Morphological classification of verbs

Lecture 9

Old English Grammar

The Verbal System

Finite and non-finite forms of the verb

The verb system in Old English was represented by two sets of forms:

The finite forms and the non-finite forms of the verb, or verbals

(Infinitive, Participle). Those two types of forms – the finite and the non- finite – differed more than they do today from the point of view of their respective grammatical categories, as the verbals at that historical period were no conjugated like the verb proper, but were declined like nouns or adjectives. Thus the infinitive could have two case-forms which may conventionally be called the “Common” case and the

“ Dative “ case.

Common Dative case

wrĩ t an (to write) to writt enne (so that I shall write)

cĕ p an (to keep) to cep enne (so that I shall keep)

drink an (to drink) to drinc enne (so that I shall drink)

The so called common case form of the Infinitive was widely used in different syntactical functions, the Dative case was used on a limited scale and mainly when the Infinitive functioned as an adverbial modifier of purpose

Ic צ ǎ tō drincenne (I go to drink)

The participle had a well-developed system of forms, the declension of the Participle resembling greatly the declension of adjectives. The only typically “verbal “grammatical category of the participle was category of tense, for example:

Present tense Past tense

wrĩ t ende written

cĕ p ende cĕ pt

drinc ende drunken

Mood

There were three mood forms in Old English:

Indicative, Imperative and Oblique:

Indicative Imperative Oblique

Þ u cepst cĕ p cĕ pe

The Indicative and Imperative mood were used in cases similar to those which are they used now but the Oblique mood differed greatly from the corresponding mood in New English. There was only one mood form in

Old English that was used both to express events that are thought of as unreal or as problematic – today there are two mood forms to denote those two different kinds of events, conventionally called the Subjunctive and the Conjunctive.

The forms of the Oblique mood were also sometimes used in contexts for which now the Indicative mood would be more suitable – to present events in the so-called “Indirect speech”:

Hĕ sæ de Þ æ t land sie swiÞ e lanצ

(he said that land is very long large)

Morphological classification of verbs

All Old English verbs may be subdivided into a number of groups in accordance with the grammatical means with the help of which they built their principal stems.

There were two principal means for forming verb-stems in Old English:

1. By means of vowel interchange of root vowel and 2. By means of suffixation.

In accordance with these two methods of formation all the verbs in Old English formed two groups – the strong and the weak verbs.

The strong verbs are verbs which use vowel-interchange as principal means of expressing different grammatical categories. They differ from the weak ones not only in the manner of the building of their forms but also in the number of these principal forms.

There were seven principal gradation classes, five of them based on qualitative ablaut, the sixth class on the quantitative ablaut, the seventh- by means of the so-call reduplication of the root syllable.

The weak verbs are relatively younger than strong verbs. They reflect a later stage in the development of Germanic languages.

They were an open class in Old English, as new verbs that entered the language generally formed their forms on analogy with weak verbs.

The weak verbs are subdivided into three classes.

1.-the stem-suffix-i

2.-the stem-suffix-oi

3.-of the third class there remained in Old English only three verbs –habban (have), libban (live), seyan (see)