Germanic strong verb
Encyclopedia
In the Germanic languages, a strong verb is one which marks its past tense by means of ablaut
. In English, these are verbs like sing, sang, sung. The term "strong
verb" is a translation of German "starkes Verb", which was coined by the linguist Jacob Grimm
and contrasts with the so-called "weak verb
" ("schwaches Verb") which forms its past tense by means of a dental suffix
.
This article discusses the history of the forms of these verbs mainly in the West Germanic languages
, i.e. English
, German
and Dutch
, and the historical forms Old English
, Old High German
and Old Dutch
. For other aspects of these verbs, see the overview article Germanic verb
.
This has the following forms:
While the inflections are more or less regular, the vowel changes in the stem are not predictable without an understanding of the Indo-European ablaut system, and students have to learn the principal parts
by heart: bēodan, bīett, bēad, budon, boden. The five principal parts are:
Strictly speaking, in this verb ablaut causes only a threefold distinction: parts 1 and 2 are from the e-grade, part 3 from the o-grade, and parts 4 and 5 from the zero grade. The other two distinctions are caused by different kinds of regressive metaphony
: part 2, when it is distinct at all, is always derived from part 1 by Umlaut
. In some verbs, part 5 is a discrete ablaut grade, but in this class 2 verb it is derived from part 4 by an a-mutation
.
In PIE there were already several possible ablaut sequences in the verb conjugation. The Germanic verb is based on the following four patterns. (For orientation, the numbers of the Germanic principal parts and verb classes are included in this table, but the vowels are those of the unattested but reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language
(PIE)).
The standard pattern of PIE is best represented in Germanic by class 3. Classes 1 & 2 have also developed out of this pattern, but here the ablaut vowel was followed by a semivowel (i/j and u/v respectively) which later combined with it to form a diphthong
. The PIE variations from which Germanic classes 4 & 5 evolved contain consonant structures which were partly or wholly incompatible with the zero grade, and thus the e-grade and lengthened e-grade were substituted in one or both of the zero grade positions. Thus classes 1-5 are all easily explicable as having developed logically from a single basic pattern.
Class 6 is more problematic. It is a controversial question whether the earlier phases of PIE had an a-vowel at all. At any rate, most occurrences of an /a/ in late PIE are associated with an earlier laryngeal
h2. Opinions still vary about how exactly this worked, but it is conceivable, for example, that the present stem could have experienced the shift h2e → a. If this is so, then class 6 may also be a variation on the standard pattern.
In addition to the six ablaut sequences, Germanic originally had reduplicating verbs, which in the West and North Germanic languages have lost their reduplication and simplified into a relatively coherent group which may be thought of as a seventh class. However, some verbs, most notably the ri-verbs
, retained at least partial reduplication in some languages. In Gothic
, reduplication remained in full.
The Anglo-Saxon scholar Henry Sweet gave names to the seven classes (the "drive conjugation", the "choose conjugation" etc), but normally they are simply referred to by numbers.
From PIE to Germanic
From Germanic to Gothic
From Germanic to the north and west Germanic dialects
From Germanic to Old English
From Old English to Modern English
From Germanic to Old High German
From Old High German to Modern German
From Germanic to early Middle Dutch
From Middle Dutch to Modern Dutch
From early Modern Dutch to Afrikaans
Other changes in the general shape of the verbs:
In Old English, Germanic ai becomes ā.
Modern English has experienced a diphthongisation of ī (though it is still spelled with an i) and a shift ā > ō. The modern preterite is taken from the old preterite singular, and in the case of "shine", the past participle has also assimilated to the preterite singular.
Class 1 verbs in modern English (excluding derived verbs such as abide and override) are bide, bite, chide, drive, hide, ride, rise, shine, shrive, smite, stride, strike, strive, thrive, write. However, note that, although these verbs have uniformity in their infinitive vowel, they no longer form a coherent class in further inflected forms – for example, bite (bit, bitten), ride (rode, ridden), shine (shone, shone), and strike (struck, struck/stricken, with struck and stricken used in different meanings) all show different patterns from one another – but bide, drive, ride, rise, smite, stride, strive, write do form a (more or less) coherent subclass. Most of these verbs are descended from Old English class 1 verbs. However:
In addition, writhe is an English class 1 verb that has class 1 forms (wrothe, writhen) only in archaic usage.
For the principal parts of all English strong verbs see:
Wiktionary appendix: Irregular English verbs.
In Old High German, Germanic ai becomes ei, and then by OHG monophthongisation it becomes ē before a velar consonant. Thus Old High German has two subclasses, depending on the vowel in the preterite singular:
Like English, Modern German diphthongises the ī (spelling it ei). The modern language takes its preterite from the old preterite plural, so the distinction between the two subclasses disappears. However a new subdivision arises because the i of the past tense forms is lengthened to ie before a single consonant. As it happens, reiten and leihen serve as examples of this too, but many OHG 1a verbs are in the modern long vowel group.
Class 1 verbs in modern German are:
In Dutch, class 1 has remained very regular, and follows the pattern:
Class 1 verbs in Dutch are bezwijken, bijten, blijken, blijven, drijven, glijden, grijpen, hijsen, kijken, knijpen, krijgen, lijden, lijken, mijden, prijzen, rijden, rijzen, schijnen, schijten, schrijden, schrijven, slijpen, slijten, smijten, spijten, splijten, stijgen, strijden, strijken, verdwijnen, vermijden, wijken, wijzen, wrijven, zwijgen.
In Gothic:
In Old English, Germanic eu becomes ēo.
An Old English example with the present stem in ū:
In Modern English, this is a small group characterised by the o vowel of the participle being assimilated to the preterite:
Class 2 verbs in Modern English are choose, cleave, dive (AE), fly, freeze, which do not form a coherent class, as each verb has different irregularities from each other verb.
In Old High German, the usual pattern is:
An Old High German example with present stem in ū:
An example with wandel affecting the whole of the present stem.
A small group sometimes called class 2b has Old High German monophthongisation in the preterite singular:
Regular shifts on the way to Modern German change io > ie and ou > o. The modern preterite is based on the OHG preterite singular:
Class 2 verbs in Modern German are: biegen, bieten, fliegen, fliehen, fließen, frieren, genießen, gießen, klieben, kriechen, riechen, schieben, schießen, schließen, sprießen, stieben, verlieren, ziehen; with ū-present: saufen, saugen.
Two anomalous class 2 verbs in modern German are lügen ("to tell a lie") and trügen ("to deceive"). This no doubt arises from a desire to disambiguate Middle High German liegen from ligen (class 5), which would have sounded the same in Early Modern German. Trügen would have followed in its wake, because the two words form a common rhyming collocation.
In Dutch, class 2 follows the patterns
The present stem in ui represents the old ū-present, but interestingly this subgroup has grown, as a number of class 2 verbs which originally did not have ū-presents have taken the ui by analogy. Class 2 verbs in modern Dutch are: bedriegen, bieden, genieten, gieten, kiezen, liegen, schieten, verliezen, vliegen, vriezen; with ū-present: buigen, druipen, duiken, fluiten, kruipen, ruiken, schuilen, schuiven, sluiten, snuiven, spuiten, stuiven, zuigen, zuipen.
In Old Norse the past participle and plural present stem were subject to change due to assimilation
.
In Gothic:
In the zero-grade forms, the nasal or liquid became a syllabic sonorant in PIE, transcribed as a circle below the letter. In Germanic, these syllabic nasals and liquids were not used, so a u vowel was added in compensation: l̥ > ul. Umlaut causes a shift e > i in the present singular, but in the case of the nasals, this shift takes place throughout the present stem: this is referred to as wandel - the same effect as umlaut, but triggered by the nasal consonant. The preterite singular shows the standard Germanic vowel shift o > a. In the participle, ul becomes ol through metaphony but only with the liquid, as the metaphony is blocked by the nasal.
In Old English, class 3a is little changed from Germanic.
Class 3b experiences a diphthongisation called "Brechung" in preterite singular (a > ea); before r and h this also affects the present stem (e > eo).
West Saxon palatal diphthongization causes i > ie after g:
Three verbs have an anomalous æ in preterite singular: berstan ("to burst"), bregdan ("to pull"), frignan ("to ask").
In Modern English, this class is fairly large. This class is still relatively regular: the preterite is mostly formed from the OE preterite singular, occasionally from the preterite plural.
However, there are some anomalies. The class 3 verbs in modern English are:
English fling does not go back to Old English, and may be a loan-word from Norse. It seems to have adopted class 3 forms by analogy with cling etc. Similarly ring, string.
In Old High German, class 3 has its vowels unchanged from Germanic:
Modern German takes the preterite from the OHG preterite singular.
However, the o of the 3b participle has been passed by analogy to some 3a verbs, and also to the preterite of some verbs of both groups:
Class 3 verbs in modern German
In Dutch, class 3a and the bulk of 3b have taken the vowel of the participle for the preterite. However, a small group of 3b verbs have developed a preterite in ie, perhaps by analogy with class 7. This gives the patterns:
A small number of verbs of other classes have taken the forms of class 3b by analogy. Class 3 verbs in modern Dutch are:
In Old Norse, numerous sound changes have resulted in this class fragmenting into 15 or so subclasses.
In Gothic:
In Old English, the general pattern is:
With West Saxon palatal diphthongization (after c, g):
The verb come is anomalous in all the West Germanic languages because it originally began with qu-, and the subsequent loss of the w sound coloured the vowel of the present stem.
Also anomalous:
In Modern English, regular class 4 verbs have all kept the –n in the participle, though eliminating the medial e after r, this class exhibits near homogeneity of vowel pattern:
Class 4 verbs in English are bear, break, get, shear, speak, steal, swear, tear, tread, wake, weave; and without the -n and of irregular vowel progression: come. Get, speak, tread and weave were originally of class 5, wake and swear were originally class 6.
Although the verb to be is suppletive and highly irregular, its preterite follows the pattern of a class 4 strong verb, with grammatischer Wechsel
, and in English and Dutch this verb has retained the singular/plural distinction of both ablaut grade and consonant in the modern languages. Old English: , English: was/were. For full paradigms and historical explanations see Indo-European copula
.
In Old High German, the pattern is:
In Modern German the preterite is based on the preterite singular. As the only difference between the historical classes 3b and 4 was the preterite plural, these two classes are now identical.
Kommen still has the anomalous o in the present stem (although some dialects still pronounce this as kemmen.)
Class 4 verbs in modern German: brechen, gebären, nehmen, schrecken, sprechen, stechen, stehlen, treffen; anomalous: kommen.
The preterite of sein ("to be") is Old High German: was/wârum, but levelled in modern German: war/waren.
In Dutch, class 4 and 5 verbs still show the distinction in vowel between the preterite singular and plural: ik nam ("I took") has the plural wij namen (not *nammen), that is, the 'short' vowel ɑ of the singular is replaced by the 'long' [a] in the plural. (Note the relationship of consonant doubling to vowel length, which is explained at Dutch orthography
). The pattern is therefore:
In the case of komen, the w is retained in the preterite.
Class 4 verbs in Dutch are: bevelen, breken, nemen, spreken, steken, stelen; and anomalous: komen.
The preterite of wezen/zijn ("to be") still shows both (quantitative) ablaut and grammatischer Wechsel between the singular and plural: was/waren.
In Gothic:
throughout the whole of the present stem.
In Old English the preterite is in , as in class 4.
With West Saxon palatal diphthongization (after c, g)
With j-presents
Contracted, anomalous:
In Modern English
this group has lost all group cohesion.
Class 5 verbs in Modern English:
bid, eat, give, lie (= lie down), see, sit. Get, speak, tread, weave are now class 4.
In Old High German this group is relatively uniform. The model is geban, or for the j-presents, bitten.
In Modern German this group is little changed from Old High German:
The verb essen ("to eat") had a past participle giezzan in OHG; in MHG this became geezzen which was contracted to gezzen and then re-prefixed to gegezzen:
Class 5 verbs in modern German: essen, geben, genesen, geschehen, lesen, messen, sehen, treten, vergessen; with j-presents, bitten, liegen, sitzen.
In Dutch, class 5 is much as in German, except that the preterite retains the vowel length distinction which we also observed in class 4 above.
zien ("to see") has experienced a loss of the original /h/, with a resulting assimilation of the stem vowel to the vowel of the inflection, and shows Grammatischer Wechsel between this original /h/ and a /g/ in the preterite:
Class 5 verbs in Dutch: eten, geven, genezen, lezen, meten, treden, vergeten; anomalous: zien; with j-presents: bidden, liggen, zitten.
In Gothic:
In Old English
Contracted
With j-presents (and other anomalies)
The verb "to stand" has an anomalous loss of its -n- in the preterite:
In Modern English, shake, take and forsake come closest to the original vowel sequence. The consonant anomaly in stand is still visible, and is extended to the participle.
Class 6 verbs in modern English: draw, forsake, lade, shake, shape, shave, slay, stand, take. (Like most other classes in Modern English, this class has lost cohesion and now forms principal parts according to many different patterns.) Swear is now class 4. The adjective graven was originally a past participle of the now obsolete verb grave. Note that lade, shape, shave are now weak outside of their optionally strong past participle forms (laden, shapen, and shaven, respectively).
In Old High German the preterite is marked by the diphthong uo:
With j-present:
In Modern German the uo is monophthongised to a u.
However, the j-presents have instead taken an o in the preterite and participle, perhaps by analogy with class 2.
Class 6 verbs in modern German: fahren, graben, laden, schaffen, schlagen, tragen, waschen; also backen, fragen, though these are usually weak nowadays; with j-present: heben, schwören. The past tense and participle of stehen (stand, older stund, gestanden), which derive from a lost verb *standen, also belong to this class.
In Dutch, the regular class 6 verbs are close to German:
However the three j-presents have taken the vowel ie in the preterite, and have chosen three separate paths in the participle:
Class 6 verbs in Dutch are: dragen, graven, slaan, varen, and with j-present: heffen, scheppen, zweren; also "semi-strong" (i.e. with a strong preterite but a weak participle) jagen, vragen.
In Gothic:
in the Germanic preterite is a debated topic. One view is that class 7 represents all the verbs of classes 1 to 6 that were once characterized by reduplication in the preterite. Another view is that all strong preterites from all classes, as the reflexes of the reduplicating IE perfect, originally showed reduplication, but haplological
processes eliminated the reduplicating syllable in nearly all verbs; however, those verbs whose present and preterite stem did not show a marked contrast in ablaut would therefore not have shown sufficient contrast without a preterite marker, so reduplication was originally retained in those verbs, which are the verbs categorized as class 7.
This situation did not last. East Germanic (Gothic
) alone retained reduplication as the marker of the strong preterite in the verbs of class 7. Four examples from Gothic will illustrate this here. In each case the infinitive and the preterite singular are given, with the reduplication in bold print:
Class 7 in Gothic was divided into two types: those with vocalic alternation in the root and those with no alternation. The root vowel for the nonablauting type could be a(:), ái, áu, e, or o. The patterns that showed vocalic alternation between present and preterite stem were only e ~ o and ai ~ o; note that the o-vowel occurs on precisely the same forms that have reduplication, making it a redundant marking.
Outside Gothic, the retained reduplication of class 7 was itself eventually eliminated, although dialects of Old English and Old Norse
do show a few relics:
Aside from these remnants, North and West Germanic eliminated reduplication in class 7, with the result that these verbs show only a limited variation of vowels, and have enough homogeneity to make it useful to see them as a single class. The principal characteristics of class 7 in West Germanic are:
In Old English the pattern is as follows:
Examples of class 7a:
Two verbs of class 7a have contracted present stems and grammatischer Wechsel:
Examples of class 7b:
In Modern English this class has lost its homogeneity:
Class 7 verbs in modern English: beat, blow, fall, hew, grow, hang, hold, know, throw.
In Old High German we find the same two groups, though they do not correspond exactly to those of Old English:
Class 7a follows the pattern:
Class 7b follows the pattern:
In Modern German this class follows the uniform pattern x-ie-x:
However the two anomalous verbs have formed new present stems, eliminated grammatischer Wechsel and shortened the vowel in the preterite:
Class 7 verbs in modern German are: blasen, braten, fallen, halten, heißen, lassen, laufen, raten, rufen, schlafen, stoßen; anomalous: fangen, hängen.
The past tense and participle of German gehen, ging gegangen, derive from a lost verb *gangen which belongs to this class.
In both Middle and Modern Dutch this class is very similar to German:
The verb "to hold" displays the Dutch phenomenon that in the letter combination -old- the L disappears and the vowel diphthongises in compensation:
Class 7 verbs in Dutch are: blazen, laten, lopen, raden*, roepen, slapen, stoten*, vallen; anomalous: hangen, vangen, houden. (The verbs with * are nowadays mostly semi-strong: raden raadde geraden and stoten stootte gestoten)
In older Dutch grammars e.g. the one by Brill, the class was subdivided into:
class 7
class 8
class 9
class 10
This class is now extinct, its only relic being the verb uitscheiden - scheed uit - uitgescheiden
Indo-European ablaut
In linguistics, ablaut is a system of apophony in Proto-Indo-European and its far-reaching consequences in all of the modern Indo-European languages...
. In English, these are verbs like sing, sang, sung. The term "strong
Strong inflection
A strong inflection is a system of verb conjugation or noun/adjective declension which can be contrasted with an alternative system in the same language, which is then known as a weak inflection. The term strong was coined with reference to the Germanic verb, but has since been used of other...
verb" is a translation of German "starkes Verb", which was coined by the linguist Jacob Grimm
Jacob Grimm
Jacob Ludwig Carl Grimm was a German philologist, jurist and mythologist. He is best known as the discoverer of Grimm's Law, the author of the monumental Deutsches Wörterbuch, the author of Deutsche Mythologie and, more popularly, as one of the Brothers Grimm, as the editor of Grimm's Fairy...
and contrasts with the so-called "weak verb
Germanic weak verb
In Germanic languages, including English, weak verbs are by far the largest group of verbs, which are therefore often regarded as the norm, though historically they are not the oldest or most original group.-General description:...
" ("schwaches Verb") which forms its past tense by means of a dental suffix
Suffix
In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns or adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs...
.
This article discusses the history of the forms of these verbs mainly in the West Germanic languages
West Germanic languages
The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three traditional branches of the Germanic family of languages and include languages such as German, English, Dutch, Afrikaans, the Frisian languages, and Yiddish...
, i.e. English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
and Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
, and the historical forms Old English
Old English language
Old English or Anglo-Saxon is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts of what are now England and southeastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century...
, Old High German
Old High German
The term Old High German refers to the earliest stage of the German language and it conventionally covers the period from around 500 to 1050. Coherent written texts do not appear until the second half of the 8th century, and some treat the period before 750 as 'prehistoric' and date the start of...
and Old Dutch
Old Dutch
In linguistics, Old Dutch denotes the forms of West Franconian spoken and written in the Netherlands and present-day northern Belgium during the Early Middle Ages. It is regarded as the primary stage in the development of a separate Dutch language...
. For other aspects of these verbs, see the overview article Germanic verb
Germanic verb
The Germanic language family is one of the language groups that resulted from the breakup of Proto-Indo-European . It in turn divided into North, West and East Germanic groups, and ultimately produced a large group of mediaeval and modern languages, most importantly: Danish, Norwegian, and...
.
Conjugation
As an example of the conjugation of a strong verb, we may take the Old English class 2 verb bēodan, "to command" (cf. English "bid").This has the following forms:
| Infinitive Infinitive In grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages. In the usual description of English, the infinitive of a verb is its basic form with or without the particle to: therefore, do and to do, be and to be, and so on are infinitives... |
Supine Supine In grammar a supine is a form of verbal noun used in some languages.-In Latin:In Latin there are two supines, I and II . They are originally the accusative and dative or ablative forms of a verbal noun in the fourth declension, respectively. The first supine ends in -um. It has two uses. The first... |
Present Indicative Present tense The present tense is a grammatical tense that locates a situation or event in present time. This linguistic definition refers to a concept that indicates a feature of the meaning of a verb... |
Present Subjunctive Present tense The present tense is a grammatical tense that locates a situation or event in present time. This linguistic definition refers to a concept that indicates a feature of the meaning of a verb... |
Past Indicative Past tense The past tense is a grammatical tense that places an action or situation in the past of the current moment , or prior to some specified time that may be in the speaker's past, present, or future... |
Past Subjunctive Past tense The past tense is a grammatical tense that places an action or situation in the past of the current moment , or prior to some specified time that may be in the speaker's past, present, or future... |
Imperative mood Imperative mood The imperative mood expresses commands or requests as a grammatical mood. These commands or requests urge the audience to act a certain way. It also may signal a prohibition, permission, or any other kind of exhortation.- Morphology :... |
Past participle |
| bēodan | tō bēodenne | ic bēode þū bīetst hē bīett wē bēodað gē bēodað hīe bēodað |
ic bēode þū bēode hē bēode wē bēoden gē bēoden hīe bēoden |
ic bēad þū bude hē bēad wē budon gē budon hīe budon |
ic bude þū bude hē bude wē buden gē buden hīe buden |
- bēode! – – bēodað!, bēode gē! – |
geboden |
While the inflections are more or less regular, the vowel changes in the stem are not predictable without an understanding of the Indo-European ablaut system, and students have to learn the principal parts
Principal parts
In language learning, the principal parts of a verb are those forms that a student must memorize in order to be able to conjugate the verb through all its forms.- English :...
by heart: bēodan, bīett, bēad, budon, boden. The five principal parts are:
- The infinitive: bēodan. The same vowel is used through most of the present tense.
- The present tense 3rd singular: bīett. The same vowel is used in the 2nd singular.
- The preterite 1st singular (from the PIEProto-Indo-European languageThe Proto-Indo-European language is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans...
perfect): bēad, which is identical to the 3rd singular. - The preterite plural: budon. The same vowel is used in the 2nd singular.
- The past participle (from the PIE verbal noun): boden. This vowel is used only in the participle.
Strictly speaking, in this verb ablaut causes only a threefold distinction: parts 1 and 2 are from the e-grade, part 3 from the o-grade, and parts 4 and 5 from the zero grade. The other two distinctions are caused by different kinds of regressive metaphony
Metaphony
In historical linguistics, metaphony is a general term for a class of sound change in which one vowel in a word is influenced by another in a process of assimilation....
: part 2, when it is distinct at all, is always derived from part 1 by Umlaut
Germanic umlaut
In linguistics, umlaut is a process whereby a vowel is pronounced more like a following vowel or semivowel. The term umlaut was originally coined and is used principally in connection with the study of the Germanic languages...
. In some verbs, part 5 is a discrete ablaut grade, but in this class 2 verb it is derived from part 4 by an a-mutation
A-mutation
A-mutation is a metaphonic process supposed to have taken place in late Proto-Germanic .-General description:In a-mutation, a short high vowel was lowered when the following syllable contained a non-high vowel . Thus, since the change was produced by other vowels besides */a/, the term a-mutation...
.
Verb classes
Six different ablaut sequences (German: Ablautreihe) exist in the Germanic languages. These are referred to as the six classes in which the strong verbs can be subdivided.In PIE there were already several possible ablaut sequences in the verb conjugation. The Germanic verb is based on the following four patterns. (For orientation, the numbers of the Germanic principal parts and verb classes are included in this table, but the vowels are those of the unattested but reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language
Proto-Indo-European language
The Proto-Indo-European language is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans...
(PIE)).
| Present (Parts 1&2) |
Perfect singular (Part 3) |
Perfect plural (Part 4) |
Verbal noun / past participle (Part 5) |
Class Inspired into Germanic | |
| Standard Pattern | e | o | zero | zero | Classes 1–3 |
| Substitution of zero grade |
e | o | ē | zero | Class 4 |
| e | o | ē | e | Class 5 | |
| Predominant a-vowel | a | ō | ō | a | Class 6 |
The standard pattern of PIE is best represented in Germanic by class 3. Classes 1 & 2 have also developed out of this pattern, but here the ablaut vowel was followed by a semivowel (i/j and u/v respectively) which later combined with it to form a diphthong
Diphthong
A diphthong , also known as a gliding vowel, refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: That is, the tongue moves during the pronunciation of the vowel...
. The PIE variations from which Germanic classes 4 & 5 evolved contain consonant structures which were partly or wholly incompatible with the zero grade, and thus the e-grade and lengthened e-grade were substituted in one or both of the zero grade positions. Thus classes 1-5 are all easily explicable as having developed logically from a single basic pattern.
Class 6 is more problematic. It is a controversial question whether the earlier phases of PIE had an a-vowel at all. At any rate, most occurrences of an /a/ in late PIE are associated with an earlier laryngeal
Laryngeal theory
The laryngeal theory is a generally accepted theory of historical linguistics which proposes the existence of one, or a set of three , consonant sounds termed "laryngeals" that appear in most current reconstructions of the Proto-Indo-European language...
h2. Opinions still vary about how exactly this worked, but it is conceivable, for example, that the present stem could have experienced the shift h2e → a. If this is so, then class 6 may also be a variation on the standard pattern.
In addition to the six ablaut sequences, Germanic originally had reduplicating verbs, which in the West and North Germanic languages have lost their reduplication and simplified into a relatively coherent group which may be thought of as a seventh class. However, some verbs, most notably the ri-verbs
Ri-verbs
Ri-sagnir are four verbs in the Icelandic language which have the special status of being the only verbs in the language ending with -ri in the past tense, as well as being the only verbs in Icelandic which inflect with the mixed conjugation except for the preterite-present verbs.-Overview:The...
, retained at least partial reduplication in some languages. In Gothic
Gothic language
Gothic is an extinct Germanic language that was spoken by the Goths. It is known primarily from the Codex Argenteus, a 6th-century copy of a 4th-century Bible translation, and is the only East Germanic language with a sizable Text corpus...
, reduplication remained in full.
The Anglo-Saxon scholar Henry Sweet gave names to the seven classes (the "drive conjugation", the "choose conjugation" etc), but normally they are simply referred to by numbers.
General developments
Before looking at the seven classes individually it is helpful to consider first the general developments which affected all of them. The following phonological changes are relevant for the discussion of the ablaut system:From PIE to Germanic
- General sound shifts: o > a ; ei > ī ; oi > ai ; ou > au.
- Elimination of the zero grade before liquids by insertion of u.
- The development of grammatischer WechselGrammatischer WechselIn historical linguistics, the German term Grammatischer Wechsel refers to the effects of Verner's law when viewed synchronically within the paradigm of a Germanic verb.-Overview:...
(variations in the consonant following the ablaut vowel) caused by Verner's lawVerner's lawVerner's law, stated by Karl Verner in 1875, describes a historical sound change in the Proto-Germanic language whereby voiceless fricatives *f, *þ, *s, *h, *hʷ, when immediately following an unstressed syllable in the same word, underwent voicing and became respectively the fricatives *b, *d, *z,...
. - UmlautGermanic umlautIn linguistics, umlaut is a process whereby a vowel is pronounced more like a following vowel or semivowel. The term umlaut was originally coined and is used principally in connection with the study of the Germanic languages...
- the fronting of the ablaut vowel e to i, caused by i, ī or j in the following syllable. This affects the 2nd and 3rd persons singular of the present tense in classes 2, 3b, 4 and 5. - Wandel - the same effect as Umlaut, but caused by a nasal or other front consonant in post-vocalic position. This affects the whole of the present stem (including the infinitive) of some verbs in class 3a, and of a few verbs in class 2.
From Germanic to Gothic
- Merger of i and e: e > i in all environments
- High vowel lowering before r, h: i > e (spelled
), u > o (spelled ) - ī was spelled
From Germanic to the north and west Germanic dialects
- Extension of umlaut to back vowels, causing it to apply also to verbs of class 6.
- a-mutationA-mutationA-mutation is a metaphonic process supposed to have taken place in late Proto-Germanic .-General description:In a-mutation, a short high vowel was lowered when the following syllable contained a non-high vowel . Thus, since the change was produced by other vowels besides */a/, the term a-mutation...
(sometimes wrongly called a-umlaut) - the movement of the ablaut vowel towards the back of the mouth caused by an a in the following syllable. This affects the participle, which had the suffix -an. An intervening nasal + consonant blocked this.
From Germanic to Old English
- General sound shifts: ai > ā ; eu > ēo ; au > ēa
- BreakingBreaking (linguistics)In historical linguistics, vowel breaking is the change of a monophthong into a diphthong or triphthong. The change into a diphthong is also known as diphthongization...
before certain consonants: a > ea ; e > eo - "West Saxon Palatalisation": i > ie after g
From Old English to Modern English
- Great Vowel ShiftGreat Vowel ShiftThe Great Vowel Shift was a major change in the pronunciation of the English language that took place in England between 1350 and 1500.The Great Vowel Shift was first studied by Otto Jespersen , a Danish linguist and Anglicist, who coined the term....
From Germanic to Old High German
- General sound shifts: ai > ei ; au > ou
- Sound shift e > i before u
- Old High German monophthongization: ei > ē before Germanic r, h and w; ou > ō before Germanic dentals (þ, đ, t, n, l, s, z, r) and h
From Old High German to Modern German
- General sound shifts: io > ī (spelled
) ; ou > au - MHG diphthongisation: ī > ai (spelled
), ū > au, ȳ > ɔy (spelled or <äu>) - vowel lengthening in early modern times: i > ī (spelled
) before a single consonant.
From Germanic to early Middle Dutch
- General sound shifts: ai > ē ; au > ō, eu > io > ie, ē2 > ie, ō > ue (usually spelled
) - Sound shifts u > o, ū > ȳ
- Lengthening of vowels in open syllables: e > ē, o > ō, a > ā, but not written. i is lengthened to ē.
From Middle Dutch to Modern Dutch
- Diphthongisation of long high vowels: ī > ei (spelled
), ȳ > œy (spelled ) - Monophthongisation of opening diphthongs: ie > i (still spelled
), ue > u (spelled )
From early Modern Dutch to Afrikaans
- The distinction between strong and weak verbs has been lost in AfrikaansAfrikaansAfrikaans is a West Germanic language, spoken natively in South Africa and Namibia. It is a daughter language of Dutch, originating in its 17th century dialects, collectively referred to as Cape Dutch .Afrikaans is a daughter language of Dutch; see , , , , , .Afrikaans was historically called Cape...
, as all verbs now follow the weak pattern. For example the ancestral DutchDutch languageDutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
hij heeft gezongen has become hy het gesing ("he sang/has sung/had sung). "He sings" is hy sing; there is no change in vowel sound and it follows the same pattern as hy werk (he works), hy het gewerk (he worked/has worked/had worked). Afrikaans has even lost the inflection that distinguishes the present from the infinitive form of the verb in Dutch.
Other changes in the general shape of the verbs:
- Between PIE and Germanic the verbal noun was adapted as a past participle for the new Germanic synthetic tenses. The emphatic prefix ge- came to be used (but neither exclusively nor invariably) as a marker of the participle. In English this prefix disappeared again in the Middle Ages.
- The development of weak verbs in Germanic meant that the strong verb system ceased to be productive. Practically all new verbs were weak. Gradually many strong verbs became weak, so that the total number of strong verbs in the languages was constantly decreasing. In English, this process has gone further than it has in German or Dutch; one example is the verb to help which used to be conjugated holp-holpen. The reverse phenomenon, whereby a weak verb thus becomes strong by analogy, is rather rare. Some verbs, which might be termed "semi-strong", have formed a weak preterite but retained the strong participle, or rarely vice versa. This type of verb is most common in Dutch:
-
- lachen lachte (formerly loech) gelachen ("to laugh")
- vragen vroeg (formerly vraagde) gevraagd ("to ask")
- Idiosyncrasies of the phonological changes led to a growing number of subgroups. Also, once the ablaut system ceased to be productive, there was a decline in the speakers' awareness of the regularity of the system. This leads to anomalous forms. Thus the six big classes lost their cohesion. Again, this process is furthest advanced in English. The reverse process whereby anomalies are eliminated and subgroups reunited by the force of analogy is called "levelling", and can be seen at various points in the history of the verb classes.
- In the later Middle Ages, all three languages eliminated a great part of the old distinction between the vowels of the singular and plural preterite forms. The new uniform preterite could be based on the vowel of the old preterite singular, or on the old plural, or sometimes on the participle. In English, the distinction remains in the verb "to be": I was, we were. In Dutch, it remains in the verbs of classes 4 & 5 but only in vowel lengthVowel lengthIn linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. Often the chroneme, or the "longness", acts like a consonant, and may etymologically be one, such as in Australian English. While not distinctive in most dialects of English, vowel length is an important phonemic factor in...
: ik brak (I broke - short a), wij braken (we broke - long ā). In German and Dutch it also remains in the present tense of the preterite presents. In Limburgish there is a little more left. E.g. the preterite of to help is (weer) hólpe for the plural but either (ich) halp or (ich) hólp for the singular. - In the process of development of English, numerous sound changes and analogical developments have fragmented the classes to the extent that most of them no longer have any coherence -- only classes 1, 3 and 4 still have significant subclasses that follow uniform patterns.
Class 1
Class 1, Sweet's "drive conjugation", represents all verbs in which the IE Ablaut-vowel was followed by an i. This combination is effectively a diphthong in PIE, or in the zero-grade, a simple i. Regular vowel shifts in Germanic change ei > ī and oi > ai. Metaphony does not affect class 1. Compare with Latin venio ("I come"): infinitive venire, perfect active indicative vēni, and future active participle venturus.| Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | |
| Ablaut grade | e | e | o | zero | zero |
| Proto Indo-European | ei | ei | oi | i | i |
| Proto Germanic | ī | ī | ai | i | i |
| Old English | ī | ī | ā | i | i |
| Middle Dutch | ī | ī | ē | ē | ē |
| Old High German | ī | ī | ei/ē | i | i |
| Gothic | ei | ei | ai | i | i |
| Old Norse | í | í | ei | i | i |
In Old English, Germanic ai becomes ā.
- rīdan ("to ride")
- wrītan ("to write")
- scīnan ("to shine")
Modern English has experienced a diphthongisation of ī (though it is still spelled with an i) and a shift ā > ō. The modern preterite is taken from the old preterite singular, and in the case of "shine", the past participle has also assimilated to the preterite singular.
- ride rode ridden
- write wrote written
- shine shone shone
Class 1 verbs in modern English (excluding derived verbs such as abide and override) are bide, bite, chide, drive, hide, ride, rise, shine, shrive, smite, stride, strike, strive, thrive, write. However, note that, although these verbs have uniformity in their infinitive vowel, they no longer form a coherent class in further inflected forms – for example, bite (bit, bitten), ride (rode, ridden), shine (shone, shone), and strike (struck, struck/stricken, with struck and stricken used in different meanings) all show different patterns from one another – but bide, drive, ride, rise, smite, stride, strive, write do form a (more or less) coherent subclass. Most of these verbs are descended from Old English class 1 verbs. However:
- The French loan-word strive (albeit descended from a Frankish class 1 verb) is class 1 by analogy to drive.
- Similarly, thrive is a class 1 verb formed by analogy to drive, its Old English ancestor being weak and descended from Old Norse þrífa (itself a class 1 strong verb, meaning "to grasp").
- hide is a class 1 verb whose Old English ancestor, hȳdan, was weak.
In addition, writhe is an English class 1 verb that has class 1 forms (wrothe, writhen) only in archaic usage.
For the principal parts of all English strong verbs see:
Wiktionary appendix: Irregular English verbs.
In Old High German, Germanic ai becomes ei, and then by OHG monophthongisation it becomes ē before a velar consonant. Thus Old High German has two subclasses, depending on the vowel in the preterite singular:
- 1a rītan rītu reit ritum giritan ("to ride")
- 1b līhan līhu lēh ligum giligan ("to loan" - note grammatischer WechselGrammatischer WechselIn historical linguistics, the German term Grammatischer Wechsel refers to the effects of Verner's law when viewed synchronically within the paradigm of a Germanic verb.-Overview:...
.)
Like English, Modern German diphthongises the ī (spelling it ei). The modern language takes its preterite from the old preterite plural, so the distinction between the two subclasses disappears. However a new subdivision arises because the i of the past tense forms is lengthened to ie before a single consonant. As it happens, reiten and leihen serve as examples of this too, but many OHG 1a verbs are in the modern long vowel group.
- (short vowel) reiten ritt geritten ("to ride")
- (long vowel) leihen lieh geliehen ("to loan")
Class 1 verbs in modern German are:
- with short vowels: beißen, bleichen, gleichen, gleiten, greifen, leiden, pfeifen, reißen, reiten, scheißen, schleichen, schleifen, schleißen, schmeißen, schneiden, schreiten, spleißen, streichen, streiten, weichen (also the originally weak verb kneifen by analogy)
- with vowel lengthening: bleiben, gedeihen, leihen, meiden, reiben, scheiden, scheinen, schreiben, schreien, schweigen, speien, steigen, treiben, verzeihen, weisen (also the originally weak verb preisen by analogy).
In Dutch, class 1 has remained very regular, and follows the pattern:
- grijpen greep gegrepen
Class 1 verbs in Dutch are bezwijken, bijten, blijken, blijven, drijven, glijden, grijpen, hijsen, kijken, knijpen, krijgen, lijden, lijken, mijden, prijzen, rijden, rijzen, schijnen, schijten, schrijden, schrijven, slijpen, slijten, smijten, spijten, splijten, stijgen, strijden, strijken, verdwijnen, vermijden, wijken, wijzen, wrijven, zwijgen.
In Gothic:
- dreiban draif dribun dribans
Class 2
Class 2, Sweet's "choose conjugation", represents all verbs in which the IE Ablaut-vowel was followed by a u. In PIE it is therefore very similar to class 1. A regular vowel shift in Germanic changes ou > au. In two separate metaphonic processes, the present singular (part 2) is umlauted (eu > iu) because of an i in the inflection and the u in the past participle (part 5) is assimilated to the a in the inflection (u > o). A small number of verbs form a subgroup with ū in parts 1 and 2, for reasons which have not been entirely explained; this anomalous form may originate in Proto-Indo-European.| Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | |
| Ablaut grade | e | e | o | zero | zero |
| Proto Indo-European | eu | eu | ou | u | u |
| Proto Germanic | eu / ū | iu / ū | au | u | u |
| Old English | ēo / ū | īe / ȳ | ēa | u | o |
| Middle Dutch | ie / ȳ | ie / ȳ | ō | ō | ō |
| Old High German | io / ū | iu / ū | ou / ō | u | o |
| Old Norse | jú / ú | ý / ý | au | u | u |
| Gothic | iu / ū | iu / ū | au | u | u |
In Old English, Germanic eu becomes ēo.
- scēotan scīett scēat scuton scoten ("to shoot")
- bēodan bīett bēad budon boden ("to command, bid")
- flēogan flīehþ flēag flugon flogen ("to fly")
- cēosan cīest cēas curon coren ("to choose" - note grammatischer WechselGrammatischer WechselIn historical linguistics, the German term Grammatischer Wechsel refers to the effects of Verner's law when viewed synchronically within the paradigm of a Germanic verb.-Overview:...
)
An Old English example with the present stem in ū:
- scūfan scŷfþ scēaf scufon scofen ("to shove")
In Modern English, this is a small group characterised by the o vowel of the participle being assimilated to the preterite:
- choose chose chosen
- fly flew flown
Class 2 verbs in Modern English are choose, cleave, dive (AE), fly, freeze, which do not form a coherent class, as each verb has different irregularities from each other verb.
In Old High German, the usual pattern is:
- biogan biugu boug bugum gibogan ("to bend")
An Old High German example with present stem in ū:
- sūfan siufu souf sufum gisofan ("to drink")
An example with wandel affecting the whole of the present stem.
- briuwan briuwu brou brūwum gibrūwan ("to brew")
A small group sometimes called class 2b has Old High German monophthongisation in the preterite singular:
- biotan biutu bōt butum gibotan ("to offer")
Regular shifts on the way to Modern German change io > ie and ou > o. The modern preterite is based on the OHG preterite singular:
- biegen bog gebogen ("to bend")
- schieben schob geschoben ("to shove")
- saugen sog gesogen ("to suck")
Class 2 verbs in Modern German are: biegen, bieten, fliegen, fliehen, fließen, frieren, genießen, gießen, klieben, kriechen, riechen, schieben, schießen, schließen, sprießen, stieben, verlieren, ziehen; with ū-present: saufen, saugen.
Two anomalous class 2 verbs in modern German are lügen ("to tell a lie") and trügen ("to deceive"). This no doubt arises from a desire to disambiguate Middle High German liegen from ligen (class 5), which would have sounded the same in Early Modern German. Trügen would have followed in its wake, because the two words form a common rhyming collocation.
In Dutch, class 2 follows the patterns
- bedriegen bedroog bedrogen ("to deceive")
- sluiten sloot gesloten ("to shut")
The present stem in ui represents the old ū-present, but interestingly this subgroup has grown, as a number of class 2 verbs which originally did not have ū-presents have taken the ui by analogy. Class 2 verbs in modern Dutch are: bedriegen, bieden, genieten, gieten, kiezen, liegen, schieten, verliezen, vliegen, vriezen; with ū-present: buigen, druipen, duiken, fluiten, kruipen, ruiken, schuilen, schuiven, sluiten, snuiven, spuiten, stuiven, zuigen, zuipen.
In Old Norse the past participle and plural present stem were subject to change due to assimilation
Assimilation (linguistics)
Assimilation is a common phonological process by which the sound of the ending of one word blends into the sound of the beginning of the following word. This occurs when the parts of the mouth and vocal cords start to form the beginning sounds of the next word before the last sound has been...
.
In Gothic:
- biudan bauþ budun budans
- lūkan lauk lukun lukans
Class 3
Class 3, Sweet's "bind conjugation", represents all verbs in which the IE Ablaut-vowel was followed by a nasal (n) or a liquid (r/l) and another consonant. Also possible is h plus another consonant. So the combinations are:- With nasals (class 3a): CVnC, CVnn, CVmC, CVmm
- With liquids (class 3b): CVlC, CVll, CVrC, CVhC
In the zero-grade forms, the nasal or liquid became a syllabic sonorant in PIE, transcribed as a circle below the letter. In Germanic, these syllabic nasals and liquids were not used, so a u vowel was added in compensation: l̥ > ul. Umlaut causes a shift e > i in the present singular, but in the case of the nasals, this shift takes place throughout the present stem: this is referred to as wandel - the same effect as umlaut, but triggered by the nasal consonant. The preterite singular shows the standard Germanic vowel shift o > a. In the participle, ul becomes ol through metaphony but only with the liquid, as the metaphony is blocked by the nasal.
| Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | |
| Ablaut grade | e | e | o | zero | zero |
| Proto Indo-European | en / el / er | en / el / er | on / ol / or | n̥ / l̥ / r̥ | n̥ / l̥ / r̥ |
| Proto Germanic | in / el / er | in / il / ir | an / al / ar | un / ul / ur | un / ul / ur |
| Old English | in / el / eor | in / il / ier | an / eal / ear | un / ul / ur | un / ol / or |
| Middle Dutch | in / el / er | in / el / er | an / al / ar | on / ol / or | on / ol / or |
| Old High German | in / el / er | in / il / ir | an / al / ar | un / ul / ur | un / ol / or |
| Gothic | in / il / aír | in / il / aír | an / al / ar | un / ul / aúr | un / ul / aúr |
In Old English, class 3a is little changed from Germanic.
- drincan drinceþ dranc druncon druncen ("to drink")
- bindan bindeþ band bundon bunden ("to bind")
Class 3b experiences a diphthongisation called "Brechung" in preterite singular (a > ea); before r and h this also affects the present stem (e > eo).
- helpan hilpþ healp hulpon holpen ("to help")
- delfan dilfþ dealf dulfon dolfen ("to dig, delve")
- sweltan swilt swealt swulton swolten ("to die, swelt")
- ceorfan cierfþ cearf curfon corfen ("to cut, carve")
- feohtan fieht feaht fuhton fohten ("to fight")
West Saxon palatal diphthongization causes i > ie after g:
- gieldan gieldeþ geald guldon golden ("to pay, yield")
Three verbs have an anomalous æ in preterite singular: berstan ("to burst"), bregdan ("to pull"), frignan ("to ask").
- berstan birst bærst burston borsten
In Modern English, this class is fairly large. This class is still relatively regular: the preterite is mostly formed from the OE preterite singular, occasionally from the preterite plural.
- drink drank drunk(en)
- sing sang sung
However, there are some anomalies. The class 3 verbs in modern English are:
- With nasal: begin, bind, cling, drink, find, fling, grind, ring, run, shrink, sing, sink, sling, slink, spin, spring, sting, stink, string, swing, swim, win, wind, wring
- With ll: swell
- With original "Germanic h": fight
English fling does not go back to Old English, and may be a loan-word from Norse. It seems to have adopted class 3 forms by analogy with cling etc. Similarly ring, string.
In Old High German, class 3 has its vowels unchanged from Germanic:
- bindan bindu band bundum gibundan
- helfan hilfu half hulfum giholfan
Modern German takes the preterite from the OHG preterite singular.
- binden band gebunden
- helfen (hilf) half geholfen
However, the o of the 3b participle has been passed by analogy to some 3a verbs, and also to the preterite of some verbs of both groups:
- beginnen begann begonnen
- bergen barg geborgen ("to rescue")
- quellen quoll gequollen ("to well up")
Class 3 verbs in modern German
- 3a regular (i-a-u): binden, dringen, finden, gelingen, klingen, ringen, schlingen, schwinden, schwingen, singen, sinken, springen, stinken, trinken, zwingen
- 3a with substitution of o in participle (i-a-o): beginnen, gewinnen, rinnen, schwimmen
- 3a with substitution of o in preterite and participle (i-o-o): glimmen, klimmen
- 3b regular (e-a-o): befehlen, bergen; bersten, gelten, helfen, schelten, sterben, verderben, werben, werden, werfen
- 3b with substitution of o in preterite (e-o-o): dreschen, fechten, flechten, quellen, schmelzen, schwellen
In Dutch, class 3a and the bulk of 3b have taken the vowel of the participle for the preterite. However, a small group of 3b verbs have developed a preterite in ie, perhaps by analogy with class 7. This gives the patterns:
- binden bond gebonden
- bergen borg geborgen ("to store")
- helpen hielp geholpen
A small number of verbs of other classes have taken the forms of class 3b by analogy. Class 3 verbs in modern Dutch are:
- 3a: beginnen, binden, blinken, dringen, drinken, dwingen, glimmen, klimmen, klinken, schrikken, springen, stinken, verzinnen, vinden, winnen, wringen, zingen, zinken.
- original 3b: bergen, gelden, schelden, smelten, vechten, zwellen.
- 3b by analogy (original class in brackets): schenken, scheren (4), treffen(4), trekken (6), wegen, zenden (3a), zwemmen (3a).
- 3b with preterite in ie: bederven, helpen, sterven, werpen, zwerven.
In Old Norse, numerous sound changes have resulted in this class fragmenting into 15 or so subclasses.
In Gothic:
- bindan band bundun bundans
- hilpan halp hulpun hulpans
- bairgan barg baurgun baurgans
Class 4
Class 4, Sweet's "Bear conjugation", represents all verbs in which the ablaut vowel was followed by a single nasal or liquid. The zero-grade in the participle becomes a u in Germanic, but, outside of Gothic, changes to o by a-mutation; as a single nasal is not enough to block this mutation, subgroups do not form in the Germanic class 4 as they do in class 3.| Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | |
| Ablaut grade | e | e | o | ē | zero |
| Proto Indo-European | e | e | o | ē | Ø |
| Proto Germanic | e | i | a | ē | u |
| Old English | e | i | æ | o | |
| Middle Dutch | e | e | a | ā | o |
| Old High German | e | i | a | ā | o |
| Gothic | i | i | a | e | u |
In Old English, the general pattern is:
- beran bierþ bær boren ("to bear")
- brecan bricþ bræc brocen ("to break")
With West Saxon palatal diphthongization (after c, g):
- scieran scear scēaron scoren ("to shear")
The verb come is anomalous in all the West Germanic languages because it originally began with qu-, and the subsequent loss of the w sound coloured the vowel of the present stem.
- cuman cymþ cōm cōmon cumen ("to come")
Also anomalous:
- niman nōm nōmon numen ("to take")
In Modern English, regular class 4 verbs have all kept the –n in the participle, though eliminating the medial e after r, this class exhibits near homogeneity of vowel pattern:
- break broke broken
Class 4 verbs in English are bear, break, get, shear, speak, steal, swear, tear, tread, wake, weave; and without the -n and of irregular vowel progression: come. Get, speak, tread and weave were originally of class 5, wake and swear were originally class 6.
Although the verb to be is suppletive and highly irregular, its preterite follows the pattern of a class 4 strong verb, with grammatischer Wechsel
Grammatischer Wechsel
In historical linguistics, the German term Grammatischer Wechsel refers to the effects of Verner's law when viewed synchronically within the paradigm of a Germanic verb.-Overview:...
, and in English and Dutch this verb has retained the singular/plural distinction of both ablaut grade and consonant in the modern languages. Old English: , English: was/were. For full paradigms and historical explanations see Indo-European copula
Indo-European copula
A feature common to all Indo-European languages is the presence of a verb corresponding to the English verb to be. Though in some languages, such as Russian, it is vestigial, it is present nonetheless in atrophied forms or derivatives.-General features:...
.
In Old High German, the pattern is:
- neman nimu nam nāmum ginoman ("to take")
In Modern German the preterite is based on the preterite singular. As the only difference between the historical classes 3b and 4 was the preterite plural, these two classes are now identical.
- nehmen nahm genommen ("to take")
Kommen still has the anomalous o in the present stem (although some dialects still pronounce this as kemmen.)
- kommen kam gekommen ("to come")
Class 4 verbs in modern German: brechen, gebären, nehmen, schrecken, sprechen, stechen, stehlen, treffen; anomalous: kommen.
The preterite of sein ("to be") is Old High German: was/wârum, but levelled in modern German: war/waren.
In Dutch, class 4 and 5 verbs still show the distinction in vowel between the preterite singular and plural: ik nam ("I took") has the plural wij namen (not *nammen), that is, the 'short' vowel ɑ of the singular is replaced by the 'long' [a] in the plural. (Note the relationship of consonant doubling to vowel length, which is explained at Dutch orthography
Dutch orthography
Dutch orthography uses the Latin alphabet according to a system which has evolved to suit the needs of the Dutch language. The regular relationship of graphemes to phonemes is listed in the article on Dutch language...
). The pattern is therefore:
- breken brak (braken) gebroken ("to break")
In the case of komen, the w is retained in the preterite.
- komen kwam (kwamen) gekomen ("to come")
Class 4 verbs in Dutch are: bevelen, breken, nemen, spreken, steken, stelen; and anomalous: komen.
The preterite of wezen/zijn ("to be") still shows both (quantitative) ablaut and grammatischer Wechsel between the singular and plural: was/waren.
In Gothic:
- qiman qam qēmun qumans
- brikan brak brēkun brukans
Class 5
Class 5, Sweet's "give conjugation", represents all verbs in which the IE Ablaut-vowel was followed by a single consonant other than a nasal or a liquid. This class is originally similar to class 4 except in the participle. There is also a small subgroup called "j-presents" which show umlautGermanic umlaut
In linguistics, umlaut is a process whereby a vowel is pronounced more like a following vowel or semivowel. The term umlaut was originally coined and is used principally in connection with the study of the Germanic languages...
throughout the whole of the present stem.
| Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | |
| Ablaut grade | e | e | o | ē | e |
| Proto Indo-European | e | e | o | ē | e |
| Proto Germanic | e | i | a | ē | e |
| Old English | e | i | æ | e | |
| Middle Dutch | e | e | a | ā | e |
| Old High German | e | i | a | ā | e |
| Gothic | i | i | a | e | i |
| Old Norse | e | e | a | á | e |
In Old English the preterite is in , as in class 4.
- sprecan spricþ spræc sprecen ("to speak")
- cweþan cwiþþ cwæþ cweden ("to say", cf. "bequeath", archaic past "quoth")
With West Saxon palatal diphthongization (after c, g)
- giefan geaf gēafon giefen ("to give")
With j-presents
- biddan bæd beden
Contracted, anomalous:
- sēon sihþ seah sāwon sewen ("to see")
In Modern English
Modern English
Modern English is the form of the English language spoken since the Great Vowel Shift in England, completed in roughly 1550.Despite some differences in vocabulary, texts from the early 17th century, such as the works of William Shakespeare and the King James Bible, are considered to be in Modern...
this group has lost all group cohesion.
- eat ate eaten
- give gave given
- lie lay lain
- see saw seen
- sit sat sat
Class 5 verbs in Modern English:
bid, eat, give, lie (= lie down), see, sit. Get, speak, tread, weave are now class 4.
In Old High German this group is relatively uniform. The model is geban, or for the j-presents, bitten.
- geban gibu gab gābum gigeban ("to give")
- bitten bat bātum gibetan ("to ask")
In Modern German this group is little changed from Old High German:
- geben (gib) gab gegeben
- bitten bat gebeten
The verb essen ("to eat") had a past participle giezzan in OHG; in MHG this became geezzen which was contracted to gezzen and then re-prefixed to gegezzen:
- essen (iss) aß gegessen
Class 5 verbs in modern German: essen, geben, genesen, geschehen, lesen, messen, sehen, treten, vergessen; with j-presents, bitten, liegen, sitzen.
In Dutch, class 5 is much as in German, except that the preterite retains the vowel length distinction which we also observed in class 4 above.
- geven gaf (gaven) gegeven
- bidden bad (baden) gebeden
- eten at (aten) gegeten
zien ("to see") has experienced a loss of the original /h/, with a resulting assimilation of the stem vowel to the vowel of the inflection, and shows Grammatischer Wechsel between this original /h/ and a /g/ in the preterite:
- zien, zag (zagen), gezien
Class 5 verbs in Dutch: eten, geven, genezen, lezen, meten, treden, vergeten; anomalous: zien; with j-presents: bidden, liggen, zitten.
In Gothic:
- giban gaf gēbun gibans
- saiƕan saƕ sēƕun saiƕans
Class 6
Class 6, Sweet's "shake conjugation", represents all verbs in which the Proto-Germanic vowel was *a. PIE sources of this vowel included *h2e, *o, and a laryngeal between consonants. Possibly in some cases the a may be an example of the a-grade of ablaut, though this is controversial. Like class 5, this class too has j-presents. Compare with Latin facio ("I do"): infinitive facere, indicative active perfect singular fēci, perfect passive participle factus.| Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | |
| Ablaut grade | e | e | ō | ō | zero |
| Proto Indo-European | a | a | ō | ō | a |
| Proto Germanic | a | a | ō | ō | a |
| Old English | a | æ | ō | ō | a |
| Middle Dutch | ā | ā | u(e) | u(e) | ā |
| Old High German | a | e | uo | uo | a |
| Gothic | a | a | o | o | a |
| Old Norse | a | e | ó | ó | a |
In Old English
- scacan scæcþ scōc scōcon scacen ("to shake")
- faran færþ fōr fōron faren ("to travel, fare")
- sacan sæcþ sōc sōcon sacen ("to quarrel")
Contracted
- slēan sliehþ slōg slōgon slægen ("to strike, slay")
With j-presents (and other anomalies)
- hebban hōf hōfon hafen ("to raise, heave")
- scieppan scōp scōpon scapen ("to create, shape")
- swerian swōr swōron sworen ("to swear")
The verb "to stand" has an anomalous loss of its -n- in the preterite:
- standan stent stōd stōdon standen
In Modern English, shake, take and forsake come closest to the original vowel sequence. The consonant anomaly in stand is still visible, and is extended to the participle.
- shake shook shaken
- stand stood stood
Class 6 verbs in modern English: draw, forsake, lade, shake, shape, shave, slay, stand, take. (Like most other classes in Modern English, this class has lost cohesion and now forms principal parts according to many different patterns.) Swear is now class 4. The adjective graven was originally a past participle of the now obsolete verb grave. Note that lade, shape, shave are now weak outside of their optionally strong past participle forms (laden, shapen, and shaven, respectively).
In Old High German the preterite is marked by the diphthong uo:
- graban grebit gruob gruobum gigraban ("to dig, grave")
With j-present:
- heffen huob huobum gihaban ("to heave")
In Modern German the uo is monophthongised to a u.
- graben gräbt grub gegraben
However, the j-presents have instead taken an o in the preterite and participle, perhaps by analogy with class 2.
- heben hob gehoben
Class 6 verbs in modern German: fahren, graben, laden, schaffen, schlagen, tragen, waschen; also backen, fragen, though these are usually weak nowadays; with j-present: heben, schwören. The past tense and participle of stehen (stand, older stund, gestanden), which derive from a lost verb *standen, also belong to this class.
In Dutch, the regular class 6 verbs are close to German:
- graven groef gegraven
However the three j-presents have taken the vowel ie in the preterite, and have chosen three separate paths in the participle:
- scheppen schiep geschapen
- heffen hief geheven
- zweren zwoer gezworen ("to swear an oath")
Class 6 verbs in Dutch are: dragen, graven, slaan, varen, and with j-present: heffen, scheppen, zweren; also "semi-strong" (i.e. with a strong preterite but a weak participle) jagen, vragen.
In Gothic:
- faran fōr fōrun farans
Class 7
Class 7, Sweet's "fall conjugation", is not based on an Indo-European ablaut sequence as such; rather, it is the class showing reduplication in Gothic and irregular ablaut patterning in the other branches. The place of reduplicationReduplication
Reduplication in linguistics is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word is repeated exactly or with a slight change....
in the Germanic preterite is a debated topic. One view is that class 7 represents all the verbs of classes 1 to 6 that were once characterized by reduplication in the preterite. Another view is that all strong preterites from all classes, as the reflexes of the reduplicating IE perfect, originally showed reduplication, but haplological
Haplology
Haplology is defined as the elimination of a syllable when two consecutive identical or similar syllables occur. The phenomenon was identified by American philologist Maurice Bloomfield in the 20th century...
processes eliminated the reduplicating syllable in nearly all verbs; however, those verbs whose present and preterite stem did not show a marked contrast in ablaut would therefore not have shown sufficient contrast without a preterite marker, so reduplication was originally retained in those verbs, which are the verbs categorized as class 7.
This situation did not last. East Germanic (Gothic
Gothic language
Gothic is an extinct Germanic language that was spoken by the Goths. It is known primarily from the Codex Argenteus, a 6th-century copy of a 4th-century Bible translation, and is the only East Germanic language with a sizable Text corpus...
) alone retained reduplication as the marker of the strong preterite in the verbs of class 7. Four examples from Gothic will illustrate this here. In each case the infinitive and the preterite singular are given, with the reduplication in bold print:
- falþan faífalþ faífalþ-un falþ-ans ("to fold")
- slēpan saíslēp saíslēp-up slēp-ans ("to sleep")
- háitan haíháit haíháit-un háit-ans ("to be called" - German "heißen")
- lētan laílōt laílōt-un lēt-ans ("to let")
Class 7 in Gothic was divided into two types: those with vocalic alternation in the root and those with no alternation. The root vowel for the nonablauting type could be a(:), ái, áu, e, or o. The patterns that showed vocalic alternation between present and preterite stem were only e ~ o and ai ~ o; note that the o-vowel occurs on precisely the same forms that have reduplication, making it a redundant marking.
Outside Gothic, the retained reduplication of class 7 was itself eventually eliminated, although dialects of Old English and Old Norse
Old Norse
Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....
do show a few relics:
- OE hātan hēht ("to call")
- OE rēdan reord ("to advise" - German "raten")
- OE lācan leolc ("to move about, leap")
- ON sá seri ("to sow", with rhotacism)
- ON róa reri ("to row")
- ON snúa sneri ("to turn")
Aside from these remnants, North and West Germanic eliminated reduplication in class 7, with the result that these verbs show only a limited variation of vowels, and have enough homogeneity to make it useful to see them as a single class. The principal characteristics of class 7 in West Germanic are:
- Different vowels are possible in the present stem, depending on the original reduplicating class.
- The vowel of the present stem recurs in the participle.
- There is no distinction between preterite singular and plural.
- Only two vowels are possible in the preterite, and the class divides into two subclasses according to these.
- For the first subclass (7a below), North and West Germanic introduced ē2 in the preterite to differentiate what would have been identical root shapes. There is no clear consensus on the source of underlying *eu in the preterite of class 7b or its apparent ablaut relationship with the present.
In Old English the pattern is as follows:
| Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | |
| Class 7a | x | x + umlaut | ē | ē | x |
| Class 7b | x | x + umlaut | ēo | ēo | x |
Examples of class 7a:
- hātan hēt hēton hāten ("to call")
- slēp slēpon ("to sleep")
Two verbs of class 7a have contracted present stems and grammatischer Wechsel:
- fōn fēhþ fēng fēngon fangen ("to seize", cf. "fang")
- hōn hēhþ hēng hēngon hangen ("to hang")
Examples of class 7b:
- feallan fielþ fēoll fēollon feallen ("to fall")
- healdan hielt hēold hēoldon healden ("to hold")
- cnāwan cnēow cnēowon cnāwen ("to know")
- grōwan grēwþ grēow grēowon grōwen ("to grow")
- hlēapan hlīap hlēop hlēopon hlēapen ("to run, leap")
In Modern English this class has lost its homogeneity:
- fall fell fallen
- hang hung hung (Note that, in the transitive sense of hanging someone by the neck, hang usually has regular weak conjugation)
- hold held held
- throw threw thrown
Class 7 verbs in modern English: beat, blow, fall, hew, grow, hang, hold, know, throw.
In Old High German we find the same two groups, though they do not correspond exactly to those of Old English:
| Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | |
| Class 7a | x | x + umlaut | ia | ia | x |
| Class 7b | x | x + umlaut | io | io | x |
Class 7a follows the pattern:
- haltan hialt hialtum gihaltan ("to hold, halt")
Class 7b follows the pattern:
- loufan liof liofum giloufan ("to run")
In Modern German this class follows the uniform pattern x-ie-x:
- halten (hält) hielt gehalten ("to hold, halt")
- laufen (läuft) lief gelaufen ("to run")
However the two anomalous verbs have formed new present stems, eliminated grammatischer Wechsel and shortened the vowel in the preterite:
- fangen (fängt) fing gefangen ("to catch")
- hängen (hängt) hing gehangen ("to hang")
Class 7 verbs in modern German are: blasen, braten, fallen, halten, heißen, lassen, laufen, raten, rufen, schlafen, stoßen; anomalous: fangen, hängen.
The past tense and participle of German gehen, ging gegangen, derive from a lost verb *gangen which belongs to this class.
In both Middle and Modern Dutch this class is very similar to German:
- lopen liep gelopen
- hangen hing gehangen
The verb "to hold" displays the Dutch phenomenon that in the letter combination -old- the L disappears and the vowel diphthongises in compensation:
- houden hield gehouden
Class 7 verbs in Dutch are: blazen, laten, lopen, raden*, roepen, slapen, stoten*, vallen; anomalous: hangen, vangen, houden. (The verbs with * are nowadays mostly semi-strong: raden raadde geraden and stoten stootte gestoten)
In older Dutch grammars e.g. the one by Brill, the class was subdivided into:
class 7
- /ɑn/ - /ɪn/ - /ɑn/
- vangen - ving - gevangen
class 8
- /a/ - /i/ - /a/
- slapen - sliep - geslapen
class 9
- /o/ - /i/ - /o/
- lopen - liep - gelopen
class 10
- e(i) - ie - e(i)
This class is now extinct, its only relic being the verb uitscheiden - scheed uit - uitgescheiden