UNIVERSITY OF GJAKOVA “FEHMI AGANI”

FACULTY OF PHILOLOGY

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

BA DIPLOMA THESIS

Topic: THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE VERB IN THE HISTORY

OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Mentor: Candidate:

Ma. Nazli Tyfekci, PhD Erleta Sefa

Gjakovë, 2018

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Declaration:

I Erleta, declare that I worked on my thesis on my own – pursuing the Academic

Honesty Statement’s principles in word and spirit – and the used sources in the

bibliography.

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Table of Contents

Introduction ........................................................................................................... 5

I. General information about the verb ................................................................ 8

2.1. What is a verb? .............................................................................................. 8

II. The periods of English Language .................................................................11

2.1 Old English period ........................................................................................11

2.1.1 Verb during the Old English period ........................................................11

2.2 The Norman Conquest and the Subjection of English, period 1066- 1200

...............................................................................................................................14

2.3. Middle English Period .................................................................................15

2.3.1 The verb during the Middle English period - Losses among the strong

verbs .....................................................................................................................15

2.3.2 Strong verbs that became weak ................................................................16

2.3.3 Surviving strong verbs ..............................................................................17

2.4. The renaissance period ................................................................................18

2.4.1. The verb in the renaissance period .........................................................19

2.5. The Appeal to Authority Period .................................................................21

2.5.1 The beginning of Prescriptive Grammar ................................................21

2.5.2. Development of the Progressive Verb .....................................................22

2.6. The Nineteenth century and after period ..................................................23

2.6.1. The verb during the nineteenth century .................................................23

III. Conclusion .....................................................................................................25

REFERENCES ....................................................................................................26

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Introduction

We can assume that within the years a lot can change in the history of a certain country. Everything

can change including language, accent, spelling, vocabulary, grammar and so on. English

language is one of the most important languages in the world. People around the world can

communicate easily because of English. A lot of changes in its features happened in order to arrive

to the form that it has today.

Grammar is one of the main features of a language. It contains a lot of elements that build the

language and have a great importance in the making of sentences or texts. As (Warriner 1945) said

Verb is one of the main elements of grammar that helps to make a statements. Through the usage

of verbs in different ways and tenses, thoughts gain a better understanding.

In this diploma thesis will be given a deep analysis into the development and the changes that

verbs had during the different periods of time. Starting from Old English, the Norman Conquest

period, the Middle English period, then the Renaissance period, the Appeal to Authority period

and finally the Nineteenth century and after period this period also includes the verb today.

This diploma thesis is divided into four chapters in total. The first chapter contains a brief

information for grammar and a general information about the verb. The second chapter deals with

all the main periods of the English language starting from the Old English period and the major

changes that the verb had at that time and subdivided with other periods as well and will be given

particular information with more details for the verb and for that period in overall.

As (Ward & Waller. 1907-21) affirm one of the most characteristic features of the Old English

always in comparison with other periods, is that they kept the system of inflections without

changing them since in their beginnings. Whereas the verb system was uncomplete, back then they

only had two tenses the present tense and the past tense, the present tense also served to express

the future tense as well.

Norman conquest period did not have any major effect regarding the verb form although as a

period had its characteristics.

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Whereas Middle English period is considered as the period that brought the major changes in the

English language, one of the biggest changes in this period may be considered the drop of the

inflections. Also a majority of strong verbs became weak as a consequence of the strong

conjugation of that time.

The renaissance period is known as the period of the rebirth. This period is considered to be the

one that links the Middle and the Modern English period together.

The appeal to authority began as the period with a lot of impacts from the seventeenth century. As

other periods this one also had its changes in the grammar field.

Finally, the nineteenth century period and after was the period that characterizes most of the

changes in overall including technology, medicine, philosophy, etc. Grammar was also part of the

changes during this period, it is worth mentioning the verb – adverb combination part that derives

from this period. With the end of the nineteenth century period starts the Modern period or also

known as the period of nowadays.

The methodology used for this diploma paper was literature analysis mainly based on

books. Reviewing different books, a vast number of PDF-s as well as online researches conducted

by others. Gathering all the important features that I needed to complete my graduation thesis. In

overall the resources used for this paper were books either as online sources or as published

originally by different authors.

The term literature in overall includes every written material, even if it is a book, a play, a song or

even a movie as long as it written it bears the term literature. Literature analysis means examining

a text in separate parts and focusing more on your goal, in this case focusing more in the

development that the verb had during different periods. To complete this thesis were used a lot of

books some of which will be listed below.

1. A history of the English language – Albert B. Baugh & Thomas Cable

2. A Grammatical Institute of the English language – Noah Webster

3. An introduction to Old English – Richard Hoggs

4. The History of English - Ishtla Singh

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Hypothesis: Middle English has had the greatest contribution in the development of the verbs in

the history of English language.

Being a student it is hard they say, but not when you are studying in your home town, so having

my university in Gjakova we can say that it was very convenient for me and easy at the same time.

This journey would not be the same without the support of family and friends during these four

years of studies. So I would like to express my gratitude towards my family for their unconditional

support and love that they gave me. Another gratitude goes out to all the professors who lectured

me during my studies and contributed with their efforts toward us, last but not least a huge gratitude

goes especially to my mentor Mrs. Nazlli Tyfekçiu, for always being able to help me with

everything I needed to complete my thesis. Indeed, Thank You!

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I. General information about the verb

When we mention the term grammar there are a hundred of definitions that come to our mind,

although a lot of them provide the same idea.

In his book Noah Webster said “Grammar is the art of communicating thoughts by words

with propriety and dispatch”, thus grammar as he claimed is used to teach the true principles and

idioms (Webster.1785).

The term grammar originally derives from the Greek language ‘’grammatike’’ (tekne) which can

also be translated as the art of writing. As it deals with the structure of a certain language. For

instance, with the structure of English language. Grammar is further divided into morphology and

syntax. Morphology or also known as the grammar inside the word deals with the inner structure

of the words and all the rules by which the words are formed. Morphology also derives from Greek

language meaning “the study of forms”. Whereas the term syntax respectively grammar outside

the word deals with the manner how word are arranged in order to create larger structures than

words. Syntax means “putting together or arranging elements” (Kabashi,2000, p.12).

2.1. What is a verb?

As Noah Webster claimed in his book “A Grammatical Institute of the English Language”

(Webster, 1785. p.14). Verb is a part of speech signifying action or being.

A verb is the most important part that a sentence contains. After the nouns the verbs form

the largest word class. A sentence almost always contains a verb, meanwhile you can barely find

a clause or a sentence that does not have a verb on it. Based upon their meaning verbs are lexical

words, a lot of scholars refer to them as action words. Although this does not necessarily mean

that all the verbs express an action. So the grammarians divide verbs into verbs that denotes an

action (go, make, drink.) verbs that denotes a process (grow, die, loose) and also verbs that denote

a state or condition (see, sleep, be, exist). Based on their morphological structure verbs can be

divided further into: simple, derived, compound and phrasal verbs. Whereas based on their

structural classification verbs can be divided into three main categories: linking verbs, transitive

verbs and intransitive verbs. The verbs are called linking since they link the subject of a certain

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clause with another element, which in this case describes something about the subject, one of the

most significant linking verb is the verb Be, verbs that also play the role of the verb be are also

called linking verbs, for instance (become, feel, seem, etc.). Linking verbs are also known as

“copulative verbs”. (Kabashi, 2000. p.44-48)

Transitive verbs require an object for instance verbs like; take, bring, make, show etc. Whereas

intransitive verbs do not require an object verbs like; sit, lie, go, fall etc.

Based on their form verbs can be regular and irregular. All English verbs belong to one or two

conjugations they are either regular or irregular. While regular verbs have four different forms of

inflections (base form; walk, call -s form; walks, calls, -ed form; walked, called, -ing participle;

walking, calling,) meanwhile irregular verbs have either the three forms are alike for instance cut,

cut, cut, the three forms are different; speak, spoke, spoke, or the base is the same as ed1; beat,

beat, beaten, the base is the same with ed2; come, came, come, and the ed1 and ed2 are the same;

feel, felt, felt. Verbs determined by the function that they have in a sentence are divided into two

forms; finite and non – finite verbs. All forms of the verbs in a sentence are finite forms except for

the infinitives and participle and the ed – participle as they belong to the non – finite verb forms.

Like many other parts of speech, the verb has also grammatical categories which require agreement

in number and person with the subject. Person is a category of concord between subject form and

verb. In general, there are three grammatical persons; First person (for I, we) Second person (you)

and Third person (he, she, it, they). The first person stands for the speaker, the second stands for

the person spoken to, whereas the third stands for the person or object spoken about. If the person

and subject are singular than the verb is also singular. The verb has two numbers singular and

plural. But the verb has some other features that does not have any other part of speech. These

features are tense, aspect, voice and mood.

The category of tense represents the relationship between the time of the action and the time of

speaking. The term tense derives from Latin language “tempus” which mean time. Tense

represents the main time categories, present, past and future. Furthermore, the verb in the English

system has also the perfect tenses to be precisely three more tenses, the present perfect, the past

perfect and the future perfect.

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The voice is the category of verb which shows whether the subject is the doer (the one performing

the action) or the receiver (the one receiving the action). In English language there are two kind of

voices. Passive and Active voice.

We are already use to say that the mood points out the attitude of the writer or the speaker about

the sentence, but to be more exact the mood refers to the verb forms that are used to express

statements or questions (Indicative mood), commands or requests (Imperative mood) or to express

wishes, suppositions (Subjunctive mood).

Meanwhile the category of aspect shows the manner in which an action is performed, this basically

mean whether the action has finished or it is still in progress. English language has two aspects;

the perfect aspect and the progressive aspect.

Based on their progressive class verbs are distinguished into dynamic and state verbs.

Dynamic verbs or so called progressive verbs are those that introduce activities, processes,

transformation from one state to another and momentary actions. A considerable number of

English verbs belong to this category of verb.

a) Activity verbs (drink, eat, play),

b) process verbs (change, grow, slow),

c) Verbs of bodily sensation (ache, feel, hurt),

d) Transitional events verbs (die, arrive, lose),

e) Momentary actions (jump, hit, kick). (Kabashi, J. 2000, p.70)

Whereas state verbs or non – progressive verbs refer to a state of affairs, rather to an action, event

or process. These type of verbs are:

a) Verbs of sensory reception (feel, smell, taste),

b) Verbs of mental states or emotions (love, hope, remember, forget) and

c) Verbs of having and being (seem, own, be, belong). (Kabashi, J. 2000, p.70-71)

Another category of verbs is the mood, how actions or a particular feeling is expressed as

mentioned by Brown (1823), a verb has five different moods, the Infinitive mood, the Indicative

mood, the Potential mood, the Subjunctive mood and the Imperative mood.

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II. The periods of English Language

2.1 Old English period

Every period of English language has its own characteristics that marked that particular period of

time. Old English is considered the period from 450 to 1150. Although scholars are not quite sure

about this date. This period is considered to be as the period that had full inflections since the

endings of the verbs, nouns and adjectives from this period till now are preserved more or less

unimpaired. The old English period takes place in the West Germanic branch of the Germanic

language.

2.1.1 Verb during the Old English period

The Germanic language has a way simple verb inflection than the Indo European had. The Old

English noted only two main simple tenses by inflection; the present and the past tense, and it had

three moods indicative, imperative and subjunctive. The verb agreed with the subject in number

and person (Baugh & Cable 2002).

The division of the verb into two classes was an important feature of the Germanic language. These

two classes are called weak and strong ones or as are known nowadays regular and irregular verbs.

Different examples of strong verbs like sing, sang, sung represent the Indo European type and they

have the ability of changing their tense by modifying a vowel. Meanwhile weak verbs in OD for

instance walk, walked, walked this conjugation is caused by adding a particular suffix to the stem.

The strong verbs are less in number than weak verbs. These day weak and strong verbs have

different vowels in the past tense, present tense and the past participle. In some verbs the vowels

are the same for instance in past tense and past participle as they are in the verb break: break,

broke, broken, whereas in some verb forms the three verb forms have become exactly the same as

they are today bid, bid, bid. The vowel of the paste tense in OE often varies in the plural and

singular respectively the first person singular and the third have only one vowel whereas the second

person singular and all the persons of the plural have another syllable. Strong verbs had four forms

in Old English; the infmitive, the preterite singular, preterite plural and past participle. Strong

verbs can be further grouped in seven classes, meanwhile there are different variations in every

class (Baugh & Cable, 2002 p.38-39)

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Verbs today Gr infinitive Past singular Past plural Participle II

Drive I drifan drāf drifon (ge) drifen

Choose II cēosan cēas curon coren

Help III helpan healp hulpon holpen

Bear IV deran bær bǣron boren

speak V sprecan spræc sprǣcon sprecen

fare, go VI faran fōr fōron faren

Fall VII feallen fēoll fēollon feallen

Tab 1. This table represent how the conjugation of the verb occurred in the Old English period

presented in “A history of English language” (Baugh & Cable, 2002. p.54)

Another part that was strongly argued was the fact that how weak verbs form their past tense and

past participle by the origin of dental suffixes. Although it was usual to explain how the verbs

formed their past tense for instance the verb do as I worked originally was I work – did (I did

work). An effort has been made recently to track these form to verb type that forms its stem by

adding ‘to’ to the root. In Old English a major and significant group of verbs form their past tense

just by adding – ede, -ode, or de to the present tense of the verb and they form their past participles

by adding –ed, -od or –d. (Baugh & Cable, 2002 p.54)

Therefore fremman (to perform) as a preterite form is fremede and as past participle is gefremed.

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The conjugation of the verb “drive” in Old English. Indicative mood, present and past tense

PRONOUNS PRESENT TENSE PAST TENSE

IC drīf-e Drāf

ÐŪ drīf-st (-est) drif-e

HĒ drīf- ð (-eð) Drāf

WĒ drīf- að drif-on

GĒ drīf-að drif-on

HĪE drīf-að drif-on

Tab.2. (Baugh & Cable, 2002. P.55)

The conjugation of the verb “drive” in Old English, Subjunctive mood, present and past simple.

PRONOUNS PRESENT TENSE PAST TENSE

IC drīf-e drif-e

ÐŪ drīf-e drif-e

HĒ drīf-e drif-e

WĒ drīf-en drīf-en

GĒ drīf-en drif-en

HĪE drīf-en drif-en

Tab.3. (Baugh & Cable, 2002. p.55)

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2.2 The Norman Conquest and the Subjection of English, period 1066- 1200

It was the year 1066 when the Norman military headed by William the Conqueror invaded the

England. Bringing a lot of changes around like administrative changes, cultural, political and as

well as social changes. The major change in this period is that of language. After William was

crowned king the Anglo – Saxon was the official language of the court and around. For many years

French was the language of the power and aristocracy, although native speakers managed to save

and speak their native language. The upper and middle classes became bilingual although the

language that they preferred to speak was still English. They were educated in French language,

they wrote and read French or Latin. The rapid development of the English grammar made it

difficult for the new generations to adapt the language since they have taught French in schools.

Normans even borrowed about 10000 word from French language and used them in English, some

of these words are still used today. What Norman Conquest did, was to break down the literary

conservatism that had been thrown over the differences in the spoken language.

Regarding grammar section during this period the main concern was the word order. While

the Old English had an Adj + N for instance general secretary the Normans tend to have the

opposite N + Adj. secretary general. The verb did not have any particular changes during this

period as they used it how it was used during the Old English period. (Ward & Trent, 2000)

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2.3. Middle English Period

Middle English period starts from 1150 – 1500. This period marks the greatest changes in the

English language and is considered to be the period of a great change. The changes that happened

during this period had influence in English grammar as well as in the vocabulary of English

language. The changes that were made in grammar field turned English from a complicated

language into an analytic one. The changes of the verb that occurred during the Middle English

were considered to be a great loss of words as a matter of the strong conjugation. This conjugation

even though affected some of the main verbs in the Middle English was small if we compare it

with the overgrowing number of the weak verbs. The biggest changes on this period in the Middle

English grammar may be considered the drop of the inflections. Including the reduction of

inflection in nouns, adjectives as well as verbs. These changes happened due to phonetical changes.

The greatest exemplar from this period is the well – known author Geoffrey Chaucer. (Baugh &

Cable. 2002, p.146-147)

2.3.1 The verb during the Middle English period - Losses among the strong verbs

The Old English distinction between weak and strong verb classes survived into the Middle

English dialect, as a lot other inflections from the OE period. (Singh. I, 2005, p.121)

During the Middle English period at least a third of the strong verbs were deceased, and about

ninety of the verbs left no clues in the written language in the 1150. Many of them might have

been used in the spoken language for a particular time but there are no records when a verb lives

through in a modern dialect. Some strong verbs were extremely rare during the ME and some of

them were part of the weak verbs that had exactly the same meaning which replaced them.

More over in the beginning of the period in ME there were more than a hundred of strong

verbs that were lost and even in the upcoming periods the lost was still visible. Some of the verbs

became out of date, and a steady number of the verbs were used during the sixteen and seventeen

century they were diminished soon after and were used only in dialects after they had crossed the

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weak conjugation part. Nowadays the verbs of Middle English have been removed completely

from the English language. (Baugh & Cable, 2002, p.151).

The Middle English period is the time when the words order Subject + Verb started to be

used, differently from the Old English period that had a free word order, in the ME this word order

started to be used and it is still used today. As (Closs Traugot, 1972) said “the process had a gradual

development especially in the ME.

As (Singh. I, 2005. p.123) claims another great loss that worths mentioning during the

Middle English period, concerns the dialectal variation in the present participle inflection, or as it

is known today the –ing participle (as in sleeping, walking) this inflection derives from the

southern part of the ME dialect as; -andle (Northen) – inde (south & west) and ende (east) all of

these inflections were used in the MD dialects only to disappear eventually as the language

flourishes.

2.3.2 Strong verbs that became weak

The attempts of the English language to pursue some language patterns from a usual form into a

more familiar one are explained very well in the history of the strong verbs. The weak conjugation

brought a steady pattern for past tense and past participle, whereas strong verbs had much diversity

in different classes. For instance, today we express sing; sang; sung but drive; drove; driven, fall;

fell; fallen etc. While English was predominantly the language of the lower classes mostly limited

from the impact of literary standard and education and it was obvious that speakers would apply

the sample of a weak verb to those that were historically strong. (Baugh & Cable, 2002 p.151)

In the written literature the inclination became evidently during the 13th century and verbs

like: bow, brew, burn, climb, flee, flow, help, mourn, row, step, walk, weep, were then gliding

through change. By the 14th century more than 32 verbs besides those whom were mentioned

earlier had weak forms. After this there are less differences. During the 15th century strong verbs

continued to be used meanwhile the weak verbs were developing and in a lot of cases they were

still used until the weak formation was surely founded. (Baugh & Cable, 2002, p.152)

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So oke as the past tense of ache was still being used throughout the 13th century even though the

weak form ached was current for years. The same thing happens with other verbs such; stope

besides stepped, rewe besides rowed, clew besides clowed. The strong forms of the verbs continued

to be used in the language even in the modern times.

2.3.3 Surviving strong verbs

If we take off the number of the verbs that were lost and those that became weak we are left with

68 of the strong verbs from the Middle English in nowadays language. In this number we can add

13 verbs that can be conjugated in both forms or at least they hold a strong form. This points out

how broad was the loss of the strong verbs in the language. While the irregularity of the verbs

compromises obstacles in the language, the loss in this case should be considered a victory. The

strong verbs that survived had the chance very rarely to be part of the language today in that pattern

that they would present the normal process of their main parts in OE. During the all stages of the

language the strong verbs have been subdued (subjected) into different shapes of leveling and

analogical impact from one grade to another one. For instance, in OE the verb to slay had these

forms slēan – slōg – slōgon – slægen. These would have been slea – slough – slain and the present

tense form slea indeed existed back in the 17th century. A peculiar fact on the OE is that the verbs

for past tense had different forms for singular and plural and the vowel of the plural was also the

same for the past participle for instance bindan – band – bundon – bunden. Even though the

singular form managed to live through the Old English in several cases it is substituted by the

vowel of the plural or past participle. Thereby cling, sting, sping as a past tense should have had

clang, stang, span, but they have been substituted by these patterns: clung, stung, spun from the

plural form and the past participle. So the verb slide as a past tense form should have been slode

but the plural and the past had a /i/ so nowadays we tent to say slide – slid – slid. Occasionally the

verb has shifted from one class to another. Nearly every strong verb has a quite enthralling

background history but our goal for now it is more than enough as there are a lot of changes that

had happened in the Middle English era which has not finish yet. (Baugh & Cable, 2002, p.152-

153)

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Conjugation of the strong verb “sing” in present tense and past tense during the Middle English:

PRONOUNS

PRESENT TENSE PAST TENSE

I singe sang / song

Thou Singest song(e)

He, She singeth sang / song

We singen songe (n)

Yey singen songe (n)

They singen songe (n)

Tab.4 (nativlang.com) – Article

The conjugation of the verb “love’’ in two different periods; OE & ME

Tab.5. (Hollmann. W.B, 2013, p.547)

Indicative mood Old English Middle English

Present tense Past tense Present tense Past tense

First singular lufie lufode loue louede

Second singular lufast lufodest louest louedest

Third singular lufað Lufode loueth louede

First plural lufiað Lufodon loue(n) louede(n)

Second plural lufiað Lufodon loue(n) louede(n)

Third plural lufiað Lufodon loue(n) louede(n)

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2.4. The renaissance period

The Renaissance Period takes place during the end of the 15th century and in the beginning of 17th

century or more precisely in 1500 – 1560. The word “renaissance” derives from the French

languages and means “rebirth”. The renaissance was the period of the rebirth in the Europe for a

lot of new discoveries in arts, music, literature, philosophy, architecture, as well as religion but the

major filed that was established during this period was that of humanism. One of the

characteristics that I personally like and find really interesting is that “Renaissance emphasized

reason and logic rather than sensation, as the guide to knowledge and the means to solving

problems”.

2.4.1. The verb in the renaissance period

In the act two scene three from “Macbeth” Lennox asks: Goes the king hence today? Today we

barely have a type of question without any auxiliary on it where we shall say Does the king go? or

is the king leaving today? This is a simple change that could be discern even from a casual reader

that has no any knowledge about the grammar at all. Yet another apparent change is the absence

of the progressive forms. The big growth in the use of the progressive makes one of the crucial

significant developments later on. As well as the compound participle; having spoken thus, decided

to make the attempt etc it is visible from its absence. It yearns me not, it dislikes me, so please him

come, and these are phrases used by the well-known writer William Shakespeare which in the

current English have been substituted with personal constructions.

Another difference in this period is the infections especially in the endings of the third

person singular of the present indicative –s in the third person plural and o lot other forms of the

past tense and past participle particularly the strong verbs. During the whole period of the Middle

English the endings in the south and southeastern part of England was – eth. As Chauser used them

for instance; telleth, giveth, saith, doth, etc. Although in the 15th century the –s forms start to pop

up. These might have been difficult to handle as it was quite new for the northern dialect to attempt

such an important impact upon the language of the south and London. For sure by the 16 century

their number raises particularly in writing that appear to express colloquial application. By the end

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of this century the forms such as tells, gives, says, started to dominate even though in some words

as doth and hath might have had a usual application earlier. Even though it was up to people which

one they wanted to use.

In the play of Shakespeare “Merchant of Venice” in the act IV, first scene Portia claims:

“The quality of mercy is not strain’d

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath: it is twice bless’d

It blesseth him that given and him that takes…”

This is the best example of how the –eth inflection was used in the written language. Even though

in the following century respectively in the century 17 the –s inflection became general for the

spoken language, it was basically used by everyone, nevertheless the –eth inflection was still being

used in the written language. (Baugh & Cable. 2002 p.229-230)

Yet another peculiarity of the verb in the sixteen century during the Renaissance period is

the fact that the –s inflection was also being used as an ending for the third person plural. At that

time there was no any endings for the plural form in the language of literature, all this as a factor

of the evaporation of the East Midland –e, -en, typical ending of the plural forms from the well-

known writer Chaucer. The plural forms with the –s inflection are found in the middle of the

eighteen century.

It is already visible the part that the verb in the Middle English had passed through a lot of

categories, some verbs remained strong, some verbs became weak and a lot of other verbs were

completely vanished from the spoken and written language. The verbs that were left became a

subject of different modifications in the past tense and past participle. We can find all of these

characteristics of the language portrayed in the works of William Shakespeare and his

contemporaries.

The verbs that evolved weak forms in this period were; bide, cow, crowd, flay, mow, dread, sprout

and wade. Also strong forms that fit with weak forms in verbs started to differ earlier during the

same century. Other strong verbs were; waxen, in the Bible was found as waxed then we have sew

rather than the sowed, gnew rather than gnawed, holp rather than the helped. A considerable sum

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of weak forms as; blowed, growed, shined, shrinked, swinged were used as usually but remained

as strong verbs. In some particular verbs the past tense was different from the one that we use

today. So bote was the pas tense form for the bite as we have today write – wrote. Brat and brast

were used as past tense of burnt and burst while wesh and washen were dominant as the past tense

and past participle form of the verb wash. Nevertheless, it is obvious that in the Shakespeare days

the verb had more broadness in the inflections than it has today. (Baugh & Cable.2002, p.230-

231).

2.5. The Appeal to Authority Period

This period began with a great impact from the seventeen century. As in previous periods this

period of time had also its characteristics. Grammar was also part of the changes starting from the

time when grammarians set up three aims for the grammar of English language. To codify the

principles of language and to decrease it to the reign, to resolve the canvass attributes and establish

the separate application and to highlight usual mistakes or what were assumed to be mistake and

try to fix them and to meliorate the language. (Baugh &Cable,2002, p.238)

2.5.1 The beginning of Prescriptive Grammar

A lot of different conventions that nowadays are accredited and we have them in a lot of books

and manuals first of all were announced during this period. There is the famous duo of verbs lie

and lay and their prescriptive differentiation was done for the first time during the half of the

eighteen century, previously the intransitive verb lay was not considered to be a solecism.

Johnson, Lowth and Campbell totally sentenced the expressions, had rather, and had better. As

Lowth claims: “It has been very rightly observed, that the Verb had, in the common phrase, I had

rather, is not properly used, either as an Active or as an Auxiliary Verb that being in the Past time,

it cannot in this case be properly expressive of time Present; and that it is by no means reducible

to any Grammatical construction. It seems to have arisen from a mere mistake in resolving the

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familiar and ambiguous abbreviation, I’d rather into I had rather, instead of I would rather, which

latter is the regular, analogous, and proper expression" (Baugh & Cable, 2002 p.262-264).

2.5.2. Development of the Progressive Verb

While French speakers say Je Chante, and German speakers say Ich singe, the English speakers

can say I sing, I do sing or I am singing. The “do” form is also known as the persistent form as

sometimes that is what they are, although their major usage is in the interrogative and negative

sentences. For instance, I don’t sing. Do you sing? The forms with the “to be” and the present

participle are mostly recognized as progressive forms since their usual usage it to tell whether the

action is being in progress or not at the period of time implicit by the auxiliary verb. That is why

the large protrusion of the usage of the progressive forms has made the Modern periods as one of

the most significant evolution of the verb in the English language.

Earlier in the Middle English the progressive form was quite infrequent even though they started

to grow in number somewhere during the Middle English period we shall estimate their progress

starting from the sixteenth century. (Baugh & Cable, 2002, p.275)

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2.6. The Nineteenth century and after period

The nineteenth period dates from the 1801 – 1900s. During this period of time a lot of changes had

happen in general including, political changes, urbanization, industrialization as well as the

influence of technology and the most significant changes in the language. English language

became a worldwide spoken language. A lot of new words were added into the vocabulary whereas

a lot of old words were back with new meanings, some words changed their meaning. Regarding

the grammar part during the nineteenth century one thing that worth mentioning is the rise of the

progressive passive form. In the nineteenth century period and after also takes place the Modern

English period or also known as the nowadays period. The modern period is known as the period

of the lost inflections. The modern period starts from 1500s till today.

2.6.1. The verb during the nineteenth century

An important feature of this period is the verb – adverb combination. A significant feature of the

modern vocabulary is the great number of phrases as; set out, gather up, putt off, bring in, formed

usually with a one syllable verb associated with an adverb. At the time Old English had made a

light application of the modern type, and along the Middle period the verbs deriving from French

had been detained that lead a slower development. Combinations that are found in the modern

period are in overall expressions whose significance is the fairly meaning between the combination

of a certain verb and adverb. One peculiar characteristic of these combinations in modern times is

the huge number of idiomatic and figurative senses that that they have come to be applied.

Extensive use is another characteristic feature of the verb – adverb combination especially in the

colloquial speech, like nouns; blowout, holdup, cave-in, runaway. Further on a lot of these

expressions have been replaced with a single verb, as comprehend, continue, surrender etc. and

an interesting supervision was made that the vocabulary has been following the same development

that took place earlier in English grammar and basically changed the language from the synthetic

language to analytical language. Another clear fact is that all of the given expressions are less or

more interlocutory and sell out their own origin. The adverb up takes place in a lot of combinations

like; bring up, dig up, brace up, drum up, dish up, jack up, gum up, scrape up, jack up, spruce up,

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shut up, whack up. All of the English speakers know the certain meaning of these colloquial words.

Objection is occasionally expressed towards the wide increment of these verb – adverb

combinations, and not only to those that are accredited, in in those that are generally accredited in

spoken and written language, exist a lot of cases while in speaking the adverb is excessive. In other

cases, when this change cannot be conducted are thought to dishearten the application of more

formal or accurate verbs by which the same thoughts can be forwarded. Although it is suspicious

if the opposition is well established. Commonly the combination between the verb and the adverb

carries a force or shade of meaning that could not be interpreted in another manner, and there

cannot be any further suspicion about the flexibility of the language, which has been largely

increased. The verbs; back, blow, break, bring, call, come, fall, get, give, go, hold, lay, let, make,

put, run, set, take, turn and work are used in 155 different combinations with more than 600

meaning and different usage. (Baugh & Cable, 2002, p.325-327)

A list of different verb – adverb combination.

Verbs Adverbs Verb – Adverb combination

Blow Away, up Blow up, blow away

Come Along, around Come along, come around

Make Up, out Make up, make out

run away runaway

Put Off, on Put off, put on

Go ahead go ahead

Tab. 6 – some verbs and adverbs used in today’s English language.

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III. Conclusion

The fact that the verb changes make it obvious about the language change as well. It would be

pointless if there would not be any change that marks different periods of time, at least that is what

makes them unique, their differentiation from one another. Starting from all the developments that

these periods brought into language, the pronunciation part, the spelling part as well as the

grammar for sure the verb could not escape all these changes. The verb itself as a topic is a very

wide one and as an open part of the speech of course that has its continuous changes within the

periods. To sum up all of these information in a nutshell, we can truly say that verb did have a lot

of changes until today. If we compare the past tense form of the Old English verbs with today’s

form we would have to omit at least one letter since the past form back in Old English took -ode

or –ede, the Renaissance period used the inflection –th to create the past tense of the verbs, whereas

today we only add-ed to the regular verbs to create the past tense. While the Old English is

represented as the period that had full inflections, the Middle English is recognized as the period

that deceased these inflections, as the language evolved the grammarians thought it is not

reasonable to have all of these inflections, these drops occurred due to the phonetical changes. The

reducing of inflection, except the verbs, it also affected nouns and adjectives as well. A

considerable number of strong verbs from Old English became weak during the Middle English

period due to the strong conjugation of the verbs. Within the course of time even the verbal

inflections lost their form, for example the verbal inflections are not the same in OE and ME. The

changes that happened in Middle English in the grammar field turned the English language from

a complicated language into an analytic one.

As a conclusion we can say that the hypothesis of my thesis has been proved since some

of the major changes of the verb occurred in the Middle English, as the reduction of the inflectional

endings and the shift of the strong verbs into the weak form. And this for sure makes one of the

greatest contribution in the language system.

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