Weak verbs

In classes 1 and 2 the root of the verb originally contained [i] and [u] (i-class and u-class). Classes 3,4,5 had no vowels. Class 3 split into subclasses as some of the vowels could be diphthongized under Early OE breaking. In classes 4 and 5the Past pl. stem has a long vowel [æ]. In the verbs of Class 6 the original IE gradation was purely quantitative. The 6th class went back to the I-E quantitative ablaut: stæppan-stop-stōp-stapen (‘step’).

OE helpan-past sg. P. II -- holpen

Strong Verbs

Finite forms

In OE the majority of verbs were divided into 2 large morphological groups. According to the way they built their principle forms:

Strong and weak verbs.

Besides these groups there existed some minor groups: preterit-present verbs.

All the forms of the verb were derived from a set of stems or principle forms of the word:

1) the inf. or the present tense stem

2) the past tense stem (sg. and pl.)

3) Participle II

The strong verbs had four principle forms: infinitive, past sg., past pl., participle II.

There were about three hundred strong verbs in Old English. They were native verbs of Protogermanic origin and usually have parallels in other Germanic languages. They are divided into seven classes. Gradation in Old English develops from common Indo-European gradation but the vowels differ due to numerous phonetic changes in Germanic languages and then in English, so the vowels may be quite different, but the principle is the same. They were inherited from I-E. They are called “strong” because they built their principle forms by ablaut:

There were 7 classes of strong verbs. In each of these classes a certain gradation series was used. In the fist five classes the vowel gradation can be traced back to the I-E qualitative ablaut series. The gradation series used in class 1 through 5 go back to the PIE qualitative ablaut [e~o] and some instance of quantitative ablaut. The grades [e~o] reflected in Germanic as [e/i~a] were used in the first and second stems.

The 7^th class was based on reduplication (doubling) in the past stem root. Direct traces of reduplication are in OE are rare.

E.g.: Gt. Maitan – maimait – maimaitum – maitans (‘chop’)

class		INFINITIVE	PAST SG.	PAST PL.	PARTICIPLE II
	Gothic OE	bedan bidan	baid bäd	bidun bidon	bidans biden
	Gothic OE	ciusan ceosan	caus ceas	cusum curon	cusans core
	Gothic OE	bidan bidan	bad bad	budum bidum	budans biduns
	Gothic OE	niman niman	nam nam	nimum nimem	numam numuns
	Gothic OE	sitem sittan	sat sæt	setum sæton	sitam seten
	Gothic OE	faran faron	For for	forum foron	farans faren
	Gothic OE	haitan hatan	haihaid het	haihaitum hetton	haitan haten

In OE roots of the past tense stems had been contracted and appeared as a single morpheme with a long vowel.

They are a specifically Germanic innovation. They are not found in other languages. They had 3 principle forms: Infinitive, Past tense, Participle II, as the past pl. form can be derived from Past sing. by replacing the –e ending by the -on ending: he demde – hie demadon. They built their principle form by means of the dental suffix-d/-t. They were more numerous than strong verbs. And all new verbs added to OE were weak. In OE there were 3 classes which were distinguished by their stem-building suffixes.

Class 1. It is formed with – i suffix. Such verbs fell into 2 groups:

with palatal mutation and

without palatal mutation.

In the group of palatal mutation – i caused the palatal mutation of the root vowel and the lengthening of consonant after short vowels. It was later lost in the forms of the infinitive of all verbs except of those ending in –i. In the Past tense –i was weakened in –e after a short vowel and was dropped after a long vowel,

E.g. tamian–tæmian–temman; domain – diman – demde

Gt. wasjan – OE verian – verede (Past.sg.) – vered (Past. pl.)

If the dental suffix –de stood after voiceless –e, it was voiced to –d:

cepan — cepe — ceped.

In the group withoutpalatal mutation: they had –i, which produced mutation only in the Infinitive. In the Past tense and Participle II there had not been any –i, so these forms had no mutation. As a result, the vowel of the Past Tense differs from that of the Infinitive.

Gt. taljan — OE tellan talde — tealde

Class 2. It is the most numerous and regular of all classes of weak verbs (o-class). The original suffix was –oj, which developed into – o. In the infinitive the suffix was reduced to –i.

E.g.: macian — macode — macod

Class 3. It had only three verbs: habban, libban, secgan – OE sæde.

The original stem-building suffix was – ai. Vowel –i caused the palatal mutation and was lost.

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