In the
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania, and Southern Africa. The most widely spoke ...
, weak verbs are by far the largest group of verbs, and are therefore often regarded as the norm (the
regular verbs). They are distinguished from the
Germanic strong verb
In the Germanic languages, a strong verb is a verb that marks its past tense by means of Indo-European ablaut, changes to the stem vowel. A minority of verbs in any Germanic language are strong; the majority are ''Germanic weak verb, weak verbs'' ...
s by the fact that their past tense form is marked by an inflection containing a , , or sound (as in English ''I walk~I walked'') rather than by changing the verb's root vowel (as in English ''I rise~I rose'').
Whereas the strong verbs are the oldest group of verbs in Germanic, originating in
Indo-European
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...
, the weak verbs arose as an innovation in
proto-Germanic
Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic languages, Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages.
Proto-Germanic eventually developed from ...
. Originally the weak verbs consisted of new verbs coined from pre-existing nouns (for example the noun ''name'' was turned into the verb ''to name''), or coined from strong verbs to express the sense of causing the action denoted by that strong verb (for example the strong verb ''to rise'' was turned into the weak verb ''to raise'').
However, over time, the weak verbs have become the normal form of verbs in all Germanic languages, with most strong verbs being reassigned to the weak class. For example, in Old English the verb ''to lock'' () was strong (present tense 'I lock', past tense 'I locked'), but has now become weak. This transition is ongoing. For example, the English verb ''to cleave'' currently exists in both a conservative strong form (past tense ''I clove'') and an innovative weak form (past tense ''I cleaved'').
General description
In Germanic languages, weak verbs form their
preterite
The preterite or preterit ( ; abbreviated or ) is a grammatical tense or verb form serving to denote events that took place or were completed in the past; in some languages, such as Spanish, French, and English, it is equivalent to the simple p ...
s and
past participle
In linguistics, a participle (; abbr. ) is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from a verb and used as an adject ...
s by means of a
dental 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 and adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can ca ...
, an inflection that contains a or sound or similar. (For comparative purposes, they will be referred to as a dental, but in some of the languages, including most varieties of English, and are
alveolar instead.) In all Germanic languages, the preterite and past participle forms of weak verbs are formed from the same stem.
Historically, the pronunciation of the suffix in the vast majority of
weak verbs (all four classes) was but, in most sources discussing
Proto-Germanic
Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic languages, Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages.
Proto-Germanic eventually developed from ...
, it is spelled by convention. In the
West Germanic languages
The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three branches of the Germanic languages, Germanic family of languages (the others being the North Germanic languages, North Germanic and the extinct East Germanic languages, East Germ ...
, the
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 and adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can ca ...
hardened to , but it remained a
fricative
A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in ...
in the other early
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania, and Southern Africa. The most widely spoke ...
(
Gothic and often in
Old Norse
Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants ...
).
In the
English language
English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a English as a lingua franca, global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles (tribe), Angles, one of the Germanic peoples th ...
, the dental is a after a
voiced consonant (''loved'') or
vowel
A vowel is a speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract, forming the nucleus of a syllable. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness a ...
(''laid''), a after a
voiceless consonant
In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies v ...
(''laughed''), and after the
dentals/alveolars and themselves, but English uses the suffix spelling regardless of pronunciation, with the exception of a few verbs with irregular spellings.
In
Dutch, and are distributed as in English provided there is a following
vowel
A vowel is a speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract, forming the nucleus of a syllable. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness a ...
. When there is no following vowel,
terminal devoicing leads to the universal . Nevertheless, Dutch still distinguishes between the
spelling
Spelling is a set of conventions for written language regarding how graphemes should correspond to the sounds of spoken language. Spelling is one of the elements of orthography, and highly standardized spelling is a prescriptive element.
Spelli ...
s in and even in final position: see the
't kofschip rule.
In
Afrikaans
Afrikaans is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia and to a lesser extent Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and also Argentina where there is a group in Sarmiento, Chubut, Sarmiento that speaks the Pat ...
, which descends from Dutch, the
past tense
The past tense is a grammatical tense whose function is to place an action or situation in the past. Examples of verbs in the past tense include the English verbs ''sang'', ''went'' and ''washed''. Most languages have a past tense, with some hav ...
has fallen out of use altogether, and the past participle is marked only with the prefix . Therefore, the suffix has disappeared along with the forms that originally contained it.
In
German the dental is always and always spelled because of the third phase of the
High German consonant shift
In historical linguistics, the High German consonant shift or second Germanic consonant shift is a phonological development (sound change) that took place in the southern parts of the West Germanic languages, West Germanic dialect continuum. The ...
(d→t).
In
Low German
Low German is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language variety, language spoken mainly in Northern Germany and the northeastern Netherlands. The dialect of Plautdietsch is also spoken in the Russian Mennonite diaspora worldwide. "Low" ...
, the dental ending of the preterite tense was originally or , according to the stem of the verb. However the ending has fallen out in pronunciation, starting in the 17th century when the preterite was written with the ending representing the sound , which was already the last remnant of the former ''-de'' and ''-te'' endings of Middle Low German. Now, the only Low German verbs that still show a remnant of a dental ending are , which has the preterite , and the verb , which has with old ''r''-ending from the Middle Low German dental.
In
Icelandic, the dental was originally a voiced dental fricative . It is preserved as such after vowels, voiced fricatives, and but has been hardened to a stop after nasals and . It and has been devoiced to after voiceless consonants and in some other cases (in most Old Norse texts, the alternation is already found in heavy roots, but the light ones preserve ). Furthermore, the voicing contrast between and has been replaced in modern Icelandic by an
aspiration contrast, which may not be realized phonetically in all the relevant positions.
The situation of early
Norwegian was similar to Icelandic, but intervocalic eventually disappeared. In the verbs in which it remains, the dental is or , depending on conjugation class and
dialect
A dialect is a Variety (linguistics), variety of language spoken by a particular group of people. This may include dominant and standard language, standardized varieties as well as Vernacular language, vernacular, unwritten, or non-standardize ...
. It is spelled accordingly. In
Nynorsk
Nynorsk (; ) is one of the two official written standards of the Norwegian language, the other being Bokmål. From 12 May 1885, it became the state-sanctioned version of Ivar Aasen's standard Norwegian language (''Landsmål''), parallel to the Da ...
, it can be different in the preterite and the past participle.
Swedish has a similar situation to that of Norwegian, but the dental is retained in the spelling, even between vowels. Some informal spellings indicate a lost dental, such as in ("said") from the standard spelling .
Classes of verbs
In
Proto-Germanic
Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic languages, Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages.
Proto-Germanic eventually developed from ...
, there were seven types of weak verbs, five of which were common. However, they are normally grouped into four classes, based on the conjugational system of Gothic.
Class I Verbs
Class I verbs actually consist of three classes in
Proto-Germanic
Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic languages, Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages.
Proto-Germanic eventually developed from ...
:
Class I, subclass (i)
A small class of verbs had no suffix in the present, and no suffix in the past (other than the -d- or -t- of all weak verbs). This class had only three members:
# "to bring", past tense . This verb was continued as such in all the descendants, although an alternate stem occasionally appeared in some of the
West Germanic languages
The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three branches of the Germanic languages, Germanic family of languages (the others being the North Germanic languages, North Germanic and the extinct East Germanic languages, East Germ ...
(e.g.,
Old English
Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...
).
# "to use", past tense . This verb tended to move into other classes. For example, in Gothic this verb moved into subclass (ii) of Class I (, past ), whereas in Old English it became a Class II strong verb (, past tense ← ).
# "to dwell", past tense . This verb continued as such in most descendants but became a Class III weak verb in Gothic.
Class I, subclass (ii)
A small class of verbs had the suffix -j- in the present and no suffix in the past. This class had only five members in Proto-Germanic:
# "to buy," past tense
# "to seek," past tense (given a regularized subclass (iii) past in Gothic)
# "to think," past tense
# "to seem," past tense
# "to work," past tense
Verbs of this class were said to undergo
rückumlaut ("reverse umlaut") in the past, since the
umlaut occurring in the present (triggered by the -j-) is undone or "reversed" in the past (due to the lack of the umlaut-triggering stem -i- of subclass
ii, leading to a non-umlauted vowel in the past.
These verbs also have consonant and vowel alternations between present and past that are due to regular sound changes but result in strikingly different forms in the historical Germanic languages (e.g., ''think'', past tense ''thought''). Specifically:
*There is an alternation between -k- or -g- in the present and -h- in the past, caused by the -t- of the past-tense suffix. Prior to the operation of
Grimm's Law
Grimm's law, also known as the First Germanic Consonant Shift or First Germanic Sound Shift, is a set of sound laws describing the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) stop consonants as they developed in Proto-Germanic in the first millennium BC, first d ...
, the stem consonant was -g- or -gʰ-. Before -t-, the consonant was devoiced to -k- by
assimilation and then became -h- by
Grimm's Law
Grimm's law, also known as the First Germanic Consonant Shift or First Germanic Sound Shift, is a set of sound laws describing the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) stop consonants as they developed in Proto-Germanic in the first millennium BC, first d ...
. This alternation is sometimes called
Primärberührung.
*-n- before -h- disappeared after nasalizing the previous vowel. When the -n- disappeared, the vowel was lengthened by the process of
compensatory lengthening.
*-u- was lowered to -o- in the past tense due to
a-mutation, since the following vowel was always non-high.
The class remained small in Gothic, but expanded significantly in the other languages:
*In Old Norse, all short-stem verbs (those with a short vowel followed by at most one consonant, or a long vowel followed by no consonant) appeared to move into this class, as indicated by the fact that no umlaut occurs in the past, as would be caused by a suffix -i-. However, this may have been due to a regular sound change that eliminated unstressed, nonfinal short vowels coming after a short stem before the operation of umlaut.
*In
Old High German
Old High German (OHG; ) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally identified as the period from around 500/750 to 1050. Rather than representing a single supra-regional form of German, Old High German encompasses the numerous ...
, short-stem verbs ending in -zz (-tz), -pf, -ck (Proto-Germanic root ending in *-t, -p, or -k), and optionally those in -ll, join this class. For example, "to tell" < , past tense . A number of long-stem verbs also join this class, like "to burn," past tense ; "to turn," past tense .
*In Old English and the other northern
West Germanic languages
The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three branches of the Germanic languages, Germanic family of languages (the others being the North Germanic languages, North Germanic and the extinct East Germanic languages, East Germ ...
, a number of verbs ending in -(c)c- and -ll- joined the class, including the following Old English verbs:
:* "to shake" < , past tense <
:* "to afflict," past tense
:* "to seize" (based on earlier ?), past tense
:* "to moisten," past tense
:* "to reach" < , past tense <
:* "to narrate," past tense
:* "to care for" (based on earlier ?), past tense
:* "to teach," past tense
:* "to stretch," past tense
:* "to cover," past tense
:* "to awake," past tense
:* "to kill" < , past tense <
:* "to dwell," past tense
:* "to give, sell," past tense
:* "to place," past tense
:* "to tell," past tense
In Late Old English, further verbs in -can were drawn into this class by analogy, but with umlaut maintained, e.g., "to deceive", past tense , earlier , or "to warm," past tense , earlier . At the same time, verbs in -ccan were modified to follow the same pattern, as in the new past tense form alongside earlier .
Class I, subclass (iii)
A large class of verbs had the suffix -j- in the present and -i- in the past, for example, Gothic "to set" (Old English ) and sandjan "to send" (Old English ). As shown in the Old English cognates:
*The -j- produced
umlaut of the stem vowel in languages other than Gothic.
*The -j- caused
West Germanic gemination in the West Germanic languages in short-stem verbs ending in a consonant other than -r.
*The -j- resulted in
palatalization of preceding
velar consonant
Velar consonants are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth (also known as the "velum").
Since the velar region of the roof of the mouth is relativel ...
s in Old English.
*The -j- remained in Gothic and
Old Saxon
Old Saxon (), also known as Old Low German (), was a Germanic language and the earliest recorded form of Low German (spoken nowadays in Northern Germany, the northeastern Netherlands, southern Denmark, the Americas and parts of Eastern Eur ...
, but disappeared in the other languages: In long-stem verbs in Old Norse, and in all verbs except those in -r in the remaining West Germanic languages. (In
Old High German
Old High German (OHG; ) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally identified as the period from around 500/750 to 1050. Rather than representing a single supra-regional form of German, Old High German encompasses the numerous ...
, it deflected *-jan into *-jen before disappearing, leaving the suffix -en. This phenomenon, which resembles the usual umlaut of a in syllables ''preceding'' j, is nevertheless distinct and must have happened later, as the missing j also caused umlaut.)
This class was split into two subclasses in all the Old Germanic languages, one consisting of short-stem verbs and one of long-stem verbs. The distinction between the two was originally due to
Sievers' Law, and was extended due to changes such as
West Germanic gemination, which affected short-stem but not long-stem verbs. The West Germanic languages had a third subclass consisting of short-stem verbs ending in -r (e.g., Old English "to plow," "to save," "to stir"), due to
West Germanic gemination and subsequent loss of -j- not taking place.
The following is a cross-language paradigm of a short-stem Class I verb "to anger" (Gothic , Old Norse ,
Old High German
Old High German (OHG; ) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally identified as the period from around 500/750 to 1050. Rather than representing a single supra-regional form of German, Old High German encompasses the numerous ...
,
Old Saxon
Old Saxon (), also known as Old Low German (), was a Germanic language and the earliest recorded form of Low German (spoken nowadays in Northern Germany, the northeastern Netherlands, southern Denmark, the Americas and parts of Eastern Eur ...
, Old English ,
Old Frisian
Old Frisian was a West Germanic language spoken between the late 13th century and the end of 16th century. It is the common ancestor of all the modern Frisian languages except for the North Frisian language#Insular North Frisian, Insular North ...
). Note that the Old Saxon and Old Frisian verbs given here are unattested, almost certainly due to the small nature of the respective corpora.
The following is a cross-language paradigm of a long-stem Class I verb "to hear" (Gothic , Old Norse , Old High German , Old Saxon , Old English , Old Frisian )
Class II Verbs
Class II verbs were formed with a suffix -ō-. In the northern West Germanic languages, an alternative extended suffix -ōja- sometimes appears in the non-past forms, e.g., the Old English infinitive .
The following is a cross-language paradigm of "to invite" (Gothic , Old Norse , Old High German , Old Saxon , ladian
ōjan'', Old English , Old Frisian ).
Class III Verbs
What is known as "Class III" was actually two separate classes in Proto-Germanic:
*A class of verbs with
stative semantics (i.e., denoting a state rather than an action), formed with a present suffix that was either *-ai- or *-ja-, and no suffix in the past.
*A class of verbs with
factitive semantics (i.e., with the meaning "make X" where X is an adjective or noun, e.g., "renew, enslave"), formed with a suffix that was either *-ai- or *-ā-, and a suffix *-a- in the past.
The histories of this class in the various Germanic languages are quite varied:
*Old High German combined both into a single class and generalized *-ai- (appearing as -ē- through regular sound change) to all forms of the present and past.
*Gothic combined both into a single class, keeping the *-ai-/-ā- alternation of the factitives in the present, generalizing the alternation to the statives as well, and borrowing *-ai- as the past suffix.
*Old Norse for the most part combined both into a single class in the same fashion as Gothic; however, two relic stative verbs ( "to say" and "to be silent") preserve the stative suffixes in both present and past, and a third verb ( "to have") is a mixture of the two, with factitive suffixes in the present indicative plural and imperative and stative suffixes in the present indicative singular and past participle (elsewhere, the two types have fallen together).
*The other (i.e., northern) West Germanic languages have only small numbers of Class III verbs—but they consistently follow the stative paradigm, unlike the three languages above.
An example is the stative verb reconstructed as
Proto-Germanic
Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic languages, Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages.
Proto-Germanic eventually developed from ...
"to have", past indicative third-person singular :
*Old English < , past, third-person singular — derived entirely through regular sound changes.
*Old High German , past, third person singular — derived through analogical spread of suffix -ē-.
*Gothic , past, third-person singular — derived through various analogical changes.
*Old Norse , past, third-person — partly regular, partly analogical.
Only four stative verbs survive as Class III verbs in the
northern West Germanic languages (i.e., Old English, Old Saxon, Old Frisian and
Old Low Franconian):
* "to say"
* "to live"
* "to hold, have"
* "to think"
However, there are five more verbs that appear as Class III verbs in Old High German, Gothic, and/or Old Norse that also have remnants of the stative conjugation in one or more northern West Germanic languages:
* "to be silent"
* "to be silent"
* "to endure" (normally Class II in Old English, but compare archaic umlauted infinitive ; Class III in Old Norse )
* "to hate"
* "to hate" (normally Class II in Old English, but compare umlauted nominalized present participle "enemy"; Class III in Gothic )
Class IV Verbs
Class IV verbs were formed with a suffix -nan, e.g., Gothic "to become full". The present tense was conjugated as a strong verb, for example, Gothic , etc. The past tense was conjugated with suffix -nō-, e.g., Gothic , etc. This class vanished in other Germanic languages; however, a significant number of cognate verbs appear as Class II verbs in Old Norse and as Class III verbs in Old High German. This class has
fientive semantics, that is, "
become X," where X is an adjective or a past participle of a verb.
*Examples of deadjectival Class IV verbs in Gothic are "to become blind" (blinds "blind"), "to become whole" ( "whole").
*Examples of deverbal Class IV verbs in Gothic are "to perish" ( "to destroy"), "to dry up, wither away" ( "to wither"), "to be magnified" ( "to magnify"), "to be exalted" ( "to exalt").
Note that the last two are deverbal even though the underlying root is adjectival because they are formed to other verbs (which are in turn formed from adjectives).
The vast majority of Class IV verbs appear to be deverbal. Class IV verbs derived from weak verbs keep the same stem form as the underlying weak verb. However, class IV verbs derived from strong verbs adopt the ablaut of the past participle, for example:
* "to be torn to pieces" (Class I "to tear to pieces")
* "to be poured out" (Class II "to pour")
* "to become unbound" (Class III "to unbind")
* "to be torn asunder, burst asunder" (Class IV "to tear asunder, burst")
* "to be exalted" (Class VI "to exalt")
* "to abound, become larger" (Class VII "to increase, add to").
Modern languages
In the modern languages, the various classes have mostly been leveled into a single productive class. Icelandic, Norwegian and Frisian have retained two productive classes of weak verbs. (In Frisian, in addition to the class with -de, there is a class of je- verbs, where the dental suffix has dropped, i.e., -je < -iad.)
Swiss German
Swiss German (Standard German: , ,Because of the many different dialects, and because there is no #Conventions, defined orthography for any of them, many different spellings can be found. and others; ) is any of the Alemannic German, Alemannic ...
also has two types of weak verbs, descended from Class I and Classes II and III, respectively, of Old High German weak verbs and marked with -t and -et, respectively, in the
past participle
In linguistics, a participle (; abbr. ) is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from a verb and used as an adject ...
.
In the history of English, the following changes happened:
#Most Class III verbs were moved into Class II prior to the historical period of Old English.
#The remaining four Class III verbs moved into Class I or Class II late in Old English.
#Throughout the Middle English period, Class I verbs gradually moved into Class II.
In modern English, only one productive weak paradigm remains, derived from Class II. A number of Class I verbs still persist, for example:
*From Old English subclass (i): bring (brought)
*From Old English subclass (ii) or analogously: buy (bought); catch (caught); seek (sought); sell (sold); teach (taught); tell (told); think (thought); work (wrought)
'obsolescent''*From Old English subclass (iii) or analogously: bend (bent); bet (bet); breed (bred); build (built); cast (cast); cost (cost); creep (crept); cut (cut); deal (dealt); dream (dreamt); feed (fed); flee (fled); hear (heard); hit (hit); hurt (hurt); keep (kept); kneel (knelt); knit (knit); lay (laid); lead (led); leap (leapt); leave (left); lend (lent); light (lit); lose (lost); mean (meant); meet (met); put (put); read (read); rend (rent)
'obsolescent'' send (sent); set (set); shed (shed); shoot (shot); shut (shut); sleep (slept); speed (sped); spend (spent); spill (spilt); split (split); spread (spread); sweep (swept); thrust (thrust); wed (wed); weep (wept); as well as a few others
*From Old English Class III verbs: have (had); say (said)
As the previous list shows, although there is only one productive class of weak verbs, there are plenty of "irregular" weak verbs that do not follow the paradigm of this class. Furthermore, the regular paradigm in English is not unitary, but in fact is divided into subclasses in both the written and spoken language, although in different ways:
*In the written language, before the past-tense suffix -ed, short-stem verbs double the final consonant (e.g., dip
ipped''), while a -y following a consonant becomes -i- (e.g., carry
arried'').
*In the spoken language, the past-tense suffix -ed is variously pronounced , or depending on the preceding consonant.
Both of these characteristics occur in a similar fashion in most or all the modern Germanic languages. In modern German, for example, descendants of the original subclass (ii) of Class I are still irregular (e.g., "to think", "to burn"), and subclasses of the productive verb paradigm are formed by verbs ending in -eln or -ern and in -ten or -den, among others.
Modern paradigms
One of the regular weak verb conjugations is as follows.
West Germanic
North Germanic
:1. prepare, manufacture
Weak and strong verbs
Weak verbs should be contrasted with
strong verbs, which form their past tenses by means of ''
ablaut'' (vowel gradation: ''sing - sang - sung''). Most verbs in the early stages of the Germanic languages were strong. However, as the ablaut system is no longer productive except in rare cases of analogy. Almost all new verbs in Germanic languages are weak, and the majority of the original strong verbs have become weak by analogy.
Strong to weak transformations
As an example of the rather common process of originally strong verbs becoming weak, we may consider the development from the Old English strong verb to modern English ''shove'':
* (strong class 2)
* ''shove shoved shoved''
Many hundreds of weak verbs in contemporary English go back to Old English strong verbs.
In some cases, a verb has become weak in the preterite but not in the participle and may be thought of as "semi-strong" (not a technical term). Dutch has a number of examples:
* ("to wash")
* ("to laugh")
An example in English is:
*''sow sowed sown'' (strong class 7 with weak preterite)
Often, the old strong participle may survive as an adjective long after it has been replaced with a weak form in verbal constructions. The English adjective ''molten'' is an old strong participle of ''melt'', which is now a purely weak verb with the participle ''melted''. The participle of the German verb (to bake), is gradually being replaced by , but the adjective is always (baked).
Weak to strong transformations
The reverse process is very rare and can also be partial, producing "semi-strong" verbs as in ''show showed shown'' (originally a weak verb with its participle modelled on ''sown'')
Weak verbs that develop strong forms are often unstable. A typical example is German (to ask), which is historically weak and is still weak in standard German. However, for a time in the 18th century, the forms by analogy with, for example, (to carry) were also considered acceptable in the standard. They survive today (along with a present tense ) in the
Rhinelandic regiolect and underlying dialects. In Dutch, the new strong past of the cognate is standard today, but its past participle is weak (though some dialects do have ).
Origins
The weak conjugation of verbs is an innovation of
Proto-Germanic
Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic languages, Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages.
Proto-Germanic eventually developed from ...
(unlike the older strong verbs, the basis of which goes back to
Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. No direct record of Proto-Indo-European exists; its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-Euro ...
). While primary verbs (those inherited from PIE) already had an ablaut-based perfect form that was the basis of the Germanic strong preterite. Secondary verbs (those derived from other forms after the break-up of PIE) had to form a preterite otherwise, which necessitated the creation of the weak conjugation.
Denominative derivation
The vast majority of weak verbs are secondary, or derived. The two main types of derived verbs were denominative and deverbative. A denominative verb is one that has been created out of a noun. The denominative in Indo-European and early Germanic was formed by adding an ablauting
thematic *-y- suffix to a noun or adjective. This created verbs such as Gothic 'to name'.
Causative verbs
A significant subclass of Class I weak verbs are (deverbal)
causative verbs. They are formed in a way that reflects a direct inheritance from the PIE causative class of verbs. PIE causatives were formed by adding an accented affix ''-éy-'' to the ''o''-grade of a non-derived verb. In Proto-Germanic, causatives are formed by adding a suffix ''-j/ij-'' (the reflex of PIE ''-éy-'') to the past-tense ablaut (mostly with the reflex of PIE ''o''-grade) of a strong verb (the reflex of PIE non-derived verbs), with
Verner's Law voicing applied (the reflex of the PIE accent on the ''-éy-'' suffix):
* (I) "to bite" → "to bridle, yoke, restrain," i.e., "to make bite down"
* (I) "to rise" → "to raise," i.e., "to cause to rise"
* (II) "to bend" → "to bend (transitive)"
* (III) "to burn" → "to burn (transitive)"
* (III) "to perish" → "to destroy," i.e., "to cause to perish"
* (V) "to survive" → "to save," i.e., "to cause to survive"
* (V) "to lie down" → "to lay," i.e., "to cause to lie down"
* (V) "to sit" → "to set, seat," i.e., "to cause to sit"
* (VI) "to travel, go" → "to lead, bring," i.e., "to cause to go"
* (VI) "to travel, go" → "to carry across," i.e., "to cause to travel" (an archaic instance of the ''o''-grade ablaut used despite the differing past-tense ablaut)
* (VII) "to weep" → "to cause to weep"
* (I, preterite-present) "(s)he knows" → "to teach," i.e., "to cause to know"
Essentially, all verbs formed this way were conjugated as Class I weak verbs.
That method of forming causative verbs is no longer productive in the modern Germanic languages, but many relics remain. For example:
*The original strong verb ''fall fell fallen'' has a related weak verb ''fell felled felled'', which means "to cause (a tree) to fall"
*Strong ''sit sat sat'' and ''lie lay lain'' are matched with weak ''set set set'' and ''lay laid laid'', meaning "to cause something to sit" or "lie" respectively.
In some cases, phonological or semantic developments make the pairs difficult to recognise. For example:
*''Rear'' is the regular phonological development of Proto-Germanic given in the above list, but the connection between ''rise'' and ''rear'' is no longer obvious. The word ''raise'' also ultimately defines from ''*raizijaną'', but only via borrowing from Old Norse. The connection is perhaps made more obvious by noting that ''to rear a child'' is essentially synonymous with ''to raise a child''.
*''Drench'' was originally the causative of ''drink'', but the modern meaning of "drench" ("to cause to get wet") is no longer similar to "cause to drink".
*Similarly, German strong ("to suffer") has the derived weak verb ("to lead"), which makes sense when one realises that originally meant "walk, go" and came to its present meaning through the idea of "undergoing" suffering.
Other types
There are primary verbs that date to Indo-European that took a weak conjugation because they were unable to take a perfect, including verbs that had zero grade of the root in the present and so were unable to show the ablaut distinction necessary for a strong preterite. That was the case with the Gothic verbs "to work, create," "to buy," and "to seek."
Preterite-present verbs are primary verbs in which the PIE present was lost, and the perfect was given a present meaning. They needed a new past tense, which followed the weak pattern.
Most borrowings from other languages into Germanic were weak. However, this was not always the case: for example, 'to write' from Latin .
Origin of dental suffix
The origin of the dental suffix is uncertain. Perhaps the most commonly held theory is that it evolved out of a
periphrastic construction with the verb ''to do'': Germanic * ("love-did") > > Old English > ''loved'' or * ("salve-did", i.e., "put salve") > * > Old English > ''salved''. That would be analogous to
do-support
''Do''-support (sometimes referred to as ''do''-insertion or Periphrasis, periphrastic ''do'') in English grammar is the use of the auxiliary verb ''do'' (or one of its inflected forms, e.g. does) to form Negation (linguistics), negated clauses an ...
in modern English: ''I did love'', ''I did salve''.
The common PIE root meaning 'do' was a root
aorist
Aorist ( ; abbreviated ) verb forms usually express perfective aspect and refer to past events, similar to a preterite. Ancient Greek grammar had the aorist form, and the grammars of other Indo-European languages and languages influenced by the ...
and so did not take a perfect. However, it took a reduplicating present. The imperfect of the root, which filled in the simple past in Germanic, is probably the origin of the dental suffix.
That view is not without objections:
* Germanic has long -ē- in the plural, which cannot directly reflect the Proto-Indo-European situation.
* Reduplication is only in the Gothic plural, not in the singular.
The objections are sometimes answered as follows:
* There might have been a refashioning according to cases like namely, .
* Reduplication only in the plural can easily be explained by
haplology in Proto-Germanic ( being reduced to ) for the singular, with a later development of haplology for the plural in non-
East Germanic languages.
Another theory is that it came from a past participle ending, a final *''-daz'' from PIE *''-tos'' (compare Latin ), with personal endings added to it at a later stage. That theory, however, is also disputed because of its inability to explain all the facts.
According to Hill (2010), the endings, which in the singular do not show reduplication in any Germanic language, continue the PIE subjunctive of the root aorist.
Other meanings
The term "weak verb" was originally coined by
Jacob Grimm
Jacob Ludwig Karl Grimm (4 January 1785 – 20 September 1863), also known as Ludwig Karl, was a German author, linguist, philologist, jurist, and folklorist. He formulated Grimm's law of linguistics, and was the co-author of the ''Deutsch ...
, who only applied it to Germanic philology. However, the term is sometimes applied to other language groups to designate phenomena that are not really analogous. For example,
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...
''irregular'' verbs are sometimes called weak verbs because one of their radicals is weak. See
weak inflection.
Notes
General references
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References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Germanic Weak Verb
Verb types
Indo-European verbs
Germanic language histories
German grammar
English grammar
Linguistic morphology
Germanic languages