the element -r- in the Dat. and Gen. sg Fem. and in the Gen. pl. These case endings, which do not occur in the noun paradigms, are often referred to as "pronominal" endings (-m, -r-, -t).
As stated before, the adjective in OE could change for number, gender and case. Those were dependent grammatical categories or forms of agreement of the adjective with the noun it modified or with the subject of the sentence — if the adjective was a predicative. Like nouns, adjectives had three genders and two numbers. The category of case in adjectives differed from that of nouns: in addition to the four cases of nouns they had one more case, Instr. It was used when the adjective served as an attribute to a noun in the Dat. case expressing an instrumental meaning — e.g.: lytle werede 'with (the help of) a small troop'.
As in other OG languages, most adjectives in OE could be declined in two ways: according to the weak and to the strong declension. The formal differences between the declensions, as well as their origin, were similar to those of the noun declensions. The strong and weak declensions arose due to the use of several stem-forming suffixes in PG: vocalic a-, o-, u- and i- and consonantal n-. Accordingly, there developed sets of endings of the strong declension mainly coinciding with the endings of a-stems of nouns for adjectives in the Masc. and Neut. and of o-stems — in the Fem., with some differences between long-and short-stemmed adjectives, variants with j- and w-, monosyllabic and polysyllabic adjectives and some remnants of other stems. Some endings in the strong declension of adjectives have no parallels in the noun paradigms; they are similar to the endings of pronouns: -um for Dat. sg, -ne for Acc. Masc., [r] in some Fem. and pl endings. Therefore the strong declension of adjectives is sometimes called the "pronominal" declension. As for the weak declension, it uses the same markers as (n-stems of nouns except that in the Gen. pl the pronominal ending -ra is often used instead of the weak -ena.
The difference between the strong and the weak declension of adjectives was not only formal but also semantic. Unlike a noun, an adjective did not belong to a certain type of declension. Most adjectives could be declined in both ways. The choice of the declension was determined by a number of factors: the syntactical function of the adjective, the degree of comparison and the presence of noun determiners. The adjective had a strong form when used predicatively and when used attributively without any determiners, e.g.:
ða menn sindon gode 'the men are good'
The weak form was employed when the adjective was preceded by a demonstrative pronoun or the Gen. case of personal pronouns.
| Singular | |
| Strong (pure a- and o-stems)M N F | WeakM N F |
| Nom. blind blind blindGen. blindes blindes blindreDat. blindum blindum blindreAcc. blindne blind blindeInstr. blinde blinde blindre | blinda blinde blindeblindan blindan blindanblindan blindan blindanblindan blinde blindanblindan blindan blindan |
| Plural | |
| Nom. blinde blind blinda, -eGen. blindra blindra blindraDat. blindum blindum blindumAcc. blinde blind blinda, -eInstr. blindum blindum blindum(NE blind) | All gendersblindanblindra, -enablindumblindanblindum |
Some adjectives, however, did not conform with these rules.
Like adjectives in other languages, most OE adjectives distinguished between three degrees of comparison: positive, comparative and superlative. The regular means used to form the comparative and the superlative from the positive were the suffixes -ra and -est/ost. Sometimes suffixation was accompanied by an interchange of the root-vowel.
The adjective god had suppletive forms. Suppletion was a very old way of building the degrees of comparison
god – bettra – bet(e)st,
lytel – læssa – læst.
Lecture 4. OLD ENGLISH GRAMMAR
The OE verb was characterised by many peculiar features. Though the verb had few grammatical categories, its paradigm had a very complicated structure: verbs fell into numerous morphological classes and employed a variety of form-building means. All the forms of the verb were synthetic, as analytical forms were only beginning to appear. The non-finite forms had little in common with the finite forms but shared many features with the nominal parts of speech.
The verb-predicate agreed with the subject of the sentence in two grammatical categories: number and person. Its specifically verbal categories were mood and tense. Thus in OE he bindeð 'he binds' the verb is in the 3rd p. Pres. Tense Ind. Mood; in the sentence Bringaþ me hider þa 'Bring me those (loaves)' bringaþ is in the Imper. Mood pl.
Finite forms regularly distinguished between two numbers: sg and pl. The homonymy of forms in the verb paradigm did not affect number distinctions: opposition through number was never neutralised.
The category of Person was made up of three forms: the 1st, the 2nd and the 3rd. Unlike number, person distinctions were neutralised in many positions. Person was consistently shown only in the Pres. Tense of the Ind. Mood 'In the Past Tense sg of the Ind. Mood the forms of the 1st and 3rd p. coincided and only the 2nd p. had a distinct form. Person was not distinguished in the pl; nor was it shown in the Subj. Mood.
The category of Mood was constituted by the Indicative, Imperative and Subjunctive. There were a few homonymous forms, which eliminated the distinction between the moods: Subj. did not differ from the Ind. in the 1st p. sg Pres. Tense — here, deme — and in the 1st and 3rd p. in the Past. The coincidence of the Imper. and Ind. Moods is seen in the pl — lociaþ, demaþ.
The category of Tense in OE consisted of two categorial forms, Pres. and Past. The tenses were formally distinguished by all the verbs in the Ind. and Subj. Moods, there being practically no instances of neutralisation of the tense opposition.
The use of the Subj. Mood in OE was in many respects different from its use in later ages. Subj. forms conveyed a very general meaning of unreality or supposition. In addition to its use in conditional sentences and other volitional, conjectural and hypothetical contexts Subj. was common in other types of construction: in clauses of time, clauses of result and in clauses presenting reported speech, e.g.:
þa giet he ascode hwæt heora cyning haten wære, and him man andswarode and cwæð þæt he Ælle haten wære. 'and yet he asked what their king was called, and they answered and said that he was called Ælle'. In presenting indirect speech usage was variable: Ind. forms occurred by the side of Subj.
Conjugation of Verbs in Old English
| Strong | Weak | |||
| InfinitiveNE | findanfind | beranbear | deman deem | locianlook |
| Present tense | ||||
Singular 1st2nd3rdPlural | finde fintstfint findaþ | bere bir(e)stbir(e)þ beraþ | deme demst demþ demaþ | locielocastlocaþ lociaþ |
| Subjunctive Singular Subjunctive Plural | finde finden | bere beren | deme demen | locielocien |
| Imperative Singular | find | ber | dem | loca |
| Imperative PluralParticiple I | findaþ findende | beraþ berende | demaþ demend | lociaþ lociende |
| Past Singular 1st | fond | bær | demde | locode |
| 2nd | funde | bære | demdest | locodest |
| 3rd | fond | bær | demde | locode |
| Plural | fundon | bæron | demdon | locodon |
The meanings of the tense forms were also very general, as compared with later ages and with present-day English. The forms of the Pres. were used to indicate present and future actions. With verbs of perfective meaning or with adverbs of future time the Pres. acquired the meaning of futurity; Cf: þonne þu þa in bringst, he ytt and bletsaþ þe — futurity — 'when you bring them, he will eat and bless you' þu gesihst þæt ic ealdige 'you see that I am getting old' the Pres. tense ealdie indicates a process in the present which is now expressed by the Continuous form. Future happenings could also be expressed by verb phrases with modal verbs:
forþæm ge sculon ... wepan 'therefore you shall weep'.
The Past tense was used in a most general sense to indicate various events in the past (including those which are nowadays expressed by the forms of the Past Continuous, Past Perfect, Present Perfect and other analytical forms). Additional shades of meaning could be attached to it in different contexts, e. g.:
Ond þæs ofer Eastron gefor Æpered cyning; ond he ricsode fīf gear 'and then after Easter died King Aethered, and he had reigned five years' (the Past Tense ricsode indicates a completed action which preceded another past action — in the modem translation it is rendered by had reigned).
In OE there were two non-finite forms of the verb: the Infinitive and the Participle. In many respects they were closer to the nouns and adjectives than to the finite verb; their nominal features were far more obvious than their verbal features, especially at the morphological level. The verbal nature of the Infinitive and the Participle was revealed in some of their functions and in their syntactic "combinability": like finite forms they could take direct objects and be modified by adverbs.
The forms of the two participles were strictly differentiated. P I was formed from the Present tense stem (the Infinitive without the endings -an, -ian) with the help of the suffix -ende. P II had a stem of its own — in strong verbs it was marked by a certain grade of the root-vowel interchange and by the suffix -en; with weak verbs it ended in -d/-t. P II was commonly marked by the prefix ge-, though it could also occur without it, especially if the verb had other word-building prefixes.
Infinitive Participle I Participle II (NE bindan bindende gebunden bind)
The conjugation of verbs shows the means of form-building used in the OE verb system. Most forms were distinguished with the help of inflectional endings or grammatical suffixes; one form — P II — was sometimes marked by a prefix; many verbs made use of vowel interchanges in the root; some verbs used consonant interchanges and a few had suppletive forms. The OE verb is remarkable for its complicated morphological classification which determined the application of form-building means in various groups of verbs. The majority of OE verbs fell into two great divisions: the strong verbs and the weak verbs. Besides these two main groups there were a few verbs which could be put together as "minor" groups. The main difference between the strong and weak verbs lay in the means of forming the principal parts, or the "stems" of the verb. There were also a few other differences in the conjugations.
All the forms of the verb, finite as well as non-finite, were derived from a set of "stems" or principal parts of the verb: the Present tense stem was used in all the Present tense forms, Indicative, Imperative and Subjunctive, and also in the Present Participle and the Infinitive; it is usually shown as the form of the Infinitive; all the forms of the Past tense were derived from the Past tense stems; the Past Participle had a separate stem.
The strong verbs formed their stems by means of vowel gradation (ablaut) and by adding certain suffixes; in some verbs vowel gradation was accompanied by consonant interchanges. The strong verbs had four stems, as they distinguished two stems in the Past Tense – one for the 1 st and 3rd p. Ind. Mood, the other — for the other Past tense forms, Ind. and Subj.
The weak verbs derived their Past tense stem and the stem of Participle II from the Present tense stem with the help of the dental suffix -d- or -t- normally they did not change their root vowel, but in some verbs suffixation was accompanied by a vowel interchange.
The Past tense stem of the weak verbs is the form of the 1st and 3rd p. sg; the pl locodon is formed from the same stem with the help of the plural ending -on). The same ending marks the Past pl of strong verbs.
Both the strong and the weak verbs are further subdivided into a number of morphological classes with some modifications in the main form-building devices.
Minor groups of verbs differed from the weak and strong verbs but were not homogeneous either. Some of them combined certain features of the strong and weak verbs in a peculiar way ("preterite-present" verbs); others were suppletive or altogether anomalous. The following chart gives a general idea of the morphological classification of OE verbs.
There were about three hundred strong verbs in OE. They were native words descending from PG with parallels in other OG languages; many of them had a high frequency of occurrence and were basic items of the vocabulary widely used in word derivation and word compounding. The strong verbs in OE (as well as in other OG languages) are usually divided into seven classes.
Classes from 1 to 6 use vowel gradation which goes back to the IE ablaut-series modified in different phonetic conditions in accordance with PG and Early OE sound changes. Class 7 includes reduplicating verbs, which originally built their past forms by means of repeating the root-morpheme; this doubled root gave rise to a specific kind of root-vowel interchange.
The principal forms of all the strong verbs have the same endings irrespective of class: -an for the Infinitive, no ending in the Past sg stem, -on in the form of Past pl, -en for Participle II. Two of these markers – the zero-ending in the second stem and -en in Participle II – are found only in strong verbs and should be noted as their specific characteristics. The classes differ in the series of root-vowels used to distinguish the four stems. Only several classes and subclasses make a distinction between four vowels as marker of the four stems – see Class 2, 3b and c, 4 and 5b; some classes distinguish only three grades of ablaut and consequently have the same root vowel in two stems out of four (Class 1, 3a, 5a); two classes, 6 and 7, use only two vowels in their gradation series.
In addition to vowel gradation some verbs with the root ending in -s, -þ or -r employed an interchange of consonants: [s-z-r]; [0-ð-d] and [f-v]. These interchanges were either instances of positional variation of fricative consonants in OE or relics of earlier positional sound changes; they were of no significance as grammatical markers and disappeared due to levelling by analogy towards the end of OE.
The classes of strong verbs – like the morphological classes of nouns – differed in the number of verbs and, consequently, in their role and weight in the language. Classes 1 and 3 were the most numerous of all: about 60 and 80 verbs, respectively; within Class 3 the first group – with a nasal or nasal plus a plosive in the root (findan, rinnan – NE find, run) included almost 40 verbs, which was about as much as the number of verbs in Class 2; the rest of the classes had from 10 to 15 verbs each. In view of the subsequent interinfluence and mixture of classes it is also noteworthy that some classes in OE had similar forms; thus Classes 4 and 5 differed in one form only – the stems of P II; Classes 2, 3b and c and Class 4 had identical vowels in the stem of P II.