1380984377.3491A History of English Language

Old english 55
The origin of the dental suffixes by which weak verbs form their past tense and past
participle is strongly debated. It was formerly customary to explain these as part of the
verb do, as though I worked was originally I work—did (i.e., I did work). More recently
an attempt has been made to trace these forms to a type of verb that formed its stem by
adding -to- to the root. The origin of so important a feature of the Germanic languages as
the weak conjugation is naturally a question to which we should like very much to find
the answer. Fortunately it is not of prime importance to our present purpose of describing
the structure of Old English. Here it is sufficient to note that a large and important group
of verbs in Old English form their past tense by adding -ede, -ode, or -de to the present
stem, and their past participles by adding -ed, -od, or -d. Thus fremman (to perform) has a
preterite fremede and a past participle gefremed; lufian (to love) has lufode and gelufod;
libban (to live) has lifde and gelifd. The personal endings except in the preterite singular
are similar to those of the strong verbs and need not be repeated. It is to be noted,
however, that the weak conjugation has come to be the dominant one in our language.
Many strong verbs have passed over to this conjugation, and practically all new verbs
added to our language are inflected in accordance with it.
INDICATIVE
SUBJUNCTIVE
Present
Present
ic drīf-e ic drīf-e
ðū drīf-st (-est) ðū drīf-e
hē drīf-ð(-eð) hē drīf-e
wē drīf-að wē drīf-en
gē drīf-að gē drīf-en
hīe drīf-að hīe drīf-en
Past
ic drāf ic drif-e
ðū drif-e ðū drif-e
hē drāf hē drif-e
Past
wē drif-on wē drīf-en
gē drif-on gē drif-en
hīe drif-on hīe drif-en
In addition to these forms the imperative was drīf (sing.) and drīfað (plur.), the present participle
drīfende, and the gerund (i.e., the infinitive used as a verbal noun) tō drīfenne.
47. The Language Illustrated.
We have spoken of the inflections of Old English in some detail primarily with the object
of making more concrete what is meant when we call the language in this stage synthetic.