It is well for the young learner to examine the above verbs closely, and to make a classification of them for his own use. The following are a few suggestions towards this task : (i) Collect verbs with vowels a, e, a; like fall, fell, fallen. (ii) Verbs with o, e, o; (iii) Verbs with 1, a, u; (iv) Verbs with i, u, u; like throw, threw, thrown. (v) Verbs with i, ou, ou; like find, found, found. (vi) Verbs with ea, o, o; like break, broke, broken. (vii) Verbs with 1, a, i; like give, gave, given. (viii) Verbs with a, o or oo, a; like shake, shook, shaken. (ix) Verbs with 1 (long), 0, 1 (short); like drive, drove, driven. (x) Verbs with ee or oo, o, o; like freeze, froze, frozen; or choose, chose, chosen. 29. Weak Verbs are of two kinds: (i) Irregular Weak; and (ii) Regular Weak. The Irregular Weak are such verbs as tell, told; buy, bought. The Regular Weak are such verbs as attend, attended; obey, obeyed. (i) The Irregular Weak verbs are, with very few exceptions, monosyllables, and are almost all of purely English origin. (ii) The Regular Weak verbs are entirely of Latin or of French origin. Since the language lost the power of changing the root-vowel of a verb, every verb received into our tongue from another language has been placed in the Regular Weak conjugation. 1 The past tenses of dig and stick were formerly weak; so were the pas sive participles of hide, rot, show, strew, saw. (iii) The ed or d is a shortened form of did. Thus, I loved is = I love did. 30. Irregular Weak verbs are themselves divided into two classes: (i) those which keep their ed, d, or t in the past tense; (ii) those which have lost the d or t. Thus we find (i) sleep, slept; teach, taught. Among (ii) we find feed, fed, which was once fed-dë; set, set, which was once set-të. It is of the greatest importance to attend to the following changes : (i) A sharp consonant follows a sharp, and a flat a flat. Thus p in sleep is sharp, and therefore we cannot say sleeped. We must take the sharp form of d, which is t, and say slept. So also felt, burnt, dreamt, etc. (ii) Some verbs shorten their vowel. Thus we have hear, heard; flee, fled; sleep, slept, etc. (iii) Some verbs have different vowels in the present and past: as tell, told; buy, bought; teach, taught; work, wrought. But it is not the past tense, it is the present that has changed. Thus the o in told represents the a in tale, talk, etc. (iv) Some have dropped an internal letter. Thus made is=maked; paid payed; had=haved. (v) Some verbs change the d of the present into a t in the past. Thus we have build, built; send, sent. (vi) A large class have the three parts-present, past, and passive participle-exactly alike. Such are rid, set, etc. 1 Rotten, tight, and wrought are now used as adjectives, and not as passive participles; cp. wrought iron, a tight knot, rotten wood. 31. Before we can learn the full conjugation of a verb, we must acquaint ourselves with all the parts of the auxiliary verbs-Shall and Will; Have and Be. (i) If be means existence merely (as in the sentence GOD IS), it is called a notional verb; if it is used in the formation of the passive voice, it is an auxiliary verb. In the same way, have is a notional verb when it means to possess, as in the sentence, "I have a shilling." 32. The following are the parts of the verb Shall : 33. The following are the parts of the verb Will: (i) Shall and will are used as Tense-auxiliaries. As a tense-auxiliary, shall is used only in the first person. Thus we say, I shall write ; thou wilt write; he will write-when we speak merely of future time. (ii) Shan't is = shall not. of will. Won't is = wol not, wol being an older form We find wol also in wolde—an old spelling of would. (iii) Shall in the 1st person expresses simple futurity; in the 2d and 3d persons, authority. Will in the 1st person expresses determination ; in the 2d and 3d, only futurity. 34. The following are the parts of the verb Have :— (i) Hast=havest. Compare e'en and even. (ii) Had=haved. |