A) Grammatical Categories of the Finite Verbs

The OE verb was characterised by many peculiar features. Though the verb had few grammatical categories, its paradigm had a very complicated structure: verbs fell into numerous morphological classes and employed a variety of form-building means. All the forms of the verbs were synthetic, as analytical forms were only beginning to appear. The non-finite forms had little in common with the finite forms but shared many features with the nominal parts of speech.

The verb-predicate agreed with the subject of the sentence in two grammatical categories: number and person. Its specifically verbal categories were mood and tense.

Finite forms regularly distinguished between two numbers: sg. and pl. The homonymy of forms in the verb paradigm did not affect number distinctions: opposition through number was never neutralised.

The category of Person was made up of three forms: the 1st, the 2nd, the 3rd. Unlike number, person distinctions were neutralised in many positions. Person was consistently shown only in the present tense of the Ind. Mood sg. In the Past tense sg of the Ind. Mood the forms of the 1st and 3rd p. coincided and only the 2nd p. had a distinct form. Person was not distinguished in the plural; nor was it shown in the Subj. Mood.

The category of Mood was constituted by the Indicative, Imperative and Subjunctive. There were a few homonymous forms which eliminated the distinctions between the moods.

The category of Tense in OE consisted of two categorial forms, Pres. and Past. The tenses were normally distinguished by all the verbs in the Ind. and Subj. Moods, there being practically no instances of neutralisation of the tense opposition.

In order to understand the structure of the verb system one should get acquainted with the meanings and use of moods and tenses in OE.

The use of the Subj. Mood in OE was in many respects different from its use in later ages. Subj. forms conveyed a very general meaning of unreality or supposition. In addition to its use in conditional sentences and other contexts Subj. was common in other types of construction: in clauses of time and result and in clauses presenting reported speech.

The meanings of the tense forms were also very general. The forms of the Pres. were used to indicate present and future actions. With verbs of perfective meaning or with adverbs of future time the Pres. acquired the meaning of futurity.

The Past tense was used in a most general sense to indicate various events in the past (nowadays expressed by Past Cont., Perfect, Present Perfect, etc.). Additional shades of meaning could be attached to it in different contexts.

Consistent opposition of form and meaning confirms the existence of the four grammatical categories described above. In addition to these categories we must mention two debatable categories: Aspect and Voice.

Until recently it was believed that in OE the category of aspect was expressed by the regular contrast of verbs with and without the prefix 3e-; verbs with the prefix had a perfective meaning while the same verbs without it indicated a non-completed action.

In some recent explorations, however has been shown that the prefix 3e- 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 the lexical meaning of the verb, e.g. OE sittan - 3esittan “sit - occupy”. It follows that the prefix 3e- should rather be regarded as an element of word building, a derivational prefix of vague different meaning, though its ties with certain shades of aspective meaning are obvious.

The category of Voice in OE is another debatable issue. In OE texts we find a few isolated relics of synthetic passive forms, with the active use of the same verb: þā dēor hīe hātaÞ hrānas “those deer they called reindeer”. The passive meaning was frequently indicated with the help of Participle II of transitive verbs used as predicatives with the verbs beon (NE be) and weordan(become).

During the OE period these constructions were gradually transformed into the analytical forms of the Passive Voice.

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