The Grammatical Categories of Verbs

The Verb

The Categories of Finite Forms

In OE there was no future tense. The present tense form could denote both a present

and a future action. Alongside this device there existed another way of expressing future

actions, namely periphrases with verbs of modal meaning followed by

the infinitive: sculan (shall), ma3an (may), willan (will).

The Category of Voice. In the OE period the category of voice could hardly be included in the

list of the verbal grammatical categories. In early ME the passive form developed from the combination of the OE verbs beon (MnE be) and weorрan (MnE become) with second participle of transitive verbs. In ME weorрan disappeared. The phrase " ben + second participle" could express both a state and an action.

Finite Forms of Verbs (Verbals)

The Infinitive had no verbal grammatical categories in OE. It had a sort of a

reduced case system: two forms which roughly corresponds to the Nominative and the

Dative case of nouns.

unintlected form inflected form

(Nom, case) (Dat. Case)

helpan NE help to helpenne

Inflected form indicated the direction or the purpose of an action. Unintlected infinitive was

used with modal verbs or other verbs.

The main trends of the evolution in ME and NE can be defined as gradual loss of

most nominal features (except syntactical functions) and growth of verbal features. The

infinitive lost case distinctions. Its inflected form (dat. case) disappeared in early ME. The

preposition to lost the prepositional force and changed into a formal sign of the infinitive.

New analytical forms and new grammatical categories developed. Among the

earliest compound forms was the passive infinitive which occurs already in late OE. In ME

the passive and perfect infinitives are rather common.

e.g.: He moste han knowen love and his servyse

And been a feestlych man as freesh as May. (Chaucer)

He must have known love and its service

and been a jolly man as fresh as May.

The participle was characterized both by verbal and nominal categories in OE.

Participle I was opposed to Participle II through voice and tense differences. Participle I

was present and active; participle II denoted a state resulting from a complete past action

and was passive in meaning when built from transitive verbs; Participle II from intransitive

verbs had an active meaning: ______________________________

In OE Participles I and II could be declined as weak and strong and showed case,

number and gender distinctions:

Distinctions between 2 participles were preserved in ME and NE. Being verbal

adjective, Participle I and II lost their gender, case and number distinctions. Analytical

forms of Participles developed. The compound participles appeared in the 15th century.

e.g.: The seid Duke of Suffolk being most trostid with you. (The said Duke of Suffolk being

most trusted by you.)

The verbals lost their nominal grammatical categories, but retained nominal

syntactical features: syntactical functions similar to those of noun and adjective. They

retained their verbal syntactical features - the ability to take an object and adverbial

modifier.

The Gerund did not exist in OE. The growth of the gerund took place in ME and

early NE. There were 3 sources: 1. OE verbal noun ending in – un3 or - in3; 2. Participle I;

3. Infinitive. In ME the verbal noun and the Participle I became identical which led to

confusion of some of their features. The verbal noun began to take the direct object. The

direct object and absence of the article before ing form functioning as a noun transformed

the verb noun to the Gerund. The earliest instances of the gerund date from the 12th century.

In early NE it acquired new verbal features (voice and time correlation) and analytical

gemnd forms appeared (the perfect and the passive gerund).

e.g.: She begged the favour of being shown to her room. (Dickens)

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