Strong and Weak verbs in oe contents

THE OLD ENGLISH PERIOD

Historical Background:

Prehistoric Britain, Roman Britain, Anglo-Saxon Britain

Before the Germanic settlers arrived in Britain and became the first speakers of "English," other peoples had claimed the island as their home. The first inhabitants for whom we have linguistic knowledge were the Celts, who arrived around the time of the Bronze Age (2000–500 B.C.). They were almost certainly the first speakers of an Indo-European language to arrive.
In 55 B.C.E. Julius Caesar attempted an invasion of Britain, but he was not to succeed until the following year (54 B.C.E.). How successful he was, however, is perhaps suggested by the fact that the tribute Caesar demanded before returning to Gaul was never paid.
In 43 C.E., the Emperor Claudius, with 40,000 men, was far more successful, although the Romans never penetrated far into Wales or Scotland. Hadrian's wall marks extent of the Roman Governor Agricola's rule northward. The lands south of the Wall were ruled by Romans for over 300 years. The Romans built roads, baths (such as those at Bath), temples, and introduced Christianity. By the end of the Roman occupation, the subjugated Celts had apparently lost the ability to defend themselves against the Picts and Scots from the north. When the legions withdrew in 410 C.E. to defend the diminishing Empire, the Celts began to look elsewhere for defensive aid.
The origin of English is customarily linked to the date 449 AD. This is the year in which the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records the issuing of an invitation by Vortigern (king of the British, or Celts) to the "Angle kin" (Angles, led by Hengest and Horsa) to help them in their defense against the Picts. In return for their military assistance, the Chronicle says the Angles were granted lands in the southeast. Further aid was sought, and in response "came men of three peoples of Germanie": "of Ald Seaxum of Anglum of Iotum" (Saxons, Angles, and Jutes). The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle documents the subsequent influx of "settlers," and over the course of the next century-and-a-half the newcomers establish seven kingdoms, known as the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy: Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Kent, Essex, Sussex, and Wessex. The earlier Celtic inhabitants were dubbed Wēalas, the plural form of wealh — meaning "foreigner, stranger, slave" — from which comes Welsh.

The terms English, England, and East Anglia are derived--fairly transparently--from words referring to the Angles: Englisc (vernacular writers referred to themselves by this term), Angelcynn, and Englaland.

Egbert, the West Saxon chief, having reclaimed his throne from Mercian dominance, ruled all of England and Wales from 830 until his death in 839. His son, Æthelwulf maintained his father's kingdom and around 849 he added Berkshire to the holdings of the West Saxon kingdom. In 855, while on pilgrimage to Rome, he married Judith (then thirteen years old), daughter of Charles the Bald, the king of the West Franks. Meanwhile, his oldest son, Æthelbald, and the nobles of Wessex, stripped Æthelwulf of his kingship, and West Saxon kingdom was sundered, with Æthelbald getting Wessex and Æthelwulf taking Kent and other parts of SE England. When Æthelwulf died in 858, his second son, Æthelberht, took over those provinces. The elder son, Æthelbald, married his father's young widow (Judith). When he died in 860, Æthelberht reunited the Anglo-Saxon kingdom. But he died five years later, without heir, and his younger brother Æthelred became king. Unfortunately for Æthelred, the sons of Ragnar Lothbrok, "Ivar the Boneless" (born with gristle instead of bone) and Halfdan, led the Danish in an attack on England, landing in East Anglia. Burgred, the king of Mercia, had married Æthelred's sister, and now asked Æthelred for help. Æthelred and his brother Alfred joined the Mercians, but eventually, they had to pay the Danes for a peace.

In 871 Æthelred died, and even though he left heirs, Alfred was acknowledged as king. He became known to history as Alfred the Great (871–899). In 886, he established a West Saxon occupation of London, giving the Saxons renewed hope in their fight against the Danes. Those areas of England not subject to Danish rule united under Alfred.

Alfred was instrumental in the establishment of literary language, and he produced translations of the Bible, Pope Gregory's Pastoral Care, Orosius, Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum (The Ecclesiastical History of the English People), Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy. He has come to be known as the Father of English prose, a tradition carried on and developed by Ælfric and Wulfstan.
Generally, when we study Old English today, our source of texts is predominantly West Saxon, since Alfred's influence helped to establish that dialect as a sort of literary standard. But there were other dialects, the other three being Northumbrian, Mercian and Kentish.

From monk to godspellboc: The influence of Latin on Old English

English vocabulary has never been purely Anglo-Saxon – not even in the Anglo-Saxon period. By the time the Anglo-Saxons arrived in Britain, there had already been four centuries of linguistic interchange between Germanic and Roman people on the European mainland. Latin words might have arrived in English through any of several possible routes. To begin with, they must have entered the Celtic speech of the Britons during the Roman occupation (43–c. 410), and some might have remained in daily use after the Romans finally left in the early 5th century so that they were picked up by the Anglo-Saxons in due course. Aristocratic Britons may also have continued to use the language as a medium of upper-class communication. If so, we might expect a significant number of Latin words to have been in daily use, some of which would have eventually been assimilated into English. Some Latin words would also have been brought in by the Anglo-Saxons invaders. And following the arrival of St Augustine in 597, the influence of the monks must have grown, with Latinisms being dropped into speech much as they still are today.
The Latin words express a considerable semantic range. They include words for plants and animals (e.g. pea, cat), food and drink (e.g. butter, wine), household objects (e.g. cup, candle), money (e.g. mynet, 'mint'), metals (e.g. copper), items of clothing (e.g. belt, sock), settlements, houses and building materials (e.g. street, wall, tile), as well as several notions to do with military, legal, medical and commercial matters (e.g. tribute, seal, pound). Most are nouns, such as camp, street and monk, with a sprinkling of verbs and adjectives. As we move into the period of early Anglo-Saxon settlement in England, we find these semantic areas continuing to expand, with the growing influence of missionary activity reflected in an increase in words to do with religion and learning.
Borrowing Latin words was not the only way in which the missionaries engaged with this task. Rather more important, in fact, were other linguistic techniques. One method was to take a Germanic word and adapt its meaning so that it expressed the sense of a Latin word: an example is gast, originally ‘demon’ or ‘evil spirit’, which came to mean 'soul' or 'Holy Ghost'. Another technique, relying on a type of word creation which permeates Old English poetry, was to create new compound words – in this case, by translating the elements of a Latin word into Germanic equivalents.
Place names and loanwords: The Scandinavian influence on Old English
The Vikings first made their presence felt in Britain in the 780s, but it was a further century before Old Norse words began to arrive in Old English. In c. 878–90 King Alfred (c. 849–899) made a treaty with the Viking leader Guthrum (d. 890), which roughly split England into two. Alfred was left in control of Wessex and London, and Guthrum took control over an area of eastern England which, because it was subject to Danish laws, came to be known as the Danelaw. Over 2,000 Scandinavian place-names are still found here, chiefly in Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and the East Midlands. These place-names are one of the most important linguistic developments of the period. Many are easily recognised. Over 600 end in -by, the Old Norse word for 'farmstead' or 'town', as in Rugby and Grimsby; the other element often referring to a person's name (Hroca's and Grim's farm, in these two cases), but sometimes to general features, as in Burnby ('farm by a stream') and Westerby ('western farm').
Despite the extensive period of settlement, and Danish becoming the language of power for a generation, the number of Scandinavian words that entered Old English is surprisingly small – about 150. But between Old and Middle English a considerable Scandinavian vocabulary was gradually being established in the language. Although there are no written records to show it, we know that this must have been so because the earliest Middle English literature, from around 1200, shows thousands of Old Norse words being used, especially in texts coming from the northern and eastern parts of the country, such as the Orrmulum and Havelock the Dane. There is no doubt that many of these words were well established, because they began to replace some common Anglo-Saxon words. The word for 'take', for example, was niman in Old English; Old Norse taka is first recorded in an English form toc (‘took’) during the late 11th century, but by the end of the Middle English period take had completely taken over the function of niman in general English.
Another grammatical influence was the use of are as the third-person plural of the verb to be. This form had already been used sporadically in northern texts during the late Old English period – for example, in the Lindisfarne Gospels – but in Middle English it steadily moves south, eventually replacing the competing plural forms sindon and be.
Among other Scandinavian grammatical features are the pronouns both and same, and the prepositions til ('till’ or ‘to') and fro ('from'). The negative response word, nay, is also Norse in origin (nei). And the -s ending for the third person singular present-tense form of the verb (as in she runs) was almost certainly a Scandinavian feature. In Old English this ending was usually -ð, as in hebbað ('raises') and gæð ('goes'); but in late Northumbrian texts we find an -s ending, and this too spread south to become the standard form.
VERBS: TYPES AND TENSES (English Syntax)
There are four TYPES of verbs: intransitive, transitive, linking, and passive. Intransitive and transitive verbs are in the active voice, while passive verbs are in the passive voice.
VERB TYPES—DEFINITIONS Intransitive verbs are verbs that express action but that do not take an object. The subject and verb express a complete thought without an object. The verb can, however, be followed by an adverb or other modifier. Examples: I ran. I ran swiftly. I ran in the race. Transitive verbs are verbs that express action that terminates in, or is received by, an object. The object of a transitive verb can be a noun, pronoun, or a noun clause or phrase.
Examples: I threw the ball. (Noun as object) We beat them. (Pronoun as object) I think that you are correct. (Noun clause as object)
Notice that the subject and verb alone, "We beat," would not make sense without an object to receive the action. Linking verbs are verbs of the senses like "feel," "look," "smell," or "taste," and a limited number of other verbs like "be," "seem," "become," or "remain" that link the subject of the sentence with a complement.
Linking verbs are always followed by an adjective, noun, or noun phrase that acts as a complement. Examples: He is a lawyer. (Noun as complement) I feel tired. (Adjective as complement) It seems that we will lose the game. (Noun clause as complement)
Passive-voice verbs are verbs that allow the subject to receive the action rather than to do the action. Passive-voice verbs are made by using some form of the verb "be" that is followed by a verb ending in -en or -ed (unless the past participle of the verb is irregular). Only transitive verbs can be turned into the passive form.
Examples: Our team was beaten at softball. ("By the opposing team" is implied.)¹ The building is destroyed by the wrecking crew. The ball was thrown by me. To help identify a passive verb, ask, "Is the subject sitting there PASSIVELY waiting for something to happen to it, or is the subject doing the ACTION?"
VERB TENSES—DEFINITIONS² Verb tenses are used to indicate time. There are six tenses. Present tense is the stem of the infinitive—to SEE, to USE, to DRIVE, etc. Past tense is usually formed by adding -ed or -en to the verb or by changing a vowel inside the verb—SAW, USED, DRIVEN, etc. Future tense is formed by adding "will" or "shall" to the verb stem—we SHALL see, you WILL use, he WILL drive, etc.
Perfect tense is formed by adding "have" or "has" to the past participle of the verb—I HAVE seen, he HAS used, you HAVE driven, etc. Past Perfect tense is formed by adding "had" to the past participle of the verb—I HAD seen, he HAD used, you HAD driven, etc. Future Perfect tense is formed by adding "shall have" or "will have" to the past participle of the verb—I SHALL HAVE seen, you WILL HAVE used, he WILL HAVE driven, etc.
Verbs are used to express a state or an action. For example, they show what people or things do, think or feel. Verbs are one of the eight parts of speech, or nine parts of speech.³
Verbs are used to express an action:
Tim is driving his car.
Or a state (how someone feels, thinks, etc.)
Jack is feeling better today.
They show what people or things do, think or feel. 

Action Verbs

Action verbs are verbs that show an action that a person or an object performs. Action verbs express something that is done by someone or something. Here are some examples of action verbs:

• 
  play - They are playing football.
  
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  study - Anna is studying for her test tomorrow.
  
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  cook - Mark cooked dinner for us last night.
  

Stative Verbs

Stative verbs refer to how things are, rather than what they do. There are not nearly so many stative verbs as there are action verbs. Here are some of the most common with example sentences:

• 
  be - He is a teacher
  
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  think - I think that's a good idea.
  
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  cost - It costs twenty dollars.
  
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  belong - James belongs to that club.
  

You might want more information on active vs stative verbs.

Active Voice Versus Passive Voice

Verbs are used in the active or passive voice. The active voice describes what the subject does:
Tom throws the ball. Andy has lived in Queens for twenty years. Helga would like to go camping next week.
The passive voice describes what is done to something. It is not used as often as the active voice. The passive voice always conjugates the verb 'to be' and is combined with the past participle (third form of the verb i.e. do - did - done). Here are a few examples of verbs in the passive voice:
Mary was raised in Kansas. My car was made in Germany. That document will be completed by Robert.
You might want more information on the passive vs the active voice.

What Are Verb Forms?

There are a variety of verb forms. The main verb forms in include the infinitive, the gerund or present participle (or 'ing' form), the past participle, the base form, and, most importantly the conjugated form of the verb. Here is each form with a few examples:

• 
  Infinitive (to + verb) - to do, to think, to eat, to live, etc.
  
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  Present participle (gerund, 'ing' form) - going, understanding, allowing, etc.
  
• 
  Past form (used with the past simple) - went, ate, played, taught, etc.
  
• 
  Past participle (used with perfect tenses) - gone, eaten, played, become, etc.
  
• 
  Conjugated form (only used in present simple) - plays, play, speak, speaks, etc.