1.2. Morphological classification of verbs in Middle English

The historical changes in the ways of building the principal forms of the verb transformed the morphological classification of the verbs. The OE division into classes of weak and strong verbs was completely rearranged and broken up. Most verbs have adopted the way of form-building employed by the weak verbs: the dental suffix. The strict classification of the strong verbs, with their regular system of form-building, degenerated. In the long run all these changes led to increased regularity and uniformity and to the development of a more consistent and simple system of building the principal forms of the verb.

1.2.1. Strong verbs.

Changes that occurred in the system of strong verbs led to its simplification in the following ways:

1. Alternation of consonants due to Verner’s law in the 3^rd and 4^th stems was abandoned, with the exception of the following verbs:

bēn – was – wēre – wēren

forlēsen – forlēs – forloren and some others.

2. Changes in vowel alternations in certain classes of strong verbs brought about the reduction in the number of stems from four to three, by removing the distinction between the two past tense stems. This development was very active in the Northern dialects, and already in the 13^th – 14^th c. most strong verbs had only three stems.

3. Many strong verbs began to develop the forms of the past tense or past participle in accordance with weak verbs, and ultimately changed into weak. Thus, from the total number of strong verbs (about 170 verbs) over 40 verbs turned into weak ones. This process extended over a long period and in many cases continues in Mod E, which is testified by the presence of parallel past forms, e.g. blew – blowed, lit – lighted, learnt – learned etc. In ME these parallel forms were quite numerous, e.g. stope – stepped, sat – sitted, crope – crept etc. Some strong verbs left their traces in Mod E in the form of adjectives like cloven, laden, shaven, swollen etc.

4. The number of strong verbs in ME decreased considerably due to two reasons: a) the fact that many of them went out of use, like OE liþan ‘go’, tēōn ‘draw’, stīan ‘rise’, þēōtan ‘roar’, niman ‘take’, fōn ‘catch’ etc., and b) displacement of strong verbs by the weak ones, often having the same root with the strong verbs, e.g. OE dreopan (strong), dropian (weak) > ME dropien, droppen > NE drop; OE smēōcan (strong), smocian (weak) > ME smoken > NE smoke, etc.

Out of the total number of strong verbs in OE (about 300) only about a half (140) were retained in ME. In the 12^th – 15^th c. a number of verbs of Scandinavian and French origin joined strong verbs.

The seven classes of strong verbs changed in ME and NE in the following way:

Class I

OE writan wrāt writon writen

ME wrīten wrōt writen writen

NE write wrote written

Class II

OE cēōsan cēās curon coren

ME chēsen chēs chosen chosen

NE choose chose chosen

Class III

OE drincan dranc druncon drunken

ME drinken drank drunken drunken

NE drink drank drunk

Class IV

OE stelan stæl stælon stolen

ME stēlen stal stēlen stolen

NE steal stole stolen

Class V

OE sittan sæt sæton seten

ME sitten sat seten seten

NE sit sat sat

Class VI

OE scacan scōc scōcon scacen

ME shāken shōk shōken shāken

NE shake shook shaken

Class VII

OE cnāwan cnēōw cnēōwon cnāwen

ME knowen knew knewen knowen

NE know knew known

The most important change in the system of strong verbs was the reduction in the number of stems from four to three, by removing the distinction between the two past tense stems

In ME the final syllables of the stems, like all final syllables, were weakened. In Early NE most of them were lost. Thus the OE endings –an, -on, -en (of the 1^st, 3^rd and 4^th principal forms) were all reduced to ME –en; consequently, in Classes 6 and 7, where the infinitive and the participle had the same gradation vowel, these forms fell together; in Classes 1 and 3a it led to the coincidence of the 3^rd and 4^th principal forms. In the ensuing period, the final –n was lost in the infinitive and the past tense plural, but was sometimes preserved in participle II, probably to distinguish the participle from other forms. Thus, despite phonetic reduction, -n was sometimes retained to show an essential grammatical distinction, cf. NE stole – stolen, spoke – spoken, but bound – bound.

In ME and Early NE the root vowels in the principal forms of all the classes of strong verbs underwent the regular changes of stressed vowels.