The Verb.

In Middle English there were such grammatical categories person, number, tense, mood.

1. Now tense-aspect forms developed in the language as well as the forms of the passive voice.

In New English the verb had two tense forms: simple present and simple past and the form of the present tense is also sometimes used to express a future action. Exampes: I start for England tomorrow. Scholl begins again next week;

1. Passive Voice. At the beginning of the Middle English period the Participle lost its forms of agreement with the subject and when the third element of the passive construction began to be expressed the combination ‘be /+Participle II began to denote an action directed towards the subject thus turning into the analytic passive form of the verb.

Till the end of the Middle English period only transitive verbs could form the passive voice.( hē beboden bi (he was ordered).

2. The Perfect Forms. Participle II was often used as an attribute to the direct object of the verb ‘habban’.( Haefele se gōda cempan gecorenne. (The brave man had warrious chosen). When the forms of agreement were lost, the ties with the object loosened, Participle II became closely attached to the verb ‘to have’ (habban) and the combinations ‘have sung’, ‘have done’ etc. began to denote the action of the subject.

As an auxiliary “do” began to be used first in affirmative sentences then in negative sentences and latter in interrogative sentences.

Changes in Endings of the Finite Forms.

1)‘(e)s’ for the third person singular,

Changes in the non-finite forms. 1. The Infinitive in Middle English lost the form of the dative case, and both forms coincided because of the reduction of unstressed vowels. Thus Old Eng. drincan drinken drinke

2) Participle I in Old English was characterized by the ending – ‘ende’. writende, rīdende, drincende.

3) In the northern and central dialects Participle II lost its prefix ‘ge’ but kept the ending – ‘en’. In the south on the contrary lost the ending – ‘n’ and kept the prefix – ‘i’.

Changes in the System of Strong Verbs.

The 7 classes of strong verbs were as a whole preserved in Middle English. On account of the reduction of non-stressed vowels Participle II and the past plural forms became identical and had the same ending as the Infinitive.

The Infinitive ending in Old Eng. -an → Mid. English –en

Past Plural –Old Eng. -on Mid. Eng. –en;

Participle II - Old English - en → Mid. English - en

The subjunctive plural also ended in – ‘en’ both in Old English and in Middle English.

Changes in the System of weak verbs. There were 3 classes of weak verbs in Old English although the third class included a very small number to exist altogether.

The 1^st class forming the past tense with the suffix –‘de’ and the 2^nd class with the suffix –‘ed’ in the past.

Preterite-present verbs. Preterite-present verbs are those whose present tense forms are derived from the past tense of strong verbs. The preterite-present verbs formed their past tense according to the type of weak verbs, viz by adding a dental suffix. The non-finite forms (infinitive and participles) were formed from the stem of the present plural forms. There were 12 preterite-present verbs in the Old English language, only 7 being left by the end of the Middle English period.

The Development of Suppletive Verbs.

beon-wesan: The verb wesan lost its infinitive as well as the imperative and the participles, only the past forms ‘was’ and ‘were’ being left. The verb ‘been’ on the other hand retained the Infinitive and the Participles but lost its present forms.

Old English bēen → Middle English be.

In Middle English the past form of the verb ‘wendan’ –‘wende’ –‘went’ began to be used instead of the form ‘eode’ ‘yede’.

Non-finite Verbal Forms. In the Middle English period Participles I and II were no longer declined.

3. The Infinitive. In Middle English the dative infinitive lost its final ‘o’ and later on ‘n’, the form ‘drincen’ being left, so that only one form of the infinitive remained. Sometimes the infinitive was used with the particle ‘to’ and sometimes without it.