Conjugation and Verbs II

Introduction to Tenses

<to do: copy stuff from strong.htm and split to form intro to tense and intro to principle parts>

Weak Verbs

<to do>

<to do: what distinguishes class 1a, 1b and 2>

<to do: rules for double consonant mutation; rules for contractions>

"To be or not to be?"

The verb "to be" is extremely important in Modern English but is extremely irregular, as can be seen from comparing a few present tense and past tense forms: "I am" / "I was" / "I have been", "You are" / "You were". Old English is also very irregular and has two distinct forms for the present tense, as can be seen from the table below.

<to do: distinction between eom and bēo; usage in tenses?>

"To have"

<to do>

The remaining three class 3 weak verbs, libban (to live), secgan (to say) and hycgan (to think), will be considered in the chapter on irregular verbs.

Exercises

<to do>

Vocabulary

• hreddan, w. I , to free from, rescue, recover, save
• cwellan, w. I , to kill, murder, execute (MnE "quell")
• dreccan, w. I , to vex, irritate, oppress, torment
• rǽċan, w. I , to reach
• sēcan, w. I , to seek
• þencan, w. I , to think
• þyncan, w. I , to seem, appear
• bycgan, w. I , to buy
• wyrcan, w. I , to work
• lecgan, w. I , to lay
• bifian, w. II, to tremble
• bodian, w. II , to announce
• clipian, w. II , to call
• lufian, w. II , to love
• macian, w. II , to make
• þolian, w. II , to endure
• wunian, w. II , to dwell
• āswebban, w. I, to kill
• trymman, w. I, to strengthen
• settan, w. I, to set
• derian, w. I, to injure
• fyllan, w. I, to fill
• sendan, w. I, to send
• nemnan, w. I, to name
• bytlan, w. I, to build
• bærnan, w. I, to burn up
• tǽċan, w. I, to teach
• sellan
• reccan
• læccan
• bringan

Tony Jebson <jebbo@texas.net> 16th May 2001