The rise of analytical forms within the verbal system in the history of English

In OE there were no analytical forms. They appeared later:

· ME – Future Tense, Perfect, Passive and Subjunctive forms;

· NE – Continuous and Do-forms;

They were exceptionally analytical. The analytical forms consist of several words having grammatical meaning.

1. Future tense: shall + inf – future action; willen + inf. Eg: wol ye maken assurance – will you make assurance.

2. The Passive Voice: beon +Part II → analytical forms to express state action. The wide use of passive constr. in the 18^th – 19^th cent → high productivity of the P.Voice.

3. Perfect forms: go down to 2 types of syntactical combination.

· habbon (have) + Part II

· bēon (be) + Part II

Eg: Ic habbe þonne bēsc getengenne – я имел ту рыбку пойманной.

In ME and NE only the auxiliary habban was left while bēon ceased to be used in the Perfect forms not to confuse them with the Passive forms.

Do-Forms

1. In NE “do-periphrasis” was used in the Past and Present of the Indicative Mood.

2. 16^th c. – “Do” was used in negative, affirmative and interrogative sentences and was freely interchangeable with the simple forms (without “do”), e.g.:

Heard you all this? = Did you hear all this?

I know not why he cries. = I don’t know why he cries.

He knew it. = He did know it (without any meaning of emphasis).

3. 17^th c. – “do” was left only in negative and interrogative sentences to keep the word-order S + P + O (e.g. I (S) pity (P) him (O). Do you (S) pity (P) him (O)?). In affirmative sentences “do” acquired an emphatic meaning (e.g. Did you really see him? – I did see him, I swear!).

Continuous Forms

Sometimes they were found in OE:

Formation

bēon + Participle 1

2. In OE it denoted a “ quality ”, was not limited in time (as it is in the ModE Continuous forms) e.g.:

Sēō eorðe is berende missenlīcra fuζela – This land bears many birds.

3. In ME Continuous forms fell into disuse.

4. In NE these forms reappeared together with a synonymous form:

be + Participle 1 = be + on/in + Gerund (indicated a process of limited duration)

e.g.:

He was on huntinge – He was hunting (literally, He was on hunting).

5. 18^th c. – Continuous forms became well-established.

Verbals in the history of English

Participle 1

The formation of the Participle 1 was as follows:

OE	ME	NE
berende	bering	bearing

In OE Participle I had only the form of the Active Voice, possessed the categories of Number, Gender, Case. It agreed with the noun in Number, Gender, Case.

In ME it lost its nominal and adjectival features together with the categories of Number, Gender, Case and became unchangeable.

Participle 2

As it has been mentioned in the table above, in OE Participle 2 was formed:

· in strong verbs – with the help of the suffix –en (+ sometimes root-vowel interchange) + often marked by prefix зe-:

e.g. OE bindan (Infinitive) – зe b u nd en (Participle 2) (to bind)

In ME prefix зe- was weakened to prefix i-/y- (e.g. ME y-runne (run, Part.2 from “to run”) and in NE it disappeared at all.

· in weak verbs – with the help of the suffix -t/-d:

e.g. OE cēpan (Infinitive) – cēpe d (Participle 2) (to keep)

Participle 2, unlike Participle 1, had two meanings of the category of Voice:

OE	NE
Active Voice	Passive Voice
ζegān	ζeboren	gone, born

Thus in OE Participle 2 had the forms of the Active and Passive Voice, possessed the categories of Number, Gender, Case. It agreed with the noun in Number, Gender, Case.

In ME it lost the category of Voice and the categories of Number, Gender, Case and became unchangeable.

Infinitive

In OE the Infinitive resembled the Noun and had the category of Case (only two Cases – Nominative (Nom) and Dative (Dat)):

e.g. OE Nom writan (uninflected) – Dat to wrītan ne (inflected, indicated direction or purpose).

In ME the Infinitive lost the Dative Case (the inflected form) and only one form was left:

e.g. ME (to) writ en.

Particle to remained in NE as a formal sign of the infinitive with no meaning of direction or purpose:

e.g. NE (to) writ e.

Gerund

The Gerund appeared only in the 12^th c. Actually it presented a mixture of the OE Verbal Noun (with suffix –unз/-inз) and Participle I and its characteristics were:

· It took direct object (verbal feature) (e.g. buying a book);

· It could be preceded by an article or a possessive pronoun (noun feature) (e.g. the cleaning of my room, your coming late).