CHAPTER XX.

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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