- •Т.Д.Максимова
- •Old english period seminar 1
- •Seminar 2
- •The First Consonant Shift (Grimm’s Law) – 2 bc
- •Verner’s Law
- •The Second Consonant Shift
- •Periods in the History of English
- •Oe Phonetic Structure
- •Consonants
- •Phonetic changes in oe vowels
- •Quantitative
- •In open syllables
- •1) ⋎ Two consonants
- •2) In three-syllable words
- •Oe Nouns Strong Declension
- •W n-stemeak Declension
- •Root declension
- •Personal Pronouns in oe
- •Demonstrative pronouns in oe
- •Adjectives in oe
- •The verb System in Old English
- •Old English Verb Categories
- •Morphological classification of the verb
- •Preterite-Present verbs
- •Suppletive verbs bēon, wesan; ʒān
- •Anomalous verbs willan, dōn
- •Syntax in Old English
- •Old English Vocabulary Native words
The verb System in Old English
The number of grammatical categories of the verb in Old English was not great (four categories), but its paradigm had a complicated structure: verbs fell into numerous morphological classes and employed a variety of form-building means. All the forms of the verb were synthetic, as analytical forms were only beginning to appear.
Old English Verb Categories
The OE verb was characterized by 4 grammatical categories:
Number: sg., pl. Tense: Pr., Past
wrīte – wrītaþ wrīte – wrāt
Gr. categories
of the finite verb
Person: 1,2,3 Mood
sg.1. ic wrīte Indic. Imperative Subjunctive
2. þū wrītest sg. pl. Present Past
3. hē wrīteþ wrīt wrītaþ sg. pl. sg. pl.
pl. hı¯e wrītaþ wrīte wrīten write writen
Number – was made up of singular and plural,
Person – was made up of 3 forms,
Tense – comprised the Present and Past (in the Indicative as well as in the Subjunctive. The meanings of the Tense forms were very general, as compared with the present-day English.
The forms of the Present Tense were used to indicate present and future actions. With verbs of perfective meaning, with adverbs of future time or with modal verbs the Pr. Tense acquired the meaning of futurity.
The Past Tense was used to indicate various events in the past (including those which are nowadays expressed by the forms of the Past Continuous, Present Perfect, Past Perfect and other analytical forms).
Mood – was constituted by the Indicative, Imperative and Subjunctive with singular and plural forms in all of them.
The use of the Subjunctive Mood in OE was in many respects different from its use in later ages. Subjunctive forms conveyed a very general meaning of unreality or supposition in conditional sentences. Besides that Subjunctive was common in other types of constructions: in subordinate clauses of time, result and in clauses presenting reported speech.
The non-finite forms included the Infinitive, Participle1, Participle 2.
dēman dēmende dēmed
Inf. Part.1 Part.2
Morphological classification of the verb
VERB
strong (7 classes) weak (3 classes) minor groups (3 groups)
4 basic forms 3 basic forms 1. suppletive
vowel gradation dental suffixation 2. anomalous
3. preterite-present
wrītan–wrāt–writon–writen cēpan–cēpte–cēped
Inf. Past sg Past pl Part.2 Inf. Past Part.2
-an -Ø -on -en
As the language distinguished the category of person, the verbs were conjugated.
Conjugation
(strong verb class 1 Inf. wrītan)
Present Imper. Past Part. 1 Part.2
Indicative Subj. Indic. Subj.
sg. 1.wrīte wrāt
2.wrītest wrīte wrīt write write wrītende writen
3.wrīteþ wrāt
pl. wrītaþ wrīten wrītaþ writon
Verbs in OE
Strong Verbs (7 classes, 4 basis forms, vowel gradation)
1 cl. |
rīsan |
- rās |
- rison |
- risen |
2 cl. |
ce̅osan |
- ce̅as |
- curon |
- coren |
3 cl. |
drincan |
- dranc |
- druncon |
- druncen |
4 cl. |
beran |
- bær |
- bǣron |
- boren |
5 cl |
cweðan |
- cwæð |
- cwǣdon |
- cweden |
6 cl. |
faran |
- fōr |
- fōron |
- faren |
7 cl. |
hātan |
- hēt(heht) |
- hēton |
- hāten |
Weak Verbs (3 classes, 3 basis forms, suffixation)
1 class regular
dēman dēmde dēmed
styrian styrede styred
irregular
þyncan þūhte þūht
tellan tealde teald
2 class lōcian lōcode lōcod
3 class libban lifde lifd
habban hæfde hæfd
Minor groups of verbs
1. preterite – present: witan, cunnan, maʒan (12 verbs)
2. anomalous: willan, dōn, būan
3. suppletive: bēon, wesan; ʒān