ON THE NUMBERS OF VERBS.
s. 355. The inflection of the present tense, not only in Anglo-Saxon, but
in several other languages as well, has been given in the preceding
chapter. As compared with the present plural forms, _we love_, _ye love_,
_they love_, both the Anglo-Saxon _we lufiadh_, _ge lufiadh_, _hi lufiadh_,
and the Old English _we loven_, _ye loven_, _they loven_, have a peculiar
termination for the plural number which the present language wants. In
other words, the Anglo-Saxon and the Old English have a plural _personal_
characteristic, whilst the Modern English has nothing to correspond with
it.
The word _personal_ is printed in italics. It does not follow, that,
because there is no plural _personal_ characteristic, there is also no
plural characteristic.
There is no reason against the inflection of the word _love_ running
thus--_I love_, _thou lovest_, _he loves_; _we lave_, _ye lave_, _they
lave_; in other words, there is no reason against the vowel of the root
being changed with the number. In such a case there would be no _personal_
inflection, though there would be a plural, or a _numeral_, inflection.
Now, in Anglo-Saxon, with a great number of verbs such a plural inflection
not only actually takes place, but takes place most regularly. It takes
place, however, in the past tense only. And this is the case in all the
Gothic languages as well as in Anglo-Saxon. Amongst the rest, in--
_Moeso-Gothic._
Sk['a]in, _I shone_; skinum, _we shone_.
Sm['a]it, _I smote_; smitum, _we smote_.
K['a]us, _I chose_; kusum, _we chose_.
L['a]ug, _I lied_; lugum, _we lied_.
Gab, _I gave_; g[^e]bum, _we gave_.
At, _I ate_; ['e]tum, _we ate_.
Stal, _I stole_; st[^e]lum, _we stole_.
Qvam, _I came_; qv[^e]mum, _we came_.
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_Anglo-Saxon._
Arn, _I ran_; urnon, _we run_.
Ongan, _I began_; ongunnon, _we begun_.
Span, _I span_; spunnon, _we spun_.
Sang, _I sang_; sungon, _we sung_.
Swang, _I swang_; swungon, _we swung_.
Dranc, _I drank_; druncon, _we drunk_.
Sanc, _I sank_; suncon, _we sunk_.
Sprang, _I sprang_; sprungon, _we sprung_.
Swam, _I swam_; swummon, _we swum_.
Rang, _I rang_; rungon, _we rung_.
In all the Anglo-Saxon words, it may be remarked that the change is from
_a_ to _u_, and that both the vowels are short, or dependent. Also, that
the vowel of the present tense is _i_ short; as _swim_, _sing_, &c. The
Anglo-Saxon form of _run_ is _yrnan_.
In the following words the change is from the Anglo-Saxon _['a]_ to the
Anglo-Saxon _[=i]_. In English, the regularity of the change is obscured by
a change of pronunciation.
B['a]t, _I bit_; biton, _we bit_.
Sm['a]t, _I smote_; smiton, _we smit_.
From these examples the reader has himself drawn his inference; _viz._ that
words like
_Began, begun._
_Ran, run._
_Span, spun._
_Sang, sung._
[46]_Swang, swung._
_Sprang, sprung._
_Sank, sunk._
_Swam, swum._
_Rang, rung._
[46]_Bat, bit._
_Smote, smit._
_Drank, drunk, &c.,_
generally called double forms of the past tense, were originally different
numbers of the same tense, the forms in _u_, as _swum_, and the forms in
_i_, _bit_, being plural.
* * * * *
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