Irregular Verbs

Chapter 9: Irregular Verbs At the very minimum a grammatical sentence requires a subject and a verb. We can use the personal pronouns from Chapter 7 for subjects, and now we will add verbs to them to make our first sentences in Old English. The first verbs we learn are irregular verbs (verbs which are conjugated differently than most verbs in the language). There are two reasons to begin with the irregular verbs: first, they're very common (verbs like "is" "do" and "go" are all irregular in Anglo-Saxon). Second, you can just memorize them as a group without having to worry (yet) about working through conjugation patterns. The four Old English irregular verbs are: 1. 2. 3. 4. beon = to be willan = to wish don = to do gan = to go Beon ("to be") Beon has two forms in the present tense (eom and beo) which correspond (very roughly) with Modern English "is" and "be" (eom is the antecedent of Modern English "am" and beo is the antecedent of Modern English "be"). Although Old English does not have a future tense, a good rule of thumb is that the eom forms are generally present tense while beon forms may indicate future tense (you'll need to use the context of the word in these cases). Indicative Mood: Beon First Person Singular (I) Second Person Singular (you) Third Person Singular (he, she, it) All Plurals Present eom eart is sind or sint or sindon Present beo bist bið beoð Subjunctive Mood:Beon All Singulars All Plurals Present Present Past sie sien beo beon wære wæren Imperative Mood:Beon Second Person Singular Second Person Plural Present beo or wes beoð or wesað Note: The Imperative occurs only in the present tense and in the second person. Past wæs wære wæs wæron Inflected Infinitive: to beonne Participle beonde, wesende Willan ("to wish") Translating tip: One of the most common mistakes students make in beginning Old English is to translate forms of willan as "will" rather than "wish". This mistake is natural given the lack of a future tense in Old English, but you need to avoid it by remembering that willan, while it looks like "will," is a false friend and should not be relied upon. Memorize: Willan means 'to wish' not 'will.' Indicative Mood: Willan First Person Singular (I) Second Person Singular (you) Third Person Singular (he, she, it) All Plurals Subjunctive Mood: Present Imperative Mood: wille or wile wilt wille or wile willað Past wolde woldest wolde woldon Willan wille or wile willen All Singulars All Plurals Present Past wolde wolden Willan Present Second Person Plural nyllað or nellað (only used in this negative form) Note: The imperative form of willan is only used with the negative prefix n replacing w (this is a contraced form of ne willan). In Old English one can command a group of people not to wish for something, but not to wish for something. Participle: willende Don ("to do") Indicative Mood: Don First Person Singular (I) Second Person Singular (you) Third Person Singular (he, she, it) All Plurals Present do dest deþ doð Past dyde dydest dyde dydon Subjunctive Mood: Don Present All Singulars All Plurals do don Imperative Mood: Don Second Person Singular Second Person Plural Past dyde dyden Present do doð to donne Inflected Infinitive: Present Participle:donde Past Participle:don Gan ("to go") Indicative Mood: Gan First Person Singular (I) Second Person Singular (you) Third Person Singular (he, she, it) All Plurals Subjunctive Mood: Past eode eodest eode eodon Gan Present All Singulars All Plurals ga gan Imperative Mood: Gan Second Person Singular Second Person Plural ga gað Inflected Infinitive: to ganne Present Participle: gande Past Participle: Present ga gæst gæð gað Past eode eoden Present gan Some patterns to recognize: Although the verbs given above are irregular, it is not too early to start noticing some patterns. For example, the second person singular has the ending –st, the third person singular has the ending -ð, and the plurals have the ending –að. Subjunctives are characterized by having –e in the ending (en and e).