Old English verbal system: weak verbs.

built their principal forms by inserting a special dental suffix between the root and ending.

Weak verbs are:	an innovation of Germanic
the newest development in terms of German verbs
the most open group, with most new or innovated verbs after Germanic falling into this category

The number of weak verbs in OE by far exceeded that of strong verbs.

The verbs of Class I usually were i-stems, originally contained the element [-i/-j] between the root and the endings. The verbs of Class II were built with the help of the stem-suffix -ō, or -ōj and are known as ō-stems. Class III was made up of a few survivals of the PG third and fourth classes of weak verbs, mostly -ǽj-stems.

OE weak verbs are relatively younger than the strong verbs. They reflect a later stage in the development of Germanic languages. They were an open class in OE, as new verbs that entered the language generally formed their forms on analogy with weak verbs. That is why the number of weak verbs in OE is much more than that of strong verbs.

Weak verbs had 3 principal forms: the Inf., the Past tense and Part 2. They formed their Past and Part2 by means of the dental suffix -d or -t. (but not vowel interchange as in strong verbs)

All the weak verbs are subdivided into 3 classes. The difference between them lies in 1) the ending of the Inf.; 2) the sonority of the suffix and 3) the sounds preceding the suffix.

The verbs of Class I are traditionally divided into 2 groups: regular and irregular verbs. In regular verbs the root vowel was mutated in all the 3 principal forms. The sign of irregularity of the weak verbs in OE was mutation only in the 1-st principal form (the Inf).

The verbs of Class II originally had the suffix oj(oi)and are known as ō-stems .

Class III verbs were made up of a few survivals of the PG æj(ai)-stems. In OE this suffix is no longer found. The suffix of the Past T. and Part2 is joined on to the root.

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