36. English Verb and its further development in me
The main grammar categories of OE verb were:
one voice (active voice);
two numbers (singular and plural);
three persons;
two tenses (present and preterite);
three modes (indicative, subjunctive, imperative);
two participles (present and preterite).
Types of verbs:
Strong
Weak
Preterite-present
Atypical
Strong verbs use the Germ. form of conjugation. In this form of conjugation the stem of the word changes to indicate the tense: speak – spoke – spoken. The root portion in the word changes rather than its ending. In Old Germ. there were 7 major classes of Strong verbs; each class had its own pattern of stem changes.
Weak verbs are formed principally by adding endings to past and participles. There were only 3 classes of Weak verbs.
– j- stem – narian – nerede – nered
– o – stem – endian – endode – endod
– ai – stem – habban – haefde – haefd
Past tense was formed by means of the dental suffix – d (- s, - t) which possibly derived from the old form of the word “do” or from Indo-Europ. suffix of verbal adj.
Preterite-Present verbs were a very ancient group. Their root of the present form derived from the Past form and the Past tebse was formed by means of the dental suffix – d (- t)
sculan – scal – skulda
magan – maeg – meahta
cunnan – cann - cuthe
List of Preterite-Present verbs
agan = to possess
cunnan = to know
dugan = to achieve
durran = to dare
magan = to be able to
motan = to be allowed to
munan = to remember
nugan = to suffice
sculan = must, to be obligated
unnan = to grant
þurfan = to need
witan = to know
Atypical verbs
Additionally there is a group of 4 verbs which are anomalous: will, do, go, be.
They have their own conjugation schemes to make them as distinct as possible to reduce the possibility that a listener will mishear the word
dòn (to do)
|
Pres |
Past |
Sg |
dò |
dyde |
|
dèst} dò |
dyest} dude |
|
dep |
dude |
From OE to ME
- many strong verbs –> weak: helpen, healp, geholpen => help-ed
- many weak –> irregular
OE cepan cepte gecept
ME kepen kepte ykept
37. English Verb and its further development in ne
Verbs carry the idea of being or action in the sentence.
The present tense. The second person singular inflection -est naturally declined in importance as the use of thou declined, giving rise to the current arrangement whereby in the present tense only the third singular is marked and all other persons take the base form.
At the start of the period, the normal third person singular ending in standard southern English was -eth. The form -(e)s, originally from Northern dialect, replaced -eth in most kinds of use during the seventeenth century. A few common short forms, chiefly doth, hath, continued often to be written, but it seems likely that these were merely graphic conventions.
Forming the past tense and past participle. The class of ‘strong’ verbs (those which indicate tense by a vowel change and do not have a dental segment added) included a number of verbs which are now only ‘weak’
Examples include: creep: crope, cropen; delve: dolve, dolven; help: holp, holpen; melt: molt, molten; seethe: sod, sodden.
A few ‘weak’ verbs moved into the strong class during the period, including dig, spit, and stick.
The formation of the past tense and past participle of strong verbs showed more variation in early modern English than today. There were a number of changes which began in Middle English and whose results have now been fossilized in present English but which produced a variety of forms in this period.
These were:
i. patterning the past tense on the past participle (as in tore after torn);
ii. adapting the past tense or past participle to verbs with a different pattern (as in slung after sung, etc.);
iii. patterning the past participle on the past tense (as in sat)
iv. dropping the –en suffix of the past participle (as in sung as opposed to ridden).
For example, write had the regular past tense wrote, but also found were writ (with the vowel of the past participle) and wrate (patterned on gave or brake); the participle was written or writ (with loss of -en) and wrote (based on the past tense) was also found. Verbs like bear, break, speak, etc., regularly formed their past tenses with a (bare, brake, spake) and this pattern was even extended to other verbs (wrate, drave). Owing to the Great Vowel Shift these past forms lost their distinctiveness from the present stem (since in a widespread variety of pronunciation, the long a of the past became identical with the long open e of the present) and after 1600 forms with o from the past participle (bore, broke, spoke) became normal.
Regular ‘weak’ verbs in Middle English formed their past tense and past participles in -ed, pronounced as a separate syllable, as it still is in a few fossilized forms such as belovèd, blessèd. During the sixteenth century the vowel was lost in this ending except where the preceding consonant was t or d (e.g. in hated) and the d of the ending was devoiced to [t] after a voiceless consonant (e.g. in locked as opposed to logged). Present English spelling does not regularly show these three variants [id], [d], [t] but in early modern English ‘phonetic’ spellings (’d, d, ’t, t) are quite often found. (This can lead to the obscuration of other distinctions; for example, it is sometimes unclear whether rap’t represents rapped or raped.)
Modal Verbs. The changes in preterite-present are significant. Some verbs are lost altogether (dowen, unnen, thurven, munneri). The rest lost the greater part of their paradigms and turned into a group of modal (defective) verbs. Unlike the former preterite-present verbs, these are no longer autonomous and cannot be used without a complement. Now they are always used as modal auxiliaries with the infinitive without the particle to. In Shakespeare's time, however, there were some exceptions - at least some of them still retain the former semantics. Such is the verb witen (to know)
May/might, like can/could takes the personal ending only in the 2nd person singular; both forms are frequently used with the meaning of subjunctive (or present conditional);
The preterite-present verb owen split into two - a regular verb owe (past tense owed).
Shall/should are used as modals; shall also as auxiliaries of the futui and future-in-the-past tense.
In Early New English the uses of must are often associated with the use of the adverb needs, rendering the meaning of necessity - necessarily, etc.
The non-finite forms of the verb - the infinitive, the participle and the gerund developed the set of forms and can hardly be called now the nominal parts of speech. Passive and perfect infinitives, passive and perfect gerund, present participle in the passive voice and perfect participle in the active and the passive voice fully represent new verbal grammatical categories:
The Gerund that originated and was occasionally used in Middle English becomes quite common, the use of this form does not differ from the present-day practice:
Moods of the Early New English period are the same as they were in the Middle English - the Indicative, the Imperative and Subjunctive. The newly arisen analytical forms of the Subjunctive (now in some grammars they are Called the Conditional, the Suppositional and Subjunctive II Past) have not yet the present-day differentiation as to the rules of the structural limitation of their use - we may find any combination of the moods in the sentence of unreal condition.
38. Non-finite forms through history
All English verbs have finite and non-finite forms.
The finite verb invariably performs the function of the verb- predicate. Finite verbs are subdivided into regular and irregular depending on the way the participle II are formed.
Non-finite verbs perform different functions according to their intermediary nature (subject, object, adverbial modifier, attribute). They may be used as any member of the sentence but the predicate. Inside the sentence verbals make up complexes with other members of the sentence.
The English verbs include four forms:
the Infinitive, the Gerund ,the Present Participle , the Past Participle
Old English - Infinitive originated from Verbal Nouns just naming the action but not showing its characteristics. It included an Indo-European suffix –N- e.g.- berenne, etanne (to bear, to eat). It used to be declined as a Noun. It could have complex forms with auxiliary verbs.
Participle 1 was formed from the present stem by means of suffix -ND
– e.g. berende (bearing).
Participle 2 had suffix –D or N
– e.g. boren (born).
Participle 1 denoted action. Participle 2 of transitive verbs had passive meaning, non-transitive – active meaning. They were used in descriptive verb constructions.
Middle English - Non-finite forms which in Old English comprised the infinitive and the two participles, have changed in the direction from the nominal to verbal parts of speech. They are no longer declined, nor are they agreed with the nouns; gradually new verbal categories penetrate into their system, and nowadays we speak about the analytical forms of the non-finite forms (passive infinitive, perfect infinitive etc.)
A new non-finite form of the verb arises - the gerund.
The infinitive loses the category of case and acquires a pre-infinitival particle to. It may still be used with what remained of the infinitival suffix (-an, -ian —> -en, -n) - to goon, to writen, to spenden, to maken - but the tendency to lose the final consonant is strong, and we find in Chaucer's works to seke alongside with to seken, to do with to doon, to make with to maken. This particle is not used when the infinitive stands after other (preterite-present in particular) verbs.
Participle I, having an active meaning and expressing a process of doing something, in Middle English changes its shape. Its suffix -ende turns into -inde and finally -ynge/-inge due to the processes of weakening of the final sounds and through intermixture with other dialectal forms. In the Old English there existed the form of the verbal noun with the suffix -ung (liornunge - learning) which also was shifting toward less distinct form -ynge/-inge. So these two forms became homonymic, which led to much confusion.
Originally, the verbal noun was derived from transitive verbs, took an object in the genitive case (which in our times is replaced by of-phrase). But when phonetically it coincided with the participle, it began to behave more freely, now and again taking the direct object. So from the verbal noun without an article but with a direct object we have a grammatical innovation - the Gerund.
Participles II in Middle English - those of strong verbs and those of the weak ones continue to be used with the prefix y- (reduced ge-); but this is not universal, and they are sure to lose it in Early Modern English. Yet in Chaucer's works we may find an interesting phenomenon when depending on the use or non-use of the prefix with the participles of the strong verbs final -n disappears: hoplen but y-holpe, while the Participle II form of the weak verbs does not change, prefixed or non-prefixed broyded - y-broyded.
Modern English - The non-finite forms of the verb - the infinitive, the participle and the gerund developed the set of forms and can hardly be called now the nominal parts of speech. Passive and perfect infinitives, passive and perfect gerund, present participle in the passive voice and perfect participle in the active and the passive voice fully represent new verbal grammatical categories:
The Gerund that originated and was occasionally used in Middle English becomes quite common, the use of this form does not differ from the present-day practice.