Preterit-present verbs

There are a small group of common verbs, largely auxiliaries, which in the present have the form of a preterit of the strong verbs:

Inf. Pres. sg Past sg Past Pr.

I witan wāt wiste to know

II dugan dēāg dohte to avail (to use)

III cunnan cann cūđe cūđ

durran dearr dorste dare

þurfan þearf þorfte need

IV sculan sceal scolde to be obliged

munan man munde to remember

V magan mæg mihte to be able

VI mōt mōste may

VII āgan āge āhte to own

These verbs didn’t have all the main forms in OE and they are in this sense defective. Their semantics differs from that of the strong and weak verbs, because they don’t indicate the actions, but express the modal attitude to the action denoted by another verb. In MnE they are preserved as the modal verbs – can, may (might), ought, dare, shall, must.

Irregular verbs

There are several irregular (anomalous) verbs in OE: willan – wolde will, dōn – dyde to do, būan – būde to live, gān – eōde to go, bēon – wæs to be. Some of them are suppletive (gān, bēon), some combine the features of weak and strong verbs (dōn, būan), the verb willan resembled the preterite-present verbs and later developed into the modal verb.

Conjugation of the verbs in OE. Grammatical categories

Conjugation shows the grammatical changes in verbs according to tense, person, number and mood.

The category of Tense

OE verb distinguishes between 2 tenses - present and preterit. There are no distinct future forms in OE and the present tense is used to express future time: ic selle ēow. The future is sometimes expressed by willan and scullan, though generally with a sense of volition with will, and of necessity or obligation with shall.

The preterit has the meaning of the modern past, past continuous and perfect. Perfect is sometimes formed analytically - by habban (have) / wesan (to be)+ past participle: ic hæbbe ge-dōn I have done, hit wæs æfen geworden it had become evening. But analytical forms are rare in OE.

The category of Number

Finite forms of the OE forms distinguish between 2 numbers: sg and pl.

With nouns of multitude the verb-predicate is usually singular when it is near the noun, but often plural when separated from it: se flothere fērde tō scipe, and behyddon þæt hēafod the army of pirates went back to their ships, and hid the head.

The category of Person

In OE there were 3 forms of the category of person: the 1^st, the 2^nd amd the 3^rd. This category is distinguished only in the Present sg and Past sg. In plural and in the Subjunctive Mood the person is not expressed at all.

The category of Mood

OE had 3 moods: The Indicative, the Imperative and the Subjunctive Mood. The indicative is used to state an action as real, the other two moods have the subjective meaning. The imperative mood expresses order, request, sometimes wish. The subjunctive mood states something not as a fact, as the indicative does, but merely as an object of thought. Hence it is used to express wish, condition, doubt and the like. It is widely used in OE, both in main and in the subordinate clauses.

The category of Voice

Passive voice is expressed lexically - by the form of the verb: hātte (is called, was called) - se munuc hātte Abbo and analytically - with wesan or weorþan + past participle: sēo bōc is gesett the book is composed. Active voice is expressed by the finite forms of the verb.

The category of Aspect

In old Germanic languages there appear to have been 3 aspects: the continuous, the momentaneous, and the resultative. From these original 3 aspects the tenses of strong verbs were developed: the continuous aspect yielded the present tense, the momentaneous aspect yielded the past tense, the resultative aspect joined the momentaneous aspect to form the past tense in strong verbs and in the preterit-present verbs it became a present tense.

In OE these aspects were not preserved. But there are some pairs of verbs with the prefix ge- and without it that express completion and incompletion of an action and so approach the meaning of a perfective and imperfective aspect: feohtan – gefeohtan to fight – to gain by fighting. Still many verbs have no ge- forms at all. Thus we cannot say that in OE there was a grammatical category of aspect.

Lecture 7. Old English Syntax.

Contents:

1. The Sentence. The communicative types of the sentence.

2. Structural classification of sentences.

3. Simple sentence.

4. Negation.

5. Parts of a sentence.

6. Phrases and ways of expressing syntactical relations.

7. The composite sentence.

8. The word-order.

Syntax is the part of grammar which deals with phrases, sentences and combinability of words. The main subject of syntax is a sentence, its structure and the relations between the components of a sentence.

The Sentence

Sentence is a unit of communication which has its own intonation and is used by speakers to communicate their thoughts.