26. Verbal Grammatical Categories in oe.

The finite forms of the Verb had the categories of Person, Number, Tense and Mood. The category of Person was based on the opposition of three persons: 1, 2, 3, which were grammatically marked only in the singular. As far as the plural form is considered, there was no distinction between persons. There were 2 numbers – the singular and the plural. The category of tense was represented only by 2 opposite members – the Present and the Past. There was no the category of voice in OE. There were 3 moods: Indicative, Conjunctive and Imperative.

27. Strong Verbs in oe.

There were about 300 strong verbs in OE. The Strong verbs may be called “ablaut verbs”, the verbs which have the alternation of vowels in the stems. There are 7 classes of strong verbs. The first 5 classes are based on the ablaut “chains” which are characterized by quantitative ablaut, in the 6^th class the original gradation was purely quantitative, but in PG it changed into quantitative-qualitative series. The 7^th class is based on the reduplication of the root

28. Weak Verbs in oe.

There 3 classes of OE weak verbs as contrasted to the 4 in Gothic. . Weak verbs formed their Past and Participle II by means of the dental suffix –d- or –t-. This way of building grammatical forms is considered to be a purely Germanic Phenomenon. The origin of the dental suffix is a disputable question. Some scholars trace it back to the Past tense of the verb d̅͞͞͞͞͞o͞͞n . Some consider that it originated from the suffix of Participle II.

29. Preterite-Present Verbs in oe and their further development.

These verbs have a peculiar place within the system of OE. There are 12 preterite-present verbs: wītan (know), āʒan (have), duʒan (be useful), unnan (present), cunnan (know), ðurfan (need), durran (dare), sculan (shall, be obliged), munan (remember), maʒan (may), ʒeneah (past sing. sufficed), mŌtan (may). Originally (before the Common Germanic period) these verbs were strong and could be referred to a specific class of strong verb in accordance with its ablaut series. Their present tense corresponds to the past of strong verbs, while their past is derived according to the past of weak verbs.

30. The Non-Finite forms of the verb in OE.

In OE there were two non-finite forms of the verb: the Infinitive and the Participle. The Infinitive had no verbal grammatical categories. Being a verbal noun by origin, it had a sort of reduced case-system: two forms which roughly corresponded to the Nom. and the Dat. cases of nouns –

beran – uninflected Infinitive (“Nom.” case)

tō berenne or tō beranne – inflected Infinitive (“Dat.” case)

Like the Dat. case of nouns the inflected Infinitive with the preposition tō could be used to indicate the direction or purpose of an action. The uninflected Infinitive was used in verb phrases with modal verbs or other verbs of incomplete predication.

The Participle was a kind of verbal adjective which was characterized not only by nominal but also by certain verbal features. Participle I (Present Participle) was opposed to Participle II (Past Participle) through voice and tense distinctions: it was active and expressed present or simultaneous processes and qualities, while Participle II expressed states and qualities resulting from past action and was contrasted to Participle I as passive to active, if the verb was transitive. Participle II of intransitive verbs had an active meaning; it indicated a past action and was opposed to Participle I only through tense. Participles were employed predicatively and attributively like adjectives and shared their grammatical categories: they were declined as weak and strong and agreed with nouns in number, gender and case