5. The Morphological Classification of the oe verbs.

The verb system in OE was represented by two sets of forms: the finitive of the verb and the non-finitive forms of the verb. Those two types of forms differed more than they do today from the point of view of their respective grammatical categories, as the verbals at that historical period were not conjugated like the verb proper, but were declined like nouns or adjectives. Thus the infinitive could have two case-forms, which may conventionally be called the “Common” case and the “Dative” case. The so-called Common case form of the Infinitive was widely used indifferent syntactical functions, the Dative case was used on a limited scale and mainly when the Infinitive functioned as an adverbial modifier of purpose. The participle had a well-developed system of forms, the declension of the participle resembling greatly the declension of adjectives. The system of conjugation of the OE verb was built up by four grammatical categories. Person. There were three person forms in OE: 1, 2, 3. But we have distinct person forms only in the Indicative mood, the Imperative and the Oblique mood forms reflecting no person differences and even the Indicative mood forms changing for person only in the Singular, the plural forms being the same irrespective of person. Number. The grammatical category of number was built up by the opposition of two number forms –Singular and Plural. Tense. The grammatical category of tense was represented by two forms: Present tense and Past tense. There was no Future tense in OE, future events were expressed with the help of a present tense + an adverb denoting futurity or by a combination of a modal verb + an Infinitive. Mood. There were three moods forms in OE: Indicative, Imperative and Oblique. The Indicative Mood and the Imperative Mood were used in cases similar to those in which they are used now. But the Oblique mood in OE differed greatly from the corresponding mood in NE. There was only one mood form in OE that was used both to express events that are thought of as unreal or as problematic – today there are two mood forms to denote those two different kinds of events, conventionally called the Subjunctive and the Conjunctive. The forms of the Oblique Mood were also sometimes used in contexts for which now the indicative mood would be more suitable – to present vents in the so-called “Indirect speech”.

Morphological Classification

The verbs are divided in two: Strong verbs (7 classes), weak verbs (3 classes) and other verbs (suppletive, irregular, preterite-present verbs)

Strong verbs

The vowel interchange or ablaut which was the principal grammatical means in the conjugation of the OE strong verbs was of two kinds: qualitative and quantitative. The 1-5 classes are mainly based on the qualitative ablaut, the 6^th class – on the quantitative ablaut, 7^th class – formed their principal forms by means of the so-called reduplication of the root syllable, but in the course of the development of the language that means was obliterated. The OE qualitative ablaut is akin to the Common Germanic and even Indo-European ablaut.

Weak verbs

The OE weak verbs are relatively younger than the strong verbs. They reflected a later stage in the development of Germanic lang. They were an open class in OE as new verbs that entered the language generally formed their forms on analogy with the weak verbs. Whereas the strong verbs used vowel-interchange as a means of differentiation among principal verb stems, the weak verbs used for that purpose suffixation, namely, suffixes –t, or –d. for example: cepan – cepte – cept The strong verbs were “root-stem” verbs, they did not have any stem-forming suffix following the root, but they added their grammatical endings to the root directly. The weak verbs, however, had a stem-forming suffix that followed the root and preceded the grammatical ending. In accordance with the character of the stem-suffix the weak verbs are subdivided into three classes. Class I – the stem suffix –i (the class includes many verbs formed from other nouns, adjectives or verbs). All of them have a front root vowel – the result of palatal mutation due to the –i element of the stem-suf). Class II – the stem suf – oi (the o-element of the suffix is preserved in the past tense and in the Past Participle).