Anomalous Verbs

They were irregular verbs that combined the features of the weak and strong verbs. There were 4 of them – willan (will), bēon (to be), ζān (to go), dōn (to do).

Willan:

· had the meaning of volition;

· resembled the preterite-present verbs in meaning (attitude) and in function (was followed by the Infinitive without “to”);

· eventually became a modal verb and also together with sculan developed into an auxiliary for the formation of the Future-Tense forms.

Dōn

This verb combined the features of the weak and strong verbs:

Infinitive	Past	Participle 2
strong verb feature (root-sound interchange) + weak verb feature (dental suffix -d)	strong verb feature (suffix -nand prefix ζe -)
dōn	dyde	ζedōn

ζan

This verb was suppletive and also combined the features of the weak and strong verbs:

Period	Infinitive	Past	Participle 2
OE	ζān	ēode (suppletivism + weak verb feature (dental suffix -d))	ζeζān (strong verb feature (suffix -nand prefix ζe -)
ME	goon	wente (suppletivism (from OE wendan) + weak verb feature (dental suffix -t)	goon (strong verb feature (suffix -n))

Bēon

This verb was highly suppletive and in OE employed two separate words/roots (Infinitives):

Present	OE	ME	NE
Numb.	Pers.	wesan	bēon	been	been
Sg	1st	eom	bēo	am	am
2nd	eart	bist	art	are
3rd	is	biþ	is	is
Pl	-	sint	bēoþ	are/arn	are
Past	wesan	been	be
Sg	1st	w æ s	was	was
2nd	w ǽ re	wēre	were
3rd	w æ s	was	was
Pl	-	w ǽ ron	wēren	were