Chapter 118

THE PAST PARTICIPLE.

§ 346. A. _The participle in_ -EN.--In the Anglo-Saxon this participle was declined like the adjectives. Like the adjectives, it is, in the present English, undeclined.

In Anglo-Saxon it always ended in -en, as _sungen_, _funden_, _bunden_. In English this -en is often wanting, as _found_, _bound_; the word _bounden_ being antiquated.

Words where the -en is wanting may be viewed in two lights; 1, they may be looked upon as participles that have lost their termination; 2, they may be considered as præterites with a participial sense.

§ 347. _Drank_, _drunk_, _drunken_.--With all words wherein the vowel of the plural differs from that of the singular, the participle takes the plural form. To say _I have drunk_, is to use an ambiguous expression; since _drunk_ may be either a participle _minus_ its termination, or a præterite with a participial sense. To say _I have drank_, is to use a præterite for a participle. To say _I have drunken_, is to use an unexceptional form.

In all words with a double form, as _spake_ and _spoke_, _brake_ and _broke_, _clave_ and _clove_, the participle follows the form in o, as _spoken_, _broken_, _cloven_. _Spaken_, _braken_, _claven_ are impossible forms. There are degrees in laxity of language, and to say _the spear is broke_ is better than to say _the spear is brake_.

§ 348. As a general rule, we find the participle in -en wherever the præterite is strong; indeed, the participle in -en may be called the strong participle, or the participle of the strong conjugation. Still the two forms do not always coincide. In _mow_, _mowed_, _mown_, _sow_, _sowed_, _sown_; and several other words, we find the participle strong, and the præterite weak. I remember no instances of the converse. This is only another way of saying that the præterite has a greater tendency to pass from strong to weak than the participle.

§ 349. In the Latin language the change from s to r, and _vice versâ_, is very common. We have the double forms _arbor_ and _arbos_, _honor_ and _honos_, &c. Of this change we have a few specimens in English. The words _rear_ and _raise_, as compared with each other, are examples. In Anglo-Saxon a few words undergo a similar change in the plural number of the strong præterites.

Ceóse, _I choose_; ceâs, _I chose_; curon, _we chose_; gecoren, _chosen_. Forleóse, _I lose_; forleás, _I lost_; forluron, _we lost_; forloren, _lost_. Hreose, _I rush_; hreás, _I rushed_; hruron, _we rushed_; gehroren, _rushed_.

This accounts for the participial form _forlorn_, or _lost_, in New High German _verloren_. In Milton's lines,

---- the piercing air Burns _frore_, and cold performs the effect of fire, _Paradise Lost_, b. ii.,

we have a form from the Anglo-Saxon participle _gefroren_ = _frozen_.

§ 350. B. The _participle_ in -D, -T, or -ED.--In the Anglo-Saxon this participle was declined like the adjective. Like the adjective, it is, in the present English, undeclined.

In Anglo-Saxon it differed in form from the præterite, inasmuch as it ended in -ed, or -t, whereas the præterite ended in -ode, -de, or -te: as, _lufode_, _bærnde_, _dypte_, præterites; _gelufod_, _bærned_, _dypt_, participles.

As the ejection of the e (in one case final in the other not) reduces words like _bærned_ and _bærnde_ to the same form, it is easy to account for the present identity of form between the weak præterites and the participles in -d: e.g., _I moved_, _I have moved_, &c.

§ 351. _The prefix_ Y.--In the older writers, and in works written, like Thomson's "Castle of Indolence," in imitation of them, we find prefixed to the præterite participle the letter y-, as, _yclept_ = _called_: _yclad_ = _clothed_: _ydrad_ = _dreaded_.

The following are the chief facts and the current opinion concerning this prefix:--

1. It has grown out of the fuller forms ge-: Anglo-Saxon, ge-: Old Saxon, gi-: Moeso-Gothic, ga-: Old High German, ka-, cha-, ga-, ki-, gi-.

2. It occurs in each and all of the Germanic languages of the Gothic stock.

3. It occurs, with a few fragmentary exceptions, in none of the Scandinavian languages of the Gothic stock.

4. In Anglo-Saxon it occasionally indicates a difference of sense; as, _hâten_ = _called_, _ge-hâten_ = _promised_; _boren_ = _borne_, _ge-boren_ = _born_.

5. It occurs in nouns as well as verbs.

6. Its power, in the case of nouns, is generally some idea of _association_, or _collection_.--Moeso-Gothic, _sinþs_ = _a journey_, _ga-sinþa_ = _a companion_; Old High German, _perc_ = _hill_; _ki-perki_ (_gebirge_) = _a range of hills_.

7. But it has also a _frequentative_ power; a frequentative power, which is, in all probability, secondary to its collective power; since things which recur frequently recur with a tendency to collection or association; Middle High German, _ge-rassel_ = _rustling_; _ge-rumpel_ = _c-rumple_.

8. And it has also the power of expressing the possession of a quality.

_Anglo-Saxon._ _English._ _Anglo-Saxon._ _Latin._

Feax _Hair_ _Ge-feax_ _Comatus._ Heorte _Heart_ _Ge-heort_ _Cordatus._ Stence _Odour_ _Ge-stence_ _Odorus._

This power is also a collective, since every quality is associated with the object that possesses it; _a sea with waves_ = _a wavy sea_.

9. Hence it is probable that the ga-, ki-, or gi-, Gothic, is the _cum_ of Latin languages. Such, at least, is Grimm's view, as given in the "Deutsche Grammatik," i. 1016.

Concerning this, it may be said that it is deficient in an essential point. It does not show how the participle past is collective. Undoubtedly it may be said that every such participle is in the condition of words like _ge-feax_ and _ge-heort_; i.e., that they imply an association between the object and the action or state. But this does not seem to be Grimm's view; he rather suggests that the ge- may have been a prefix to verbs in general, originally attached to all their forms, but finally abandoned everywhere except in the case of the participle.

The theory of this prefix has yet to assume a satisfactory form.

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