Strong verbs

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 380.

The NE Verb

The verb has lost the ending of the infinitive and all the inflexions of the present tense but not the third person singular. This flexion has acquired the form –(e)s (from the northern dialects) instead of the southern –(e)th. The form of the 2-nd person singular (e.g. speakest) has been lost or become archaic.

The four basic forms of the strong verbs have been reduced to three as most of the verbs were losing the distinction between the past tense singular and plural. Of the 2-nd past tense forms some verbs preserved the singular and some of the plural. E.g. most of the former strong verbs of class I preserved the singular form: wrote, drove, rode (from OE wrat, draf, rad). But the past tense “bit” (< bite) is from OE plural biton, not bat (OE bitan).

Continuous and Perfect Continuous forms developed from former syntactical combinations of the verb “to be” and Participle I.

The infinitive, gerund and participle developed analytical “perfect” and “passive” forms. The infinitive developed “continuous” forms.

In Early NE many strong verbs continued their transition into weak. Many strong verbs began to form their Past and Participle II with the help of the dental suffixes instead of vowel gradation. So the number of strong verbs decreased (OE 300 – some dropped out of use; OE 195 strong verbs left; only 67 have retained their root-vowel interchange; 128 acquired weak forms).

During the 14-17^th centuries many parallel forms were used in free variation. E.g. Chaucer used 2 parallel forms of the Past of slepen /sle:pqn/ - slepte, sleep /sle:p/.