Weak Verbs and their Development

1. The division of weak verbs into classes was based on the original stem-building suffix of a verb that was already hard to distinguish even in OE:

Class 1	Infinitive	Past	Participle 2	Basis for Subdivision
OE	styrian	styrede	stured	stem-suffix -j most verbs – with front root-vowel derived from nouns, adjectives
ME	stiren	stirede	stired
NE	stir	stirred	stirred

Class 2	Infinitive	Past	Participle 2	Basis for Subdivision
OE	lōcian	lōcode	lōcod	stem-suffix –oja most numerous class most verbs – with back root-vowel
ME	looken	lookede	looked
NE	look	looked	looked

Class 3	Infinitive	Past	Participle 2	Basis for Subdivision
OE	libban	lifde	lifd	3 verbs only: habban (to have), libban (to live), secζan (to say)
ME	livien	livde	lived
NE	This class merged with class 1 in ME

2. Weak verbs were not as complex as strong ones and had a greater regularity and simplicity. That’s why they were productive, i.e. all borrowed verbs used weak model of form-building (suffix -t/-d) (e.g. Scand. to skate, Fr. to charm, Lat. to decorate, etc.) and, as it has already been mentioned above, many originally strong verbs turned into weak (e.g. to bake, to laugh, to help, to lie, etc.). The opposite process of turning of weak verbs into strong was very rare and was mainly based on phonetic similarity between some strong and weak verbs, i.e. was a result of mere confusion that later was accepted as a norm due to its persistent and regular character (e.g. to wear was originally weak and became strong because of the mistaken analogy with to swear, to ring (mistaken analogy with to sing), to hide (mistaken analogy with to ride)).

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