7.Strong and weak verbs in Germanic languages.

Strong verbs in OE.

There were about three hundred strong verbs in Old English. They were native verbs of Protogermanic origin and usually have parallels in other Germanic languages. They are divided into seven classes. Gradation in Old English develops from common Indo-European gradation but the vowels differ due to numerous phonetic changes in Germanic languages and then in English, so the vowels may be quite different, but the principle is the same.

Class I Gradation formula: i — a — i — i

writan - wrat — writon - writen (to write) Other verbs of this class are: drifan (to drive), bitan (to bite), stridan (to stride), scinan (to shine) etc. As the third and the fourth forms originally had stress on the final syllable, if the verbs had voiceless fricatives in the second syllable, these turned into voiced stops (Verner's law): snidan — snad - snidon - sniden (to cut).

Class II Gradation formula: co - ea - u - o

The four basic form of the verbs of this class is: beodan - bead - budon - boden (to offer)

Other verbs of this class are: creopan (to creep), ceosan (to choose), fleotan (to fleet), dreosan (to fall), freosan (to freeze).

The verbs that had s after the root vowel had the change of the consonant (according to Verner's law this consonant changed into r):

freosan - freas - fruron - froren (to freeze)

Class III

The first and the second classes of strong verbs had a long root vowel or a diphthong) followed by one consonant. In the third class of Germanic strong verbs a short vowel was followed by two consonants. In Old English that was a position where short vowels were subjected to assimilative processes, hence there are several variations of root vowels in this class of verbs.

a) if nasal sound + another consonant followed the root vowel the gradation formula was:

i - a(o) - u - u drincan - dranc - druncon - druncen (to drink); findan - fand - fiindon — fitnden (to find). Here belong also such verbs as bindan (to bind), swindan (to vanish), windan (to wind), spinnan (to spin), winnan (to work) etc.

b) if l + another consonant followed the root vowel, then this formula was

i/e - ea - u - o helpan - healp - hulpon - holpen (to help)

Other verbs having such sounds are: delfan (to delve), sweljan (to swallow), meltan (to melt), sweltan (to die), bellan (to bark), swellan (to swell), melcan (to milk).

c) if r + consonant or h + consonant followed the root vowels then breaking in the first two forms changed the formula into

eo - ea - u - o steorfan - stearf - sturfon - storfen (to die). Here also belong ceorfan (to carve), weorpan (to throw), beorcan (to bark) etc.

ClassIV The verbs of this class have only one consonant after the short root vowel, and it is a sonorant - r or -l in rare cases - in or n -The scheme of gradation is

e - e; - e;- o

stelan - stxl - stxlon - stolen (to steal) Here also belong beran (to bear), cwelan (to die), helan (to conceal) etc.

Class V These verbs also have a short root vowel followed by only one consonant other than r, l, or n and here the basic vowels are:

e — x - x — e sprecan - sprec — spriecon - sprecen (to speak)

Other verbs that formed their past tense and the participle II without deviation from the original scheme are metan (to measure), etan (to eat), wesan (to be) etc.

In the verbs where the first short sound had palatal mutation, the consonant after it in the infinitive (originally one, as is common for this class of verbs) was doubled:

sittan - sxt - sxton - seten (to sit)

Classes VI and VII of the strong verbs are specifically Germanic (they have no counterparts in other Indo-European languages), and are characterized by the fact that the vowel of the infinitive was repeated in the form of the Participle II, and the vowel in the past tense forms was the same for both the singular and the plural:

Class VI The formula of gradation here is

a - o - o - a faran - for — foron - faren (to go)

Here belong such verbs as wadan (to walk), bacan (to bake), wascan (to wash).

There are verbs of this class that have other vowels, which are conditioned by the same factors as the variations in other classes:

if there was h sound in the middle of the word, it was dropped in the infinitive in the process of contraction and voiced in the other forms, and the basic forms are:

slean - sloз - sloзon - slxзen (to beat); flean –floз -floзon - fleзen (to flay)

Class VII The most common are the following patterns:

a - e - e - a

x_ ei - e - x

a - eo - eo - a

ea - co - eo - ea

ea — co - eo — ea

hatan - het - heton - haten (to call);

Isetan - let - leton - lxten (to let), etc.

As a result of later developments, only a few remnants of the original seven classes of strong verbs can be found in Modern English; verbs formerly belonging to classes I, IlI a, b, IV, VI survive to some extent; others have changed beyond recognition. A significant number of the verbs belonging to the seven classes of the strong conjugation have changed into the weak conjugation: many others disappeared altogether and semantically have been replaced by other verbs, borrowed from other languages (Latin or French).

Weak verbs. In Germanic languages, including English, weak verbs are by far the largest group of verbs, which are therefore often regarded as the norm, though historically they are not the oldest or most original group.

In Germanic languages, weak verbs are those verbs that form their preterites and past participles by means of a dental suffix, an inflection that contains a /t/ or /d/ sound or similar. In English the preterite and participle are always identical, but in most of the languages there are three principal parts. In all Germanic languages, the preterite and past participle forms of weak verbs are formed from the same stem. For example:

	Infinitive	Preterite	Past Participle
English (regular)	to love	loved	loved
	to laugh	laughed	laughed
English (irregular)	to say	said	said
	to send	sent	sent
	to buy	bought	bought
	to set	set	set
German	lieben (love)	liebte	geliebt
	bringen (bring)	brachte	gebracht

There are three classes of Old English weak verbs as contrasted to four in Gothic. Their number was ever growing in the Old English as it was a productive pattern. They are divided into three classes depending on the ending of the infinitive, the sonority of the suffix and the sounds preceding the suffix.

New verbs derived from nouns, adjectives and partly adverbs (that was a very productive way of word-building in Old English) were conjugated weak.

Another group of weak verbs were causative (transitive) verbs derived from strong intransitive verbs.

Borrowed verbs (though not very numerous in Old English) were also weak.

Class I

Regular class I verbs have mutation of their root vowel (due to an

original -/-element in the suffix in all their forms), and the three basic forms

of the verb end in:

-an/-ian --de/ede/te - ed/-t-d

(domian -->} demon - demde - domed (to judge)

(arjan -->) erian - erede - ered (to plough)

(nasjan --> ) nerian -- nerede -- nered (to save)

(tamian -->) temman -- temede - temed (to tame)

When the suffix was preceded by a voiceless consonant, the suffix -d- changed into -t-; in the second participle both -t- and -ed are found:

cepan - cepte - cept, ceped (to keep)

Irregular verbs of the 1st class of the weak verbs had mutated vowel only in the infinitive, while in the past tense and in participle II it remained unchanged.

Class II

These verbs originally had the suffix -oia- in the infinitive; the root vowel is the same in all three forms. The absence of mutation in the infinitive weak verb English is due to the fact that the -/- (from -oja) appeared at the time when the: process of mutation was over. The suffix gave the vowel -o- in the past tense and in the infinitive. Their paradigm is the most regular, and so the majority of latter lexical innovations joined this class. The pattern of the three basic forms has the following endings:

-ian -ode -od

macian - macode - macod (to make)

Class III

The suffix -ai-, that determined the peculiarities of conjugation of the weak verbs of the third class in Old English is no longer found. The class is not numerous (there are about eight verbs) and a closed system. Moreover, there is a tendency to disintegration of this class, some of the verbs changing into the first and the second classes. Some verbs of this class have doubled consonants in the Infinitive and the mutated vowels, which are accounted for by the presence of the element -i-/-j- in some forms in Old English. The pattern of forms of the most frequent class I I I verbs forms is:

-an -de -d

libban - lifde - lifd (to live)