Lecture 1 Introduction

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)).
   

Non-Finite Forms
Participle 1
The formation of the Participle 1 was as follows:

OE	ME	NE
berende	bering	bearing

In OE Participle 1 was considered Present Participle, had only the form of the Active Voice, possessed the categories of Number, Gender, Case. It was used predicatively and attributively (agreed with the noun in Number, Gender, Case).

In ME it lost its nominal and adjectival features together with the categories of Number, Gender, Case and became unchangeable.
Participle 2
As it has been mentioned in the table above, in OE Participle 2 was formed:

• 
  in strong verbs – with the help of the suffix –en (+ sometimes root-vowel interchange) + often marked by prefix ζe-:
  

e.g. OE bindan (Infinitive) – ζebunden (Participle 2) (to bind)
In ME prefix ζe- was weakened to prefix i-/y- (e.g. ME y-runne (run, Part.2 from “to run”) and in NE it disappeared at all.

• 
  in weak verbs – with the help of the suffix -t/-d:
  

e.g. OE cēpan (Infinitive) – cēped (Participle 2) (to keep)

Participle 2, unlike Participle 1, had two meanings of the category of Voice:

OE		NE
Active Voice	Passive Voice
ζegān	ζeboren	gone, born
somebody was gone, i.e. he did it himself = he was the subject/active doer of the action	somebody was born, i.e. somebody gave birth to him = he was the object/passive recipient of the action	No Voice distinctions observed

Thus in OE Participle 2 was considered Past Participle, had the forms of the Active and Passive Voice, possessed the categories of Number, Gender, Case. It was used predicatively and attributively (agreed with the noun in Number, Gender, Case).
In ME it lost the category of Voice and the categories of Number, Gender, Case and became unchangeable.


Infinitive
In OE the Infinitive resembled the Noun and had the category of Case (only two Cases – Nominative (Nom) and Dative (Dat)):
e.g. OE Nom writan (uninflected) – Dat to wrītanne (inflected, indicated direction or purpose).

In ME the Infinitive lost the Dative Case (the inflected form) and only one form was left:

e.g. ME (to) writen.

Particle to remained in NE as a formal sign of the infinitive with no meaning of direction or purpose:

e.g. NE (to) write.
Though sometimes the traces of these meanings are still visible:
e.g. He came to feed the horses (purpose).


Gerund
The Gerund appeared only in the 12^th c. Actually it presented a mixture of the OE Verbal Noun (with suffix -unζ/-inζ) and Participle 1 and its characteristics were:

• 
  It took direct object (verbal feature) (e.g. buying a book);
  
• 
  It could be preceded by an article or a possessive pronoun (noun feature) (e.g. the cleaning of my room, your coming late).
  

Preterite-Present Verbs
OE
The preterite-present verbs had the following characteristics:

• 
  Their Present-Tense forms resembled Past-Tense forms (Germ. “Präteritum” = past tense, that’s why they were called so);
  
• 
  Some of these verbs did not have a full paradigm and were called “defective”;
  
• 
  These verbs expressed attitude and were followed by the Infinitive without “to” (NB! Most of these verbs are present-day modal verbs);
  
• 
  Out of 12 preterite-present verbs only 6 survived in ModE:
  

āζ (ought), cunnan (can), dear (dare), sculan (shall), maζan (may), mōt (must).
E.g.:

Numb.	Pers.	Present		Past
		(formed like Past Tense of strong verbs)		(formed like Past Tense of weak verbs)
		cunnan	sculan	cunnan	sculan
Sg	1^st	cann	sceal	cuðe	sceolde
	2^nd	canst	scealt	cuðest	sceoldest
	3^rd	cann	sceal	cuðe	sceolde
Pl	-	cunnon	sculon	cuðon	sceoldon

ME
The following changes happened to the preterite-present verbs:

• 
  They lost their Verbals (non-finite forms) (e.g. OE cunnen – Part 2 of cunnan);
  
• 
  They lost the Number and Mood distinctions (e.g. OE cann (Indicative) – cunne (Subjunctive); OE cann (Sg) – cunnon (Pl)).
  

NE
The paradigm of the preterite-present verbs (that had already become modal verbs) was reduced to one or two forms (e.g. must (just one form), can, could (just two forms), etc.).


Anomalous Verbs
They were irregular verbs that combined the features of the weak and strong verbs. There were 4 of them – willan (will), bēon (to be), ζān (to go), dōn (to do).


Willan:

• 
  had the meaning of volition;
  
• 
  resembled the preterite-present verbs in meaning (attitude) and in function (was followed by the Infinitive without “to”);
  
• 
  eventually became a modal verb and also together with sculan developed into an auxiliary for the formation of the Future-Tense forms.
  

Dōn
This verb combined the features of the weak and strong verbs:

Infinitive	Past	Participle 2
	strong verb feature (root-sound interchange) + weak verb feature (dental suffix -d)	strong verb feature (suffix -n and prefix ζe-)
dōn	dyde	ζedōn

ζan
This verb was suppletive and also combined the features of the weak and strong verbs: