Old English verbs overhead

PDE verbs

PDE has broadly two kinds of verb conjugations (see Crystal ch. 14, p. 204)

regular: given the base form, you can predict all the other forms (not many!)

help, look

present tense, 3rd person singular: he looks sad
continuous: he is looking for his cat
past tense: Yesterday he looked behind the restaurant

past participle has same form: He had looked there the day before.

irregular: given the base form, you can't predict all the other forms

teach (taught)
write (wrote, written)
go (went), be (am, are, is, was, were ...)
modals (he can, he could)

OE verbs are traditionally classified into three conjugations

‘weak' (about 1/3 of individual occurrences)
‘strong' or 'vocalic (about 1/3)
‘other' (generally very common verbs): about 1/3

anomalous verbs like béon, dón, gán, willan
'preterite-present' verbs like sculan 'to have to

Weak verbs

PDE

exx: look, looked; burn, burned
form their past tense by suffixation (contains /d/ or /t/)
peculiar to Germanic

the 'productive' conjugation
many formed by derivation

Making a weak verb

· infinitive

root + stem + infinitive suffix (*jan)
e.g. *dóm 'judgement' + zero stem + *jan - > déman 'to judge'
e.g. *luf 'love' + o-stem + *jan -> lufian 'to love' (no front mutation: why?)

· past tense

e.g. *dóm + *ide (past tense suffix) -> [he] démde 'judged'

· result: binary opposition between past tense and non-past tense

e.g bærnan 'to burn': present tense: héo bærnð, past tense héo bærnde
e.g. lócian 'to look' : present tense hí lóciað, past tense:, hí lócodon

More examples with different suffixes e.g.<od>, <d>, <t>

macian 'make', macode 'ma-de'
híeran 'hear', híerde 'heard'
déman 'deem', démde 'deemed'
hae:lan 'heal', hae:lde 'healed'
cyssan 'kiss', cysste 'kissed'

because there were slightly different combinations of stem and suffix

Weak verb LUFIAN 'to love'
	Present	Past
sg. 1 ic	lufie	lufode
sg. 2 ðu	lufast	lufodest
sg. 3 heo	lufað	lufode
pl 1-3 we, ge, hi	lufiað	lufodon

o Notice that OE verbs have more inflexions than PDE verbs

o in the past as well as in the present

for number
for 'person' in the singular

OE tenses more 'overworked' than PDE

present also used for the future:

ic mé mid Hruntinge dóm gewyrce, oððe mec déað nimeð
I for-me with Hrunting fame shall achieve , or me death will take

simple past used where we might use past perfect,

e.g. He ae:r cóm [he ere came] "he [had] come"

context helps: conjunctions and adverbs like siððan 'after', æ:r 'ere'

siððan hie hie geliornodon, hie hie wendon ... on hiora agen geðiode
after they them [had] learned, they them turned ... into their own language
[If one action precedes another in PDE, we have the option of expressing it with the 'past perfect', had + past participle]

One relevant subcategory of weak verbs

ancestor of

bring, brought
seek, sought; think, thought
teach, taught
tell, told; sell, sold

root ends in velar consonant or /l/

characterized by vowel alternation as well as d/t suffix

Why do the vowels alternate?
the *past tense inflection *-ide lost its i in these environments and so front mutation didn't happen

*sókjan, *sóktæ

Strong verbs

PDE exx: write, wrote, written

indicate past tense and past participle by changing the stem vowel ('ablaut')
you need all three forms to conjugate the verb completely

Present: I write
Past: I wrote
Perfect: I have written

OE strong verbs

go back to IE
not 'productive' in OE but many very common verbs were strong

ones that still are in PDE: write, sing, etc.
ones that have subsequently become weak: e.g. starve, bake were 'strong' in OE
others totally lost

OE strong verbs had up to four principal parts

1. wrítan 'to write' gives the present tense
2-3. two past tense forms: wrát (1, 3 sg.) and writ- (2 sg., 1-3 pl.)
4. past participle (ge)writen 'written'

	Present	Past
sg. 1 ic	wríte	*wrát*
sg. 2 ðu	wrítst	write
sg. 3 heo	wrítð	*wrát*
pl 1-3 we, ge, hi	wrítað	writon

helpan 'help'
two past tense forms: healp and hulp-
past participle (ge)holpen ['helped']

	Present	Past
sg. 1 ic	helpe	healp
sg. 2 ðu	hilpst	hulpe
sg. 3 heo	hilpð	healp
pl 1-3 we, ge, hi	helpað	hulpon

Notice the effects of front mutation in the present tense. Why don't we see it in wrítan?

PDE has a few quite common patterns

like write, wrote, written: drive, drove, driven (OE 'class 1')
like ring, rang, rung: sing, sang, sung (OE 'class 3')

OE had even more 'classes': 7

1-5 go back to the same IE pattern [note correction from class/earlier version]
- had e in the infinitive and o in the past tense

(and lengthened/reduced grades in other slots)

different phonetic environments caused the original e and o to develop differently by OE
many OE classes still have distinctive properties

e.g. class I infinitives have í before a single consonant (íC)
[IE ei -> Gmc and OE í]
e.g. class II infinitives have éo or ú before a single consonant
[Gmc eu->]
class III infinitives have different vowels, but have two consonants after it (VC₁C₂)

e.g. singan, helpan

To see the patterns for all 7 classes, click here

What's the relevance of OE strong verbs to PDE?

Some don't exist any more
Some OE strong verbs have become weak: help, seethe
Some OE strong verbs have persisted

OE class I had í in the infinitive before one consonant

ride, write, drive has absorbed strive

OE class III a dog's breakfast (VCC) but one sub-class is well represented

drink, sing
find, bind

OE class II had éo in the infinitive: fréosan, céosan

freeze, froze, frozen
choose, chose, chosen
Class II used to show effects of Verner's law in the past participle (gecoren 'chosen', gefroren 'frozen'')
usually levelled after OE, but sometimes retained: sodden and forlorn

Some have switched classes: class V verbs like sp(r)ecan 'to speak' have fallen in with class IV

IV: beran, bær, bæ:ron, geboren
V: sp(r)ecan, sp(r)æc, sp(r) æ:con, gesprecen

How are class IV and class V similar in the infinitives?
What was the only difference between class IV and class V in OE?
Where do you think the vowel of the modern past tense broke and spoke has come from?

Translating strong verbs

If you have one principal part you can often infer the infinitive form
there's only one class with á in the first past tense: wrát 'wrote' has infinitive wrítan

so, héo bát must have the infinitive ...

This is particularly useful if you're trying to translate a 'dead' verb!

héo láð must have the infinitive ... ('to travel')

Other verbs

The most irregular verbs tend to be the most common verbs

willan 'to desire', dón 'to do' and gán 'to go'

	willan ‘to desire’	dón ‘to do’	gán ‘to go’
Pres. sg. 1	ic wille	ic dó	ic gá
Pres. sg. 3	héo wile	héo déð	héo gæð

Past sg. 1	ic wolde	ic dyde	ic éode

Notice

present tense of dón and gán show front mutation (sg. 2 and 3) (but not any more)

ic gá 'I go', héo gæð "she goes"
ic dó 'I do'; he déð 'he does'

past tense forms are unpredictable

ic wille 'I desire', ic wolde 'I wanted, I desired'
ic dó 'I do'; ic dyde, we dydon 'I, we did'
heo eode 'she went'

béon and gán are suppletive

conjugation contains forms that aren't related to each other
past tense of gán was eode 'went' (went is a more recent suppletive form, from OE wendan 'turn, go')

ic gá 'I go', héo gæð "she goes"; ic, héo eode 'I, she went'

'to be' had

two infinitives: béon and wesan

past: paradigm from the w-root

two present forms

one from an s-root (IE meaning 'arise')
one from a b-root (IE meaning 'process, growth')
used for the future

ðu halige ðryness ... ðu ðe æfre wæ:re, and æfre bist, and nu eart
thou holy three-ness thou (that) ever were, and ever (will) be, and now art

used for 'eternal truths'

Winter bið caldost

'to be'	Present	Present (future)	Past
sg. 1 ic	eom	béo	wæs
sg. 2 ðu	eart	bist	wæ:re
sg. 3 hé, héo, hit	is	bið	wæs
pl. 1-3 wé, gé, híe	sind(on)	béoð	wæ:ron

Notice:

front mutation in present sg. 2, 3 bist, bið
effects of Verner’s law in past sg. 2, pl. 1-3: /r/ not /s/

Preterite-present verbs

Look like past tense strong verbs:

héo wát looks like the past tense of what class of OE strong verb? (hint: ic wrát)
héo cann looks like the past tense of what (sub)class of OE strong verb? (hint: ic sang)

That's because they were originally strong verbs
But their past tenses have acquired present meaning

héo cann 'she knows' (< 'she has come to know'?)
héo wát 'she knows'

Remember that other OE present tense 3 sg. verbs would have ð, e.g. ic singð 'I am singing'

So they had to have a new past tense (weak, since this was now the productive conjugation)

ic sceal 'I must, I have to', ic sceolde 'I had to'
ic mæg 'I am able to, I have power to' , ic mihte 'I was able to'

Many of these survive as our modal verbs

examples: can/could, shall/should, will/would
semantic properties: denote speaker's judgement about the likelihood of events

possibility, truth, probability: it may rain
permission, obligation: you may smoke

morphological properties: don't have an -s form, or an -ed form, or an -ing form, or an infinitive

*he cans, *he musted, *she is maying, *I will can