Preterite – Presents Verbs

(past - present)

They were 12 of them. Six of them survived in ModE.

1. aZ (ought) 7. witan (to know)

2. cunnan cann (can) 8. þurfan (потребувати)

3. dear (r) (dear0 9. Ze-nah (досить)

4. sculan, sceal (shall) 10. duZan (годитися)

5. maZan, mxZ (may) 11. munan (пам’ятати)

6. mot (must) 12. unnan (ставитися прихильно)

Originally they belonged to the strong verbs and formed the Past tense form by the change of the root vowel:

witan – wāt – wiste. But in the course of time the Past tense form acquired the meaning of the Present : wāt – знаю.

They showed attitude to an action denoted by another verb, the infinitive which followed the preterite – present. Eventually they developed into modern modal verbs.

Anomalous Verbs

These verbs have irregular forms. E.g. willan, dōn, Zān, beon, wesan resembled the preterite – presents in meaning and function. It indicated an attitude to an action and was often followed by the infinitive.

Þa De willaD mines forsiDes fxZnian – those who wish to rejoice in my death

Eventually willan became a modal verb.

Some verbs combined the features of weak Past tense with a vowel interchange and the Participle in – n: don – dyde – Zedon (to do)

Two OE verbs were suppletive: they are beon and wesan

OE Zan – eode – Ze-Zan (to go)

Beon (be) 1^st p. sing eom, beo

2^nd p. eart, bist

The Past tense was built from the root wes

Wesan – wxs – wxron - weren

Old English Verbals (Non-finite Forms of the Verb)

There were two non-finite forms: the Infinitive and the Participle.

The Infinitive

It had no verbal categories but had some nominal. As a verbal noun by origin, the infinitive had two case system: the Nominative and the Dative case:

drifan (to drive) (Uninflected Nominative)

tō drifanne (Inflected Dative)

The form tō drifanne indicated direction or the purpose of the action (in order to drive)

Uninflected Infinitive was used in the phrases with the verbs that turned into modal or anomalous verbs:

þū meaht sinZan – you may sing

þa ouZon hē sōna sinZan – then began he soon to sing

The Participle

It had both verbal and nominal characteristics. Participle I was opposed to Participle II through voice and tense distinctions: Participle I is active and expresses present or simultaneous process. Participle II has passive meaning and denotes the state/quality resulting from past action. Participle II of intransitive verbs has active meaning.

Participle I is formed from the Infinitive with the help of suffix -ende

Participle I: drīfende (driving) (infinitive drīfan)

Participle II has its own stem. If it was a strong verb there was a vowel interchange and suffix -en. From weak verbs Participle II had -d/-t. As a rule Participle II had the prefix -Ze.

Participle II (Ze) – drifen (driven)

Participles were used predicatively and attributively. If used attributively participles were declined weak and strong and agreed with nouns in number, gender and case:

Ic nāt hwænne mine daZas aZane beoþ – I don’t know when my days are gone.

AZane agrees with daZas.