I hereby declare it *recommended reading*
for the class;)
I'll write a few things about verbs too.
Don't worry if a lot of this seems way
too advanced; it is. But it doesn't hurt
to know the road ahead.
The Germanic languages (English and Norse
included) have four types of verbs.
1. Weak verbs.
Keth already treated those. They form their
preterite (past tense) with a dental suffix.
Their past participle is also formed with
a dental suffix.
call - called - (I have) called
kalla - kallaði - (ek hefi) kallað
2. Irregular verbs
Those don't follow any sensible pattern.
The major irregular verbs in Old Norse
are 'vera' and 'vilja'. I think the verb
'to be' is the only truly irregular verb
in English.
3. Preterite present verbs
Strange verbs those. Their present tense
conjugation behaves like it's past tense!
Some common verbs are like that.
I will
thou wilt
he will (not *wills!)
we/you/they will
4. Strong verbs
Those form their preterite with a sound change
called ABLAUT. The vowel changes and no dental
suffix is added. Their past participles are also
formed with ablaut.
sing - sang - sung
And sometimes English adds 'en' too.
break - broke - broken
There are six series of ablauts in Germanic
used in verbal conjugation.
The forms given for each verb are
'infinitive' - '1st person singular preterite'
- '1st person plural preterite' - 'past participle'
1.
Old Norse: bíta - beit - bitum - bitit
rísa - reis - risum - risit