33. Strong verbs.

Verbs in Old English are divided into strong or weak verbs. Strong have 7 classes, 4 forms (inf., past singular, past plural, participle II).

Class	I	II	III	IV	V	VI	VII
Inf	wrítan	béodan	drincan	stelan	cweþan	faran	feallan
Past s	wrát	béad	dranc	stæ'l	cwæ'þ	fór	feoll
Past p	writon	budon	druncon	stæ'lon	cwæ'don	fóron	feoll
P.P	writen	boden	druncen	stolen	cweden	faren	feallen

Strong verbs indicate tense by a change in the quality of a vowel, while weak verbs indicate tense by the addition of an ending. Strong verbs use the Germanic form of conjugation known as ablaut. In this form of conjugation, the stem of the word changes to indicate the tense. Verbs like this persist in modern English, for example sing, sang, sung is a strong verb, as are swim, swam, swum and choose, chose, chosen. The root portion of the word changes rather than its ending. In Old English, there were seven major classes of strong verb; each class has its own pattern of stem changes. Learning these is often a challenge for students of the language, though English speakers may see connections between the old verb classes and their modern forms.

34. Weak verbs

While the strong verbs form their past participle (as well as the infinitive) with the suffix *-no- added to the present tense stem, the weak type verbs have the suffix *-to- instead, which later became -d- or -ed or -de and spread to all the past forms.

Weak verbs in Old English (today's English regular verbs) were conjugated in a simpler way than the strong ones, and did not use the ablaut interchanges of the vowel stems. Weak verbs are divided into three classes which had only slight differences though. They did have the three forms - the infinitive, the past tense, the participle II. 

Class	I	II	III
Inf	nerian	endian	habban
Past	nerede	endode
Part. II	nered	endod

The category of Person was made up of three forms: th 1^st, the 2^nd and the 3^rd. The category of Mood was constituted by the Indicative, Imperative and Subjunctive. The category of Tense in OE consisted of two categorical forms, Present and Past. The use of Subj. forms conveyed a very general meaning of unreality or supposition.

35. Preterit-Present verbs and their development

Present-Preterite verbs have their Present tense forms generated from the Strong Past, and the Past tense, instead, looks like the Present Tense of the Weak verbs. The verbs we present here are the following: witan (to know), cunnan (can), þurfan (to need), dearan (to dare), munan (to remember), sculan (shall), magan(may).

In OE there were twelve preterite-present verbs (the had indicative, subjunctive moods; sing, pl, 3 persons, present and past tense). Six of them have survived in Mod. E – owe, ought, can, dare, shal, may, must. Most of the preterite-presents did not indicate actions, but expressed a kind of attitude to an action denoted by another verb, an Infinitive which followed the preterite-present. In other words, they were used like modal verbs, and eventually developed into modern modal verbs. In ME and early NE several preterite-present verbs died out. The surviving verbs lost some of their old forms and grammatical distinctions but retained many specific peculiarities. They lost the forms of the verbals which had sprung up in OE and the distinctions between the forms of number and mood in the Present tense. In NE their paradigms have been reduced to two forms or even to one. Now dare has – s ending in the 3^rd person and Past form dared.