Germanic of the original ending -mi for 1st singular present tense: `eom`-”am”, `dōn`-“do” (OE dōm, OHG tuom), gān- “go” (OHG gām).

The conjugation of the verbs bēon/wesan in OE, as in the other Germanic languages, is characterized by suppletivism, i.e. the use of several different IE roots.

Forms of the verb “be” are derived from three roots: es-, wes- and be-.

Slide 31.

Slide 32.

The characteristic feature of the verbs dōn “to do” and gān “to go” is their original athematic inflection, that is, the IE endings (mi-; ti-; si-) were added directly to the root. The origin of the irregular preterite (dyde; dydon “did” and ēōde, ēōdon “went”) is not quite clear.

The verb willan (will) is characterized by the fact that in Proto-Germanic its optative (желательное наклонение) was used as indicative (изъявительное наклонение). It is connected with the lexical meaning of the verb.

Slide 33.

Conclusion:

In OE Conjugation (спряжение) is systematic and basically regular. The basic endings which had been worked out in OE for the verbs can be divided into four groups:

1) those for the present tense (both strong and weak);

2) those for the preterite of the strong verbs;

3) those for the preterite of the weak verbs;

4) those of the preterite-present verbs.

Most of the basic verbal endings go back through the Proto-Germanic stage – to IE endings.

OE verbs could form verbals (non-finite forms) - the Infinitive and the two Participles are the part of the verb paradigm.

Slide 34. Questions:

1. Why are so-called Irregular verbs often referred as the mi-verbs?

2. What is the conjugation of the verbs bēōn/wesan characterized by?

3. In what verbs were the athematic inflections added directly to the root?

4. How did the preterite-present verbs get their name?

5. What meaning did they have?

6. What is the principle of their classification?

7. Give a short characteristic of the OE conjugation in general?

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