The establishment of an analytical form in the verb system is confirmed by the spread of its formal pattern in the verb paradigm. Compound forms did not spring up simultaneously in all the parts of the verb system: an analytical form appeared in some part of the system and from there its pattern extended to other parts. Thus the perfect forms first arose in the Past and Pres. tense of the Ind. Mood in the Active Voice and from there spread to the Subj. Mood, the Passive Voice, the non-finite verb.
Those were the main kinds of changes which constitute the growth of new grammatical forms and new verbal categories. They are to be found in the history of all the forms, with certain deviations and individual peculiarities. The dating of these developments is uncertain; therefore the order of their description below does not claim to be chronological.
The Future Tense
In the OE language there was no form of the Future tense. The category of Tense consisted of two members: Past and Present. The Pres. tense could indicate both present and future actions, depending on the context. Alongside this form there existed other ways of presenting future happenings: modal phrases, consisting of the verbs sculan, willan, magan, cunnan and others (NE shall, will, may, can) and the Infinitive of the notional verb. In these phrases the meaning of futurity was combined with strong modal meanings of volition, obligation, possibility.
In ME the use of modal phrases, especially with the verb shall, became increasingly common. Shall plus Inf. was now the principal means of indicating future actions in any context. (We may recall that the Pres. tense had to be accompanied by special time indicators in order to refer an action to the future.) Shall could retain its modal meaning of necessity, but often weakened it to such an extent that the phrase denoted "pure" futurity. (The meaning of futurity is often combined with that of modality, as a future action is a planned, potential action, which has not yet taken place.) One of the early instances of shall with a weakened modal meaning is found in the Early ME poem Ormilum (1200); the phrase is also interesting as it contains willen as a notional verb: And whase wile/inshall þiss boc efft oþerrsipe written.
In Late ME texts shall was used both as a modal verb and as a Future tense auxiliary, though discrimination between them is not always possible. Cf: Me from the feend and fro his clawes kepe. That day that I shal drenchen in the depe. (Chaucer) ('Save me from the fiend and his claws the day when I am drowned (or am doomed to get drowned) in the deep (sea). She shal have nede to wasshe away the rede. (Chaucer) ('She will have to wash away the red (blood).')
Future happenings were also commonly expressed by ME willen with an Int., but the meaning of volition in will must have been more obvious than the modal meaning of shall: A tale wol I telle ('I intend to tell a story')But lordes, wol ye maken assurance. As I shal seyn, assentynge to my loore. And I shal make us sauf for everemore ('But, lordes, will you (be so kind as or agree to) make assurance (and take this course) as I shall save and I shall make it safe for us for ever.')
The future event is shown here as depending upon the will or consent of the doer. Instances of will with a weakened modal meaning are rare: But natheless she ferde as she wolde deye. (Chaucer) ('But nevertheless she feared that she would die.') It has been noticed that the verb will was more frequent in popular ballads and in colloquial speech, which testifies to certain stylistic restrictions in the use of will in ME.
In the age of Shakespeare the phrases with shall and will, as well as the Pres. tense of notional verbs, occurred in free variation; they can express "pure" futurity and add different shades of modal meanings. Phrases with shall and will outnumbered all the other ways of indicating futurity, cf. their meanings in the following passages from Shakespeare's sonnets:
Then hate me when thou wilt (desire) When forty winters shall besiege thy brow. And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field. Thy youth's proud livery, so gaz'd on now. Will be a tatter'd weed, of small worth held. ("pure" future) That thou art blam'd - shall not be thy defect, (future with the meaning of certainty, prediction)
In the 17th c. will was sometimes used in a shortened form 'll, ('ll can also stand for shall, though historically it is traced to will): against myself I'll fight; against myself I'll vow debate. (Sh) In Early NE the causative meaning passed to a similar verb phrase with make, while the periphrasis with do began to be employed instead of simple, synthetic forms. Its meaning did not differ from that of simple forms.
At first the do-periphrasis was more frequent in poetry, which may be attributed to the requirements of the rhythm: the use of do enabled the author to have an extra syllable in the line, if needed, without affecting the meaning of the sentence. Then it spread to all kinds of texts.
In the 16th and 17th c. the periphrasis with do was used in all types of sentences - negative, affirmative and interrogative; it freely interchanged with the simple forms, without do. We do not know How he may soften at the sight o'the child...Who told me that the pour soul did forsake The mighty Warwick, and did fight for me? But what we doe determine oft we break...
Negative statements and questions without do are illustrated by Heard you all this? I know not why, nor wherefo to say live, boy... And wherefore say not I that I am old?
Towards the end of the 17th c. the use of simple forms and the do-periphrasis became more differentiated: do was found mainly in negative statements and questions, while the simple forms were preferred in affirmative statements. Thus the do-periphrasis turned into analytical negative and interrogative forms of simple forms: Pres and Past.
The growth of new negative and interrogative forms with do can be accounted for by syntactic conditions. By that time the word order in the sentence had become fixed: the predicate of the sentence normally followed the subject. The use of do made it possible to adhere to this order in questions, for at least the notional part of the predicate could thus preserve its position after the subject. This order of words was already well established in numerous sentences with analytical forms and modal phrases. Cf: Do you pity him? No, he deserves no pity ...Wilt thou not love such a woman? And must they all be hanged that swear and lie? Likewise, the place of the negative particle not in negative sentences with modal phrases and analytical forms set up a pattern for the similar use of not with the do-periphrasis. Cf: will not let him stir and If'1 do not wonder how thou darest venture. The form with do conformed with the new pattern of the sentence much better than the old simple form (though sentences with not in postposition to the verb are still common in Shakespeare: know not which is which).
In the 18th c. the periphrasis with do as an equivalent of the simple form in affirmative statements fell into disuse (its employment in affirmative sentences acquired a stylistic function: it made the statement emphatic).
Passive Forms. Category of Voice
In OE the finite verb had no category of Voice. With the exception of some traces of the Germanic Mediopassive restricted to the verb hatan 'call', there was no regular opposition of forms in the verb paradigm to show the relation of the action to the grammatical subject. Only in the system of verbals the participles of transitive verbs, Pres. and Past were contrasted as having an active and a passive meaning. The analytical passive forms developed from OE verb phrases consisting of OE beon (NE be) and weorþan ('become') and Part. II of transitive verbs.
OE beon was used as a link-verb with a predicative expressed by Part. II to denote a state resulting from a previous action, while the construction with OE weorþan 'become' indicated the transition into the state expressed by the participle. Werthen was still fairly common in Early ME (in Ormulum), but not nearly as common as the verb ben: soon werthen was replaced by numerous new link-verbs which had developed from notional verbs (ME becomen, geten, semen, NE become, get, seem); no instances of werthen are found in Chaucer. The participle, which served as predicative to these verbs, in OE agreed with the subject in number and gender, although the concord with participles was less strict than with adjectives. The last instances of this agreement are found in Early ME: fewe beoþ icorene (13th c.) 'few were chosen'.
In ME ben plus Past Part, developed into an analytical form. Now it could express not only a state but also an action. The formal pattern of the Pass. Voice extended to many parts of the verb paradigm: it is found in the Future tense, in the Pert. forms, in the Subj. Mood and in the non-finite forms of the verb, e.g. Chaucer has: the conseil that was accorded by youre neighebores ('The advice that was given by your neighbours') But certes, wikkidnesse shal be warisshed by goodnesse. ('But, certainly, wickedness shall be cured by goodness.') With many a tempest hadde his berde been shake. ('His beard had been shaken with many tempests.') Traces of Mediopassive in this verb are found even in Late ME: This mayden, which that Mayus highte. (Chaucer) ('This maid who was called Mayus.') The new Pass. forms had a regular means of indicating the doer of the action or the instrument with the help of which it was performed. Out of a variety of prepositions employed in OE from, mid, wiþ, bi two were selected and generalised: by and with. Thus in ME the Pass. forms were regularly contrasted to the active forms throughout the paradigm, both formally and semantically. Therefore we can say that the verb had acquired a new grammatical category the category of Voice.
In Early NE the Pass. Voice continued to grow and to extend its application. Late ME saw the appearance of new types of passive constructions. In addition to passive constructions with the subject corresponding to the direct object of the respective active construction, i.e. built from transitive verbs, there arose passive constructions whose subject corresponded to other types of objects: indirect and prepositional. Pass. forms began to be built from intransitive verbs associated with different kinds of objects, e.g. indirect objects: The angel ys tolde the wordes. (Higden) ('The angel is told the words.') He shulde soone delyvered be gold in sakkis gret plenty. (Chaucer) ('He should be given (delivered) plenty of gold in sacks.') prepositional objects: I wylle that my moder be sente for. (Malory) ('I wish that my mother were sent for.') He himself was oftener laughed at than his iestes were. (Caxton) 'tis so concluded on; We'll be waited on (Sh).
It should be added that from an early date the Pass. Voice was common in impersonal sentences with it introducing direct or indirect speech: Hit was accorded, granted and swore, bytwene þe King of Fraunce and þe King of Engelond þat he shulde haue agen at his landes (Brut, 13th c.)('It was agreed, granted and sworn between the King of France and the King of England that he should have again all his lands.') The wide use of various pass. constructions in the 18th and 19th c. testifies to the high productivity of the Pass. Voice. At the same time the Pass. Voice continued to spread to new parts of the verb paradigm: the Gerund and the Continuous forms.
Perfect Forms
Like other analytical forms of the verb, the Perf. forms have developed from OE verb phrases. The main source of the Perf. form was the OE "possessive" construction, consisting of the verb habban (NE have), a direct object and Part. II of a transitive verb, which served as an attribute to the object, e.g.: Hæfde se goda cempan gecorene (Beowulf) ('had that brave (man) warriors chosen'.) The meaning of the construction was: a person (the subject) possessed a thing (object), which was characterised by a certain state resulting from a previous action (the participle). The participle, like other attributes, agreed with the noun-object in Number, Gender and Case. Originally the verb habban was used only with participles of transitive verbs; then it came to be used with verbs taking genitival, datival and prepositional objects and even with intransitive verbs, which shows that it was developing into a kind of auxiliary, e.g.: for sefenn winnterr haffde he ben in Egypte (Ormulum) ('For seven winters he had been in Egypt')
The other source of the Perf. forms was the OE phrase consisting of the link-verb bēon and Part. II of intransitive verbs: nu is se dæg cumen (Beowulf) ('Now the day has ("is") come') hwænne mine dagas agane beoþ (Ælfric)... ('When my days are gone (when I die)'.) In these phrases the participle usually agreed with the subject.
Towards ME the two verb phrases turned into analytical forms and made up a single set of forms termed "perfect". The Participles had lost their forms of agreement with the noun (the subject in the construction with ben, the object in the construction with haven); the places of the object and the participle in the construction with haven changed: the Participle usually stood close to the verb have and was followed by the object which referred now to the analytical form as a whole – instead of being governed by have. Cf. the OE possessive construction quoted above with ME examples:
The holy blisful martyr for to seke, That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke. (Chaucer) ('To seek the holy blissful martyr who has helped them when they were ill.')
In the Perfect form the auxiliary have had lost the meaning of possession and was used with all kinds of verbs, without restriction. Have was becoming a universal auxiliary, whereas the use of be grew more restricted. Shakespeare employs be mainly with verbs of movement, but even with these verbs be alternates with have:
He is not yet arriv'd ... On a modern pace I have since arrived but hither.
One of the instances of perfect with both auxiliaries is found in S. Pepy's Diary (late 17th c.): and My Lord Chesterfield had killed another gentlemen and was fled.
By the age of the Literary Renaissance the perfect forms had spread to all the parts of the verb system, so that ultimately the category of time correlation became the most universal of verbal categories. An isolated instance of Perfect Continuous is found in Chaucer: We han ben waityng al this fortnight. ('We have been waiting all this fortnight.') Instances of Perfect Passive are more frequent:
O fy! for shame! they that han been brent Alias! can thei nat flee the fyres hete?
('For shame, they who have been burnt, alas, can they not escape the fire's heat?')
Perfect forms in the Pass. Voice, Pert. forms of the Subj. Mood, Future Perf. forms are common in Shakespeare: if she had been blessed....
The development of Aspect is linked up with the growth of the Continuous forms. In the OE verb system there was no category of Aspect; verbal prefixes especially ge-, which could express an aspective meaning of perfectivity were primarily word-building prefixes. The growth of Continuous forms was slow and uneven.
Verb phrases consisting of beon (NE be) plus Part. I are not infrequently found in OE prose. They denoted a quality, or a lasting state, characterising the person or thing indicated by the subject of the sentence, e.g. seo... is irnende þurh middewearde Babylonia burg "that (river) runs through the middle of Babylon"; ealle þa woruld on hiora agen gewill onwendende wæron neah C wintra "they all were destroying the world (or: were destroyers of the world) at their own will for nearly 100 years".