In Modern English

A Diachronic Account of Regular and Irregular Verbs

In Germanic languages there were four main forms of the verbs: the Infinitive, Past Singular, Past Plural, Participle II. According to the ways of formation of these forms the verbs were subdivided into strong, weak, preterite-present and suppletive.

Strong verbs derive their main forms by means of gradation (ablaut). According to the type of gradation there are seven classes of strong verbs which are especially illustrative in Gothic:

“to rise” (I class): reisan – rais – risum – risans;

“to choose” (II class): kiusan – kaus – kusum – kusans.

Though in OE it was the most numerous class of verbs it was revealing the tendency for the decay, as in any class their were some variants of gradation due to the phonetic changes of the period. Compare the verbs of the III class: “to drink” drincan – dranc – druncon – drunken; “to help” helpan – healp – hulpon – holpen.

Weak verbs derive their main forms by adding a dental suffix which originated from “do”. In Gothic they are subdivided into four classes according to the stem-building suffix while in OE there are only three classes according to the type of adding the suffix: styrian “stir” – styrede (I), makian “make” – makode (II), habban “have” – hxfde (III).

Preterite-present verbs derive the present tense forms as the strong verbs derive the past (by gradation): witan “to know” – wat “I know”. There were only twelve of them in OE, during ME they acquired the modal meaning: cunnan meant “to know”, changed into “to be able”.

Suppletive verbs represent a new form by a new stem: “to be” beon, “am” eom, “is” ist, was; gan – eode “go – went”.

In ME the strong verbs were influenced by new phonetic changes, the variation of forms within a class prevented the gradation to be a distinct marker of a new grammar form. It proved the unsteady system of strong verbs. About ninety verbs assumed the suffix –ed, in other words, joined the weak ones. More than a hundred strong verbs became obsolete and came out of use. Verbs borrowed from French and Scandinavian mainly joined the weak conjugation. The weak type included the greatest number of verbs in comparison with the other ones.

The old classification of verbs has become irrelevant in NE. As most of the verbs add the dental suffix they are regular or standard verbs. Irrelevant or nonstandard verbs include all historical morphological groups of verbs: strong verbs (to drive – drove – driven), weak verbs (to keep – kept – kept, to cut – cut- cut), preterite-present verbs (can, may, must) and suppletive verbs (to be, to go).

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