Preterite-present verb

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Following the convention in historical linguistics, this article marks unattested reconstructed words with an asterisk.

The preterite-present verbs are a small group of anomalous verbs in the Germanic languages. These have acquired a present meaning from a perfect form. For example, Proto-Indo-European *woida, "I have seen", which is attested in Latin vīdi (same meaning) became Gothic wait meaning "I know". The present tense thus has the form of a vocalic (strong) preterite, with vowel-alternation between singular and plural. A new weak preterite is formed with a dental suffix.

	Gothic	Old English	German	Old Norse	Swedish
infinitive	witan	witan	wissen	vita	veta
present 1st & 3rd sg	wait	wāt	weiß	veit	vet
present 3rd pl	witun	witon	wissen	vitu	(veten)*
preterite 1st & 3rd sg	wissa	wisse	wußte	vissi	visste
present participle	witands	witende	wissend	vitandi	vetande
past participle	witans	gewiten	gewußt	vitat	vetat**

*(Considered extremely archaic, plural forms have generally been lost in modern Swedish.)
**(Actually, not the past participle but the supine.)

Further such verbs in Proto-Germanic are *kunnana (can, pret. kunþa), *unnana (to grant, pret. unþa), *gamunnana (to remember, pret. gamunda), *dursana (dare, pret. dursta), *magana (to be able, may, pret. mahta), *skulana (to have to, shall, pret. skulda), *þurbana (to need, pret. þurfta), *dugana (to avail, pret. duhta), *aigana (to have, own, pret. aihta) and *mōtana (to be allowed, must, pret. mōsta).

In modern English, preterite-present verbs are identifiable by the absence of an -s suffix on the 3rd person singular present tense form. Compare. for instance, he can with he sings (pret. he sang); the present paradigm of can is thus parallel with the past tense of a strong verb. In modern German there is also an ablaut shift between singular ich kann (I can) and plural wir können (we can). In the older stages of the Germanic languages (Old English, Middle High German) the past tense of strong verbs also showed ablaut.

Most of the traditional modal verbs (which are followed by a bare infinitive, without "to") are preterite-presents. Examples are English must and shall/should, German dürfen (may), sollen (ought), mögen (like), and müssen (must). The early history of will (German wollen) is more complicated, as it goes back to an Indo-European optative, but the result in the modern languages is likewise a preterite-present paradigm.