Germanic strong verb

In the Germanic languages, a strong verb is one which marks its past tense by means of changes to the stem vowel (ablaut). The majority of the remaining verbs form the past tense by means of a dental suffix (e.g. -ed in English), and are known as weak verbs.

In modern English, strong verbs include sing (present I sing, past I sang, past participle I have sung) and drive (present I drive, past I drove, past participle I have driven), as opposed to weak verbs such as open (present I open, past I opened, past participle I have opened). Not all verbs with a change in the stem vowel are strong verbs, however; they may also be irregular weak verbs such as bring, brought, brought or keep, kept, kept. The key distinction is that most strong verbs have their origin in the sound-system of Indo-European, whereas weak verbs use a dental ending (in English usually -ed or -t) that was introduced later, during the development of the Germanic languages.

The "strong" vs. "weak" terminology was coined by the German philologist Jacob Grimm, and the terms "strong verb" and "weak verb" are direct translations of the original German terms "starkes Verb" and "schwaches Verb".

Origin and development

Strong verbs have their origin in the ancestral Proto-Indo-European (PIE) language. In PIE, vowel alternations called ablaut were frequent and occurred in many types of word, not only in verbs. The vowel that appeared in any given syllable is called its "grade". In many words, the basic vowel was *e (e-grade), but, depending on what syllable of a word the stress fell on in PIE, this could change to *o (o-grade), or disappear altogether (zero grade). Both e and o could also be lengthened to ē and ō (lengthened grade). Thus ablaut turned short e into the following sounds:

zero short long
Ø e ē
o ō

An example of how ablaut could alter the vowels of a PIE verb is the verb *bʰer- "carry, bear".[1] This can be reconstructed to have been stressed differently depending on what inflexions the word had, and these different stress patterns gave rise to different vowel-grades in different parts of the verb (the accute accent ´ marks the stressed syllable):[2]

As the Germanic languages developed from PIE, they dramatically altered the Indo-European verbal system. PIE verbs had no tense, but could occur in three distinct "aspects": the present, aorist and perfect aspect. The present implied some attention to such details and was thus used for ongoing actions ("is eating", imperfective aspect). The aorist originally denoted events without any attention to the specifics or ongoing nature of the event ("ate", perfective aspect). The perfect was a stative verb, and referred not to the event itself, but to the state that resulted from the event ("has eaten" or "is/has been eaten"). In Germanic, the aorist eventually disappeared and merged with the present, while the perfect took on a past tense meaning and became a general past tense. The strong Germanic present thus descends from the PIE present, while the past descends from the PIE perfect. The inflexions of PIE verbs also changed considerably.

In the course of these changes, the different root-vowels caused by PIE ablaut became markers of tense. Thus in Germanic, *bʰer- became *beraną in the infinitive (e-grade); *bar in the past singular (o-grade); *bērun in the past plural (ē-grade); and *buranaz in the past participle (zero-grade).[3]

In Proto-Germanic, the system of strong verbs was largely regular. As sound changes took place in the development of Germanic from PIE, the vowels of strong verbs became more varied, but usually in predictable ways, so in most cases all of the principal parts of a strong verb of a given class could be reliably predicted from the infinitive. Thus we can reconstruct Common Germanic as having seven coherent classes of strong verbs. This system continued largely intact in the first attested Germanic languages, notably Gothic, Old English, Old High German and Old Norse.

Gradual disappearance

Germanic strong verbs, mostly deriving directly from PIE, are slowly being supplanted by or transformed into weak verbs.

As well as developing the strong verb system, Germanic also went on to develop two other classes of verbs: the weak verbs and a third, much smaller, class known as the preterite-present verbs, which are continued in the English auxiliary verbs, e.g. can/could, shall/should, may/might, must. Weak verbs originally derived from other types of word in PIE and originally occurred only in the present aspect. They did not have a perfect aspect, meaning that they came to lack a past tense in Germanic once the perfect had become the past. Not having a past tense at all, they obviously also had no vowel alternations between present and past. To compensate for this, a new type of past tense was eventually created for these verbs by adding a -d- or -t- suffix to the stem. This is why only strong verbs have vowel alternations: their past tense forms descend from the original PIE perfect aspect, while the past tense forms of weak verbs were created later.

The development of weak verbs in Germanic meant that the strong verb system ceased to be productive. Practically all new verbs were weak, and few new strong verbs were created. Over time, strong verbs tended to become weak in some languages, so that the total number of strong verbs in the languages was constantly decreasing.

The coherence of the strong verb system is still present in modern German, Dutch, Icelandic and Faroese. For example, in German and Dutch, strong verbs are consistently marked with a past participle in -en, while weak verbs have a past participle in -t in German and -t or -d in Dutch. In English, however, the original regular strong conjugations have largely disintegrated, with the result that in modern English grammar, a distinction between strong and weak verbs is less useful than a distinction between "regular" and "irregular" verbs. Thus the verb to help, which used to be conjugated help-holp-holpen, is now help-helped-helped. The reverse phenomenon, whereby a weak verb becomes strong by analogy, is rare (one example in American English, considered informal by some authorities, is sneak, snuck, snuck).

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:

Examples in English are swell, swelled, swollen and (only in American dialect) dive, dove, dived.

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 Supine Present Indicative Present Subjunctive Past Indicative Past Subjunctive Imperative mood 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 four or five "principal parts" by heart – the number depends on whether one considers the third-person singular present tense as a principle part. If we choose to use all five, then for this verb they are bēodan, bīett, bēad, budon, boden. The list of five principal parts includes:

  1. The infinitive: bēodan. The same vowel is used through most of the present tense.
  2. The present tense 3rd singular: bīett. The same vowel is used in the 2nd singular.
  3. The preterite 1st singular (from the PIE perfect): bēad, which is identical to the 3rd singular.
  4. The preterite plural: budon. The same vowel is used in the 2nd singular.
  5. 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: 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.

Strong verb classes

Germanic strong verbs are commonly divided into 7 classes, based on the type of vowel alternation. This is in turn based mostly on the type of consonants that follow the vowel. The Anglo-Saxon scholar Henry Sweet gave names to the seven classes:

I. The "drive" conjugation

II. The "choose" conjugation

III. The "bind" conjugation

IV. The "bear" conjugation

V. The "give" conjugation

VI. The "shake" conjugation

VII. The "fall" conjugation

But normally they are simply referred to by numbers.

In Proto-Germanic, the common ancestor of the Germanic languages, the strong verbs were still mostly regular. The classes continued largely intact in Old English and the other older historical Germanic languages, e.g. Gothic, Old High German and Old Norse. However, 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 led to anomalous forms and the six big classes lost their cohesion. This process has advanced furthest in English, while in some other modern Germanic languages (such as German), the 7 classes are still fairly well preserved and recognisable.

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, German, Dutch and English 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 length: 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.

For a treatment of the classes one at a time showing how the forms evolved in the various Germanic languages, see this older version of this Wikipedia article:[4]

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 that occurred between Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Germanic are relevant for the discussion of the ablaut system.

For the purpose of explanation, the different verb forms can be grouped by the vowel they receive, and given a "principal part" number:

  1. All forms of the present tense, including the indicative mood, subjunctive mood, imperative mood, the infinitive and present participle.
  2. The 1st person and 3rd person singular forms of the past tense in the indicative mood.
  3. All other past tense forms, which includes the past dual and plural in the indicative mood, and all forms of the past subjunctive mood.
  4. The past participle, alone.

Classes 1 to 6

The first 5 classes appear to continue the following PIE ablaut grades:

Class Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4
1, 2, 3 e o zero zero
4 e o ē zero
5 e o ē e

Except for the apparent ē-grade in part 3 of classes 4 and 5, these are in fact straightforward survivals of the PIE situation.

The standard pattern of PIE is represented in Germanic by classes 1, 2 and 3, with the present (part 1) in the e-grade, past indicative singular (part 2) in the o-grade, and remaining past (part 3) and past participle (part 4) in the zero grade. The differences between classes 1, 2, and 3 arise from semivowels coming after the root vowel, as shown in the table below.

As can be seen, the e-grade in part 1 and o-grade in part 2 are shared by all of these five classes. The difference between them is in parts 3 and 4:

Class 6 appears in Germanic with the vowels a and ō. PIE sources of the a vowel included *h2e, *o, and a laryngeal between consonants;[5] possibly in some cases the a may be an example of the a-grade of ablaut, though the existence of such a grade is controversial. It is not clear exactly how the ō is to be derived from an earlier ablaut alternant in PIE, but believable sources include contraction of the reduplicant syllable in PIE *h2-initial verbs, or o-grades of verbs with interconsonantal laryngeal. In any event, within Germanic the resulting a ~ ō behaved as just another type of vowel alternation.

In Proto-Germanic, this resulted in the following vowel patterns:

Class Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Verb meaning Usual PIE origin
1 *rīdaną *raid *ridun *ridanaz to ride Vowel + y/i.
2a *freusaną *fraus *fruzun *fruzanaz to freeze Vowel + w/u.
2b *lūkaną *lauk *lukun *lukanaz to close, to shut Unknown.
3a *bindaną *band *bundun *bundanaz to bind Vowel + m or n + another consonant.
3b *werþaną *warþ *wurdun *wurdanaz to become Vowel + l or r + another consonant.
4 *beraną *bar *bērun *buranaz to bear Vowel + l, r, m or n + no other consonant.
5 *lesaną *las *lēzun *lezanaz to gather Vowel + any consonant other than y, w, l, r, m or n.
6 *alaną *ōl *ōlun *alanaz to grow, to mature Vowel + a single consonant, if the present stem had a or o in late PIE.

Class 7

The forms of class 7 were very different and did not neatly reflect the standard ablaut grades found in the first 5 classes. Instead of (or in addition to) vowel alternations, this class displayed reduplication of the first consonants of the stem in the past tense.

It is generally believed that reduplication was once a feature of all Proto-Indo-European perfect-aspect forms. It was then lost in most verbs by Proto-Germanic times due to haplology. However, verbs with vowels that did not fit in the existing pattern of alternation retained their reduplication. Class 7 is thus not really one class, but can be split into several subclasses based on the original structure of the root, much like the first 5 classes. The first three subclasses are parallel with classes 1 to 3 but with e replaced with a: 7a is parallel to class 1, class 7b to class 2, and class 7c to class 3.

The following is a general picture of the Proto-Germanic situation as reconstructed by Jay Jasanoff.[7] Earlier reconstructions of the 7th class were generally based mostly on Gothic evidence.

Subclass Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Verb meaning Root pattern
7a *haitaną *hegait *hegitun *haitanaz to call a + i
7b *hlaupaną
*stautaną		 *heglaup
*stestaut		 *heglupun
*stestutun		 *hlaupanaz
*stautanaz		 to leap
to push, to bump		 a + u
7c *haldaną
*fanhaną		 *hegald
*febanh		 *heguldun
*febungun		 *haldanaz
*fanganaz		 to hold
to catch		 a + l, r, m or n + another consonant (if no other consonant follows, the verb belongs to class 6)
7d *lētaną
*sēaną		 *lelōt
*sezō		 *lel-tun
*sez-un		 *lētanaz
*sēanaz		 to allow, to let
to sow		 ē
7e *blōtaną
*grōaną		 *beblōt
*gegrō		 *beblut
*gegr-un		 *blōtanaz
*grōanaz		 to sacrifice
to grow		 ō

The situation sketched above did not survive intact into any of the Germanic languages. It was changed significantly, but rather differently in Gothic on one hand, and in the Northwest Germanic languages on the other.

Gothic

Reduplication was retained in Gothic, with the vowel ai inserted. However, as in all other strong verbs, consonant alternations were almost entirely eliminated in favour of the voiceless alternants. The present and past singular stem was extended to the plural, leaving the reduplication as the only change in the stem between the two tenses. The vowel alternation was retained in a few class 7d verbs, but eliminated otherwise by generalising the present tense stem throughout the paradigm. The verb lētan "to allow" retained the past form lailōt with ablaut, while slēpan "to sleep" had the past tense form saislēp without it. The form saizlēp, with Verner-law alternation, is occasionally found as well, but it was apparently a relic formation with no other examples of alternation elsewhere.

Northwest Germanic

In the Northwest Germanic languages, which include all modern surviving Germanic languages, class 7 was drastically remodelled. Reduplication was almost eliminated, except for a few relics, and new ablaut patterns were introduced. Many attempts were made to explain this development. Jasanoff posits the following series of events within the history of Northwest Germanic:[7]

  1. Root-initial consonant clusters were transferred to the beginning of the reduplicating syllable, to preserve the same word onset across the paradigm. The clusters were simplified and reduced medially. (Compare Latin scindō ~ scicidī and spondeō ~ spopondī, which show the same development)
    *hlaupaną: *hehlaup, *hehlupun > *hlelaup, *hlelupun
    *stautaną: *stestaut, *stestutun > *stezaut, *stezutun
    *blōtaną: *beblōt, *beblutun > *blelōt, *blelutun
    *grōaną: *gegrō, *gegrōun > *grerō, *grerōun
    *swōganą: *sezwōg, *sezwōgun > *swewōg, *sweugun (English sough)
  2. Root compression:
    1. Based on the pattern of verbs such as singular *lelōt, *rerōd ~ plural *leltun, *rerdun, as well as verbs like singular *swewōg ~ plural *sweugun, the root vowel or diphthong was deleted in the past plural stem. The Germanic spirant law caused devoicing in certain consonants where applicable.
      *haitaną: *hegait, *hegitun > *hegait, *hehtun
      *bautaną: *bebaut, *bebutun > *bebaut, *beftun ("to beat")
      *hlaupaną: *hlelaup, *hlelupun > *hlelaup, *hlelpun
      *stautaną: *stezaut, *stezutun > *stezaut, *stestun
      *blōtaną: *blelōt, *blelutun > *blelōt, *bleltun
    2. In class 7c verbs, this resulted in consonant clusters that were not permissible (e.g. **hegldun); these clusters were simplified by dropping the root-initial consonant(s).
      *haldaną: *hegald, *heguldun > *hegald, *heldun
      *fanhaną: *febanh, *febungun > *febanh, *fengun
  3. The present plural stem of class 7c verbs no longer appeared to be reduplicated because of the above change, and was extended to the singular. This created what appeared to be a new form of ablaut, with a in the present and e in the past plural.
    *haldaną: *hegald, *heldun > *held, *heldun
    *fanhaną: *febanh, *fengun > *feng, *fengun
  4. This new form of ablaut was then extended to other classes, by alternating *a with *e in classes 7a and 7b, and *ā with *ē in class 7d (after Proto-Germanic *ē had become *ā in Northwest Germanic). In class 7a, this resulted in the vowel *ei, which soon merged with *ē (from Germanic *ē2).
    *haitaną: *hegait, *hehtun > *heit, *heitun > *hēt, *hētun
    *hlaupaną: *hlelaup, *hlelpun > *hleup, *hleupun
    *lātaną: *lelōt, *leltun > *lēt, *lētun
  5. It is at this point that North and West Germanic begin to diverge.
    • In West Germanic, class 7e took *eu as the past stem vowel, by analogy with existing verbs with initial *(s)w- such as *wōpijaną, *weup(un) and *swōganą, *swewg(un).
      *blōtaną: *blelōt(un) > *bleut(un)
      *hrōpaną: *hrerōp(un) > *hreup(un) ("to cry, roop")
      *grōaną: *grerō(un) > *greu, *gre(u)wun
    • In North Germanic, class 7e instead took *ē as the past stem vowel, probably by analogy with class 7c which also had a long stem vowel.
      *blōtaną: *blelōt(un) > *blēt(un)

Stages 4 and 5 were not quite complete by the time of the earliest written records. While most class 7 verbs had replaced reduplication with ablaut entirely, several vestigial remains of reduplication are found throughout the North and West Germanic languages. Various other changes occurred later in the individual languages. *e in class 7c was replaced by *ē (> ia) in Old High German and Old Dutch, but by *eu (> ēo) in Old English.

The following "Late Proto-Northwest-Germanic" can be reconstructed as descendants of the earlier Proto-Germanic forms given above. Note that ē became ā in Northwest Germanic.

Class Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4
7a *haitaną *hēt *hētun *haitanaz
7b *hlaupaną *hleup *hleupun *hlaupanaz
7c *haldaną *held *heldun *haldanaz
7d *rādaną *rēd *rēdun *rādanaz
7e *blōtaną *bleut (West), *blēt (North) *bleutun (West), *blētun (North) *blōtanaz

Gothic

Being the oldest Germanic language with any significant literature, it is not surprising that it preserves the strong verbs best. However, some changes did occur:

Note also that long ī was spelled <ei> in Gothic.

Class Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Verb meaning
1 dreiban draif dribun dribans to drive
2a liugan laug lugun lugans to lie (tell untruth)
2b lūkan lauk lukun lukans to close, to shut
3a bindan band bundun bundans to bind
3b hilpan
wairþan		 halp
warþ		 hulpun
waurþun		 hulpans
waurþans		 to help
to become
4 qiman
bairan		 qam
bar		 qēmun
bērun		 qumans
baurans		 to come
to bear
5 lisan
saiƕan		 las
saƕ		 lēsun
sēƕun		 lisans
saiƕans		 to gather
to see
6 alan ōl ōlun alans to grow, to mature
7a haitan haihait haihaitun haitans to call
7b hlaupan haihlaup haihlaupun hlaupans to leap
7c haldan
fāhan		 haihald
faifāh		 haihaldun
faifāhun		 haldans
fāhans		 to hold
to catch
7d lētan
saian		 lailōt
saisō		 lailōtun
saisōun		 lētans
saians		 to allow
to sow
7e ƕōpjan ƕaiƕōp ƕaiƕōp ƕōpans to boast

Note: The letter transliterated as q was probably a voiceless labiovelar stop, /kʷ/ ([kʷʰ]), comparable to the Latin qu.

West Germanic

Changes that occurred in the West Germanic languages:

English

The following changes occurred from West Germanic to Old English:

Class Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Verb meaning
1 rīdan rād ridon ġeriden to ride
2a frēosan frēas fruron ġefroren to freeze
2b lūcan lēac lucon ġelocen to lock
3a bindan band bundon ġebunden to bind
3b weorþan wearþ wurdon ġeworden to become
4 beran bær bǣron ġeboren to bear
5 lesan læs lǣron ġeleren to gather
6 alan ōl ōlon ġealen to nourish, to grow
7a hātan hēt hēton ġehāten to call, to be called
7b hlēapan hlēop hlēopon ġehlēapen to leap
7c healdan hēold hēoldon ġehealden to hold
7d rǣdan rēd rēdon ġerǣden to advise, to interpret
7e blōtan blēot blēoton ġeblōten to sacrifice

With j-presents (and other anomalies):

The verb "to stand" follows class 6, but has an anomalous loss of its -n- in the past:

Some relics of class 7 reduplication remain in Old English, mostly in texts from Anglia (infinitive and past singular shown):

Changes that occurred from Old English to Modern English:

In Modern English, generally speaking, the verb classes have disintegrated and are not easily recognisable.

Class 1

Class 1 is still recognisable, as in most other Germanic languages. The modern past is taken from either the old past singular (ride rode ridden) or the old past plural (bite bit bitten). In the case of shine shone shone, the past participle has also assimilated to the past singular.

Class 1 verbs in modern English (excluding derived verbs such as abide and override) are backslide, bide, bite, chide, drive, hide, ride, rise, rive, shine, shrive, smite, stride, strike, strive, thrive, write. Slide can be considered a class 1 strong verb, although its past participle now no longer has the -en ending.

However, 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.

Class 2

Class 2 has become a small group and has become rather irregular. It includes choose, cleave, fly, freeze. It does not form a coherent class, as each verb has different irregularities from each other verb. In American English, the past tense of the verb dive is usually dove, as though it is in Class 2, but the past participle is still dived.

Class 3

Class 3 in English is still fairly large and regular. The past is formed either from the old past singular or from the past plural. Many of the verbs have two past forms, one of which may be dialectal or archaic (begin, drink, ring, shrink, sing, slink, spring, stink, swing, swim and wring). 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.

Class 4

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:

but several verbs have archaic preterites that preserve the "a" of Middle English (bare, brake, gat, sware, tare, and spake or Scots spak). The preterite of Middle English comen was either cam or com (or with -en in the plural).

Class 4 verbs in English (not including derivatives such as beget) 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, whereas swear was originally class 6. Wake was also originally class 6, and in fact retains the "a" of the present tense – the preterite woke (Middle English wook) only conforms to the modern class 4 preterite, not to the historic class 4 preterite in "a".

Class 5

In Modern English this group has lost all group cohesion.

Class 5 verbs in Modern English: bid, eat, give, lie (= lie down), see, sit. The verb quethe is only used poetically now. Get, speak, tread, weave are now class 4.

The preterite of the verb forbid can be forbad or forbade, and the preterite ate is pronounced "et" in some British dialects.

Although the verb to be is suppletive and highly irregular, its past follows the pattern of a class 5 strong verb, with grammatischer Wechsel (the alternation of "s" and "r" in "was" versus "were"), and has uniquely retained the singular/plural distinction of both ablaut grade and consonant in the modern languages. Old English: wæs/wǣron, English: was/were. For full paradigms and historical explanations see Indo-European copula.

Class 6

Class 6 has disintegrated as well. The verbs 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. The verb heave is in this class when used in a nautical context. Like most other classes in Modern English, this class has lost cohesion and now forms principal parts according to many different patterns. Two preterites (drew and slew) are now spelled with "ew", which is similar in sound to the "oo" of the others that still use a strong form. Swear is now class 4. The adjective graven was originally a past participle of the now obsolete verb grave. Note that lade, shape, shave, wax are now weak outside of their optionally strong past participle forms (laden, shapen, shaven, and waxen respectively). Fare has archaic past tense fore and rare past participle faren, but is normally weak now.

Class 7

In Modern English this class has lost its homogeneity:

The following modern English verbs descend from class 7 verbs, and still retain strong-verb endings: beat, blow, fall, hew, grow, hang, hold, know, throw. (Hew can be a preterite or present, although the usual preterite is hewed.) The verb let can be considered Class 7, though the past participle now lacks the ending -en. The verbs mow and sow retain the strong-verb participles mown and sown but the preterites are now mowed and sowed. (The verb sew was always weak, even though one can say sewn for the past participle.) Archaic English still retains the reduplicated form hight ("called", originally a past tense, usually with a passive meaning, but later also used as a passive participle). The verb crow was also in class 7, as in the King James Version "while he yet spake, the cock crew".

Other

A few English verbs have become "strong" but do not belong to any class:

Dutch

Old Dutch is attested only fragmentarily, so it is not easy to give forms for all classes. Hence, Middle Dutch is shown here in that role instead. The situation of Old Dutch generally resembled that of Old Saxon and Old High German in any case.

Changes from West Germanic to Old Dutch:

From Old Dutch to Middle Dutch:

From Middle Dutch to Modern Dutch:

Class Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Verb meaning Amount of roots
1 rijden reed reden gereden to drive, to ride 55 (53 'ij' + 2 'ei')
2a vriezen vroor vroren gevroren to freeze 13
2b sluiten sloot sloten gesloten to close 24
3a binden bond bonden gebonden to bind, to tie 26
3b bergen borg borgen geborgen to protect, to store away 27 (20 + 7 'ie' past)
4 stelen stal stalen gestolen to steal 6
5 geven gaf gaven gegeven to give 11 (8 'e' + 3 'ɪ')
6 graven groef groeven gegraven to dig 5
7b lopen liep liepen gelopen to walk, to run 13 (11 + 2 'i' past)
7c vallen viel vielen gevallen to fall
7d slapen sliep sliepen geslapen to sleep
7e roepen riep riepen geroepen to call

Most classes are still well preserved, although the cohesion of some has been lost substantially or even entirely.

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.
Class 3a and 3b have generalised part 3 to part 2, eliminating the -a- from this class. Some 3b verbs have a past in -ie- like class 7: helpen hielp geholpen. This can be considered a new "class 3+7", and includes also bederven, sterven, werpen, zwerven.
Original 3b verbs: bergen, gelden, schelden, smelten, vechten, zwellen.
A small number of verbs of other classes have taken the forms of class 3b by analogy (original class in brackets): schenken, scheren (4), treffen(4), trekken (6), wegen, zwemmen (3a). A few such as zenden are historically weak, but became strong by reinterpreting the Rückumlaut that was present in some Old and Middle Dutch weak verbs as a strong vowel alternation.
Class 3b with preterite in ie: bederven, helpen, sterven, werpen, zwerven.
In the case of komen, the etymological w is retained in the past, unlike English or German: komen kwam kwamen gekomen.
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.
Class 5 verbs in Dutch: eten, geven, genezen, lezen, meten, treden, vergeten; anomalous: zien; with j-presents: bidden, liggen, zitten.
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, klagen (in archaic or regional usage, modern usage is mostly weak), vragen.
uitscheiden - scheed uit - uitgescheiden ("to secrete")
Class 7b:
lopen liep gelopen ("to walk, to run")
Class 7c has disintegrated due to several sound changes. A "regular" example is:
vallen viel gevallen ("to fall")
As in German, two anomalous class 7c verbs have formed new present stems, and shortened the vowel in the past tense:
vangen ving gevangen ("to catch")
hangen hing gehangen ("to hang")
One verbs displays L-vocalization:
houden hield gehouden ("to hold")
Class 7d:
blazen blies geblazen ("to blow")
slapen sliep geslapen ("to sleep")
Class 7e:
roepen riep geroepen ("to call")
Other class 7 verbs in Dutch are: blazen, laten, raden*, slapen, stoten*, vallen; anomalous: hangen, vangen, gaan, houden, vouwen*. (The verbs with * are nowadays mostly semi-strong)

Afrikaans

The distinction between strong and weak verbs has been lost in Afrikaans, as the original past tense has fallen out of use almost entirely, being replaced with the old perfect tense using the past participle. For example the ancestral Dutch hij zong has become hy het gesing ("he sang/has sung/had sung). One relic of a strong verbs remains, however: wees was gewees ("to be").

German

From West Germanic to Old High German:

Class Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Verb meaning
1 rītan reit ritun giritan to ride
2a friosan frōs frurun gifroran to freeze
2b sūfan souf sufun gisoffan to close
3a bintan bant buntun buntan to bind
3b werdan ward wurtun giwortan to become
4 beran bar bārun giboran to bear
5 lesan las lārun gileran to gather, to read
6 tragan truog truogun gitragan to carry
7a heizan hiaz hiazun giheizan to call, to be called
7b (h)loufan (h)liof (h)liofun gi(h)loufan to run
7c haltan hialt hialtun gihaltan to hold
7d rātan riat riatun girātan to advise
7e wuofan wiof wiofun giwuofan to weep

Changes from Old High German to Modern German:

Class Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Verb meaning
1 reiten
leihen		 ritt
lieh		 ritten
liehen		 geritten
geliehen		 to ride
to lend
2a bieten bot boten geboten to offer, to bid
2b saugen sog sogen gesogen to suck
3a binden
rinnen
glimmen		 band
rann
glomm		 banden
rannen
glommen		 gebunden
geronnen
geglommen		 to bind
to flow
to shine, to glow
3b helfen
dreschen		 half
drosch		 halfen
droschen		 geholfen
gedroschen		 to help
to thresh
4 treffen traf trafen getroffen to hit
5 geben gab gaben gegeben to give
6 graben grub gruben gegraben to dig
7a heißen hieß hießen geheißen to be called
7b laufen lief liefen gelaufen to walk/run
7c halten hielt hielten gehalten to hold
7d schlafen schlief schliefen geschlafen to sleep
7e stoßen stieß stießen gestoßen to push, to knock

The classes are still well preserved in modern German.

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 after vowel lengthening. Trügen would have followed in its wake, because the two words form a common rhyming collocation.
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 Modern German the uo is monophthongised to a u.
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.
Other 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. (The verb still exists in other languages, such as the verb gang used in Scotland and northern England.)

Low German

The following changes occurred from West Germanic to Old Saxon:

Class Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Verb meaning
1 rīdan rēd ridun giridan to ride
2a friosan frōs frurun gifroran to freeze
2b bilūkan bilōk bilukun bilokan to close
3a bindan band bundun gibundan to bind
3b werðan warð wurdun giwordan to become
4 beran bar bārun giboran to bear
5 lesan las lāsun gilesan to gather, to read
6 dragan drōg drōgun gidragan to carry
7a hētan hēt hētun gihētan to call, to be called
7b hlōpan hliop hliopun gihlōpan to run
7c haldan hēld hēldun gihaldan to hold
7d rādan rēd rēdun girādan to advise
7e hrōpan hriop hriopun gihrōpan to call

From Old Saxon to Middle Low German:

As in Middle Dutch Lengthening of vowels in open syllables: e > ē, o > ō, a > ā, ö > ȫ, ü > ǖ. i Is often lengthened to ē.

From Middle Low German to Modern Low German:

Class Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Verb meaning
1 rieden reed reden reden to ride
2a beden bood boden baden to offer, to bid
2b schuven schoov schoven schaven to shove
3a binnen bunn bunnen bunnen to bind
3b starven
swellen		 storv
swull		 storven
swullen		 storven
swullen		 to die
to swell
4 stehlen
steken		 stohl
steek/stook		 stohlen
steken/stoken		 stahlen
steken/staken		 to steal
5 geven
treden		 geev
tradd/treed		 geven
traden/treden		 geven
treden		 to give
to tread
6 graven groov groven graven to dig
7a heten heet heten heten to be called
7b lopen leep lepen lopen to walk/run
7c holen
fallen		 heel
full		 helen
fullen		 holen
fallen		 to hold
to fall
7d slapen sleep slepen slapen to sleep
7e ropen reep repen ropen to call

Most classes are quite well preserved, although the cohesion of some has been lost substantially or even entirely.

The verb kamen still shows the -u- infinitive which became -a-: kamen, keem, kamen. The verb to be, wesen, levelled its old preterite forms was/weren into weer/weren, although was still appears in some dialects.
The verb treden is anomalous as it has kept the -a- infinitive forms in the preterite and with the variation in vowel length, thus it has tradd, traddst, tradd in the singular with [ɑ] but traden in the plural with [aː]. However, normal class 5 preterite forms treed, treedst, treed, treden may also be found.
The verb fohren is now merging with föhren and takes weak past endings. The verb dregen has an anomalous infinitive in -ē- but has kept its class 6 past forms droog, drogen (preterite) and dragen (past participle). The verb laden has gone weak but has laden beside laadt in the past participle. The past tense of stahn (stunn), which derives from Middle Low German standen, also belongs to this class.
Finally the verb waschen shows preterite wusch and past participle wuschen, just like fallen, fangen and hangen, they seem to make a new strong verb class.

North Germanic

Changes from Proto-Germanic to Old Norse:

Class Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Verb meaning
1 ríða reið riðu riðinn to ride
2a lúka lauk luku lokinn to finish
2b frjósa fraus frusu frosinn to freeze
3a binda batt bundu bundinn to bind
3b verða varð urðu orðinn to become
4 bera bar báru borinn to bear
5 lesa las lásu lesinn to gather, to read
6 ala ól ólu alinn to grow, to produce
7a heita hét hétu heitinn to be called
7b hlaupa hljóp hljópu hlaupinn to leap
7c halda helt heldu haldinn to hold
7d ráða réð réðu ráðinn to advise
7e blóta blét blétu blótinn

Notes

  1. ↑ https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Proto-Indo-European/b%CA%B0er-.
  2. ↑ Carlos Quiles and Fernando López-Menchero, A Grammar of Modern Indo-European, 3rd edn (version: 5.2) (1 Oct 2012), http://dnghu.org/en/indo-european-language-grammar/, §7.8.3.
  3. ↑ See https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Proto-Germanic/beran%C4%85.
  4. ↑
  5. ↑ Examples: *aka- < *h2ego- ("to drive"), *mala- < *molh2o- ("to grind"), *habja- ("to lift") < *kh2pio- ("to seize"). See Ringe 2006, p. 188.
  6. ↑ Ringe, Don. 2006. A Linguistic History of English. From Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanlic. pp. 226, 243.
  7. 1 2 Jasanoff, Jay (2008). "From Reduplication to Ablaut: The Class VII Strong Verbs of Northwest Germanic" (PDF). Retrieved 26 November 2012.

References

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