Table 10

Participles were employed predicatively and attributively like adjectives and shared their grammatical categories: they were declined as weak and strong and agreed with nouns in number, gender and case.

The majority of OE verbs fell into two great divisions: the strong verbs and the weak verbs. The terms “strong” and “weak” were introduced into the science of philology by a famous German linguist Jacob Grimm. He considered strong verbs “to be of a more noble nature” as compared with weak verbs, because strong verbs were conjugated by means of vowel interchange which reflected the “golden age” of the language. Besides, there were several 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 some other differences in the conjugations. The strong verbs had four principal forms (Infinitive - Past Simple singular - Past Simple plural - Participle II), the weak ones – three principal forms (Infinitive - Past Simple - Participle II). All the forms of the verb, both finite and 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, Subjunctive and also in the Present Participle and the Infinitive; all the forms of the Past tense were derived from the past tense stems; the Past Participle had a separate stem. The morphological division of verbs takes origin from the Gothic language.

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 4 stems, as they distinguished two stems in the past tense – one for the 1^st and 3^rd p sg Indicative mood, the other – for the other past tense forms, Indicative and Subjunctive. All in all, there were 7 classes of strong verbs in OE, the difference being in the formation of the principal forms. The main means of it was vowel gradation. The formal indicator of the infinitive was suffix –an, Past Simple plural had suffix –on, Participle II –en (I class: rīsan (rise)-rās-rison-risen; II class: cēosan (choose)-cēas-curon-coren; III: bindan (bind)-band-bundon-bunden; helpan (help)-healp-hulpon-holpen; feohtan-feaht-fuhton-fohten; IV: stelan (steal)-stæl-stælon-stolen; V: cweþan (say)-cwæþ-cwædon-cweden; VI: faran-fōr-fōron-faren; VII: feallan (fall)-fēōl-fēōllon-feallen; cnāwan (know)-cnēōw-cnēōwon-cnāwen). The differentiation between the classes was made on the basis of the Gothic classification of classes which strictly distinguished between the types of root vowel interchanges in the process of principal forms building. Phonetic changes had a certain impact on the vowel interchanges but the main principle of distinguishing verb classes remained the same. This vowel interchange, or ablaut, which was the principal grammatical means in the conjugation of the OE strong verbs was of two kinds: qualitative and quantitative. The first five classes of strong verbs are mainly based on the qualitative ablaut; the sixth class – on the quantitative ablaut; verbs of the seventh class originally built their principal forms by means of redublication of the root syllable.

The weak verbs were also greatly influenced by the phonetic processes. Like in Gothic, the dental suffix remains the main marker of the weak verbs, but it was assimilated in some phonetic conditions, e.g. –d- was assimilated into –t- if used in a verb ending in a voiceless consonant: cēpan (keep) – cēpte – cēped (the linking –e- in Participle II permits maintaining voiced suffix –d-).The essential feature of the weak verbs in comparison with the strong ones was their unchangeability. In OE it was broken, as mentioned before, in certain position in the word. The weak verbs derived from 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 cases suffixation was accompanied by a vowel interchange (class I: hælan (heal)-hælde-hældon-hæled; II: fiscian (fish)-fiscode-fiscod; macian (make)-macode-macodon-macod; III: habban (have)-hæfde-hæfd; libban (live)-lifde-lifd; secʒan (say)-sæʒde-sæʒd). Besides, there were some verbs which in general referred to the weak group but are treated as irregular because they employed vowel gradation in building their principal forms: þencan (think)-þōhte-þōht; sellan (sell)-sealde-seald. However, some scholars consider that suchlike verbs should be treated as a separate subgroup (Smirnitsky, Reznik). R.V.Reznik suggests also separating two subgroups: irregular strong verbs and irregular weak verbs.

Minor groups of verbs differed from the weak and strong verbs but were not homogeneous either. Some of them combined the features of the strong and weak verbs in a peculiar way; others were suppletive or altogether anomalous. A.I. Smirnitsky suggested three minor groups of verbs in OE: suppletive, irregular (anomalous), preterite-present verbs.

Among suppletive verbs which build different forms from different roots the following may be mentioned: bēon(wesan) (be), ʒān-ēode (go), dōn-dyde (do), where the first component stands for the present tense forms, the second-for the past. A similar phenomenon is observed in German: sein-war-ich bin; in Russian: быть-есть, иду-шел; in French: aller - je vais - j’irai.

The characteristic feature of last group of verbs, preterite-present ones, consists in the following. Such verbs form their present stem from strong verbs and their past stems take the suffix of the weak conjugation. The dental suffix in this case is assimilated to (t, s, ð) in the majority of verbs and it can be explained by the absence of the linking vowel between the root and the ending. According to modern estimates, in OE there were 12 preterite-present verbs presented in Table 10.