30.New Categories of the Middle English Verb

During this period there appear analytical forms of the verb. In Old English the only ways to make the forms of the verb were suffixes/vowel interchange/using another stem + inflections; in Middle English there arise the forms now very common in Present-day English but absent in Old English.

The Tense In present day English the temporal paradigm of the verb contains two synthetic and one analytical form. This means that this form was absent in Old English, and this form is the Future tense.

The use of such verbs as shall/ will referred the action to the future as such which was desirable but not yet realized, or obligatory. In Middle English these become the true auxiliaries for the future tense. Chaucer uses them freely:I shal make us sauf for everemore (I shall make us safe forever). The same auxiliary was also used in the already appearing analytical forms of future in the past:

For shortly this was his opinioun,That in that grove he wolde hym hyde al day, And in the nyght thanne wolde he take his way (His opinion was that he should hide himself in that grove all day and then at night should take his way)

The Present and the Past Perfect equally came into the Middle English, both using as auxiliary the verb to haven in the Present or the past tense + Participle II

The passive voice expressed by the combination ben + PII expressing a state as well as an action is widely used in Middle English.

A new form - the continuous was rising, but in Middle English it was considered an ungrammatical form of the verb, and it was not allowed into the good literary English We may observe that even more complicated forms of the Continuous, such as Perfect continuous may be found in late Middle English:

We han ben waitynge al this fourtenyght (We have been waiting all this fortnight...)

The category of mood was enriched by analytical formations wolde + inf and sholde + inf; the newly arisen form of the past perfect readily supplements the range of meanings of the old synthetic subjunctive: sire, if that I were ye, Yet sholde I seyn ...(Sir, if I were you I would say)

31.Verbals(Non-finite forms of the verb) in Middle Eng

Non-finite forms of the verb which in Old English comprised the infinitive and the two participles, have changed in the direction from the nominal to verbal parts of speech. They are no longer declined, nor are they agreed with the nouns; gradually new verbal categories penetrate into their system, and nowadays we speak about the analytical forms of the non-finite forms (passive infinitive, perfect infinitive etc.)

A new non-finite form of the verb arises - the gerund.

The infinitive loses the category of case and acquires a pre-infinitival particle to. It may still be used with what remained of the infinitival suffix (-an, -ian  -en, -n) - to goon, to writen, to spenden, to maken - but the tendency to lose the final consonant is strong.This particle is not used when the infinitive stands after other verbs

Wel coude he singe and pleven on a rote...(he could sing and play the rote well)

Participle I, having an active meaning and expressing a process of doing something, in Middle English changes its shape. Its suffix -ende turns into -inde and finally -ynge/-inge due to the processes of weakening of the final sounds and through intermixture with other dialectal forms.

The silver dropes hanginge on the leves (the silver drops hanging on the leaves)

A rose gerland, fressh and wel smellvnge (a rose garland (wreath) fresh and well-smelling)

Originally, the verbal noun was derived from transitive verbs, took an object in the genitive case (which in our times is replaced by of-phrase). But when phonetically it coincided with the participle, it began to behave more freely, now and again taking the direct object. So from the verbal noun without an article but with a direct object we have a grammatical innovation - the Gerund.

Participles II in Middle English - those of strong verbs and those of the weak ones continue to be used with the prefix y- (reduced ʒe-); but this is not universal, and they are sure to lose it in Early Modern English. Yet in Chaucer’s works we may find an interesting phenomenon when depending on the use or non-use of the prefix with the participles of the strong verbs final -n disappears; hoplen but y-holpe, while the Participle II form of the weak verbs does not change, prefixed or non-prefixed broyded - y-broyded.