Part 63 (1/2)

Feel, fel_t_

Dream, dre[)a]m_t_

Lean, le[)a]n_t_

Learn, learn_t_

Creep, crept

Sleep, slept

Leap, lept

Keep, kept

Weep, wept

Sweep, swept

Lose, lost

Flee, fled

In this class we so _left_ and _dealt_, instead of _leaved_ and _dealed_ {319}

-- 380 Third class--In the second class the vowel of the present tense was _shortened_ in the praeterite In the third class it is _changed_

Tell, told

Will, would

Sell, sold

Shall, should

To this class belong the remarkable praeterites of the verbs _seek_, _beseech_, _catch_, _teach_, _bring_, _think_, and _buy_, _viz_, _sought_, _besought_, _caught_, _taught_, _brought_, _thought_, and _bought_ In all these, the final consonant is either _g_ or _k_, or else a sound allied to those mutes When the tendency of these sounds to becoes, is remeht_, from _work_, there is a transposition In _laid_ and _said_ the present forularity which they have not The true original foran_, _secgan_ In these words the _i_ represents the selo-Saxon foran, bohte

Secan, sohte

Wyrcan, worhte

Bringan, brohte

encan, ohte

-- 381 Out of the three classes into which the weak verbs in Anglo-Saxon are divided, only one takes a vowel before the _d_ or _t_ The other two add the syllables _-te_, or _-de_, to the last letter of the original word

The vowel that, in one out of the three Anglo-Saxon classes, precedes _d_ is _o_ Thus we have _lufian_, _lufode_; _clypian_, _clypode_ In the other two classes the forms are respectively _baernan_, _baernde_; and _tellan_, _tealde_, no vowel being found The participle, however, as stated above, ended, not in _-de_ or _-te_, but in _-d_ or _-t_; and in two out of the three classes it was preceded by a vowel, _gelufod_, _baerned_, _geteald_

Now in those conjugations where no vowel preceded the _d_ of the praeterite, and where the original word ended in _-d_ or _-t_, a difficulty, which has already been indicated, arose To add the sign of the praeterite to a word like _eard-ian_ (_to dwell_) was an easyto the first class, and in the first class the praeterite was for in contact With words, however, like _metan_ and _sendan_, this was not the case Here no vowel intervened; so that the natural praeterite forms were _met-te_, _send-de_, combinations wherein one of the letters ran every chance of being dropped in the pronunciation Hence, with the exception of the verbs in the first class, words ending in _-d_ or _-t_ in the root admitted no additional _d_ or _t_ in the praeterite This difficulty, existing in the present English as it existed in the Anglo-Saxon,in _-t_ or _-d_

In several words there is the actual addition of the syllable _-ed_; in other words _d_ is separated froinal word by the addition of a vowel; as _ended_, _instructed_, &c Of this _e_ two views inal _o_ in _-ode_, the terlo-Saxon This is the opinion which we fored to the Anglo-Saxon language, and, in it, to the first class _Ended_, _planted_, _warded_, _hated_, _heeded_, are (alo-Saxon for _endode_, _plantode_, _weardode_, _hatode_, and _eahtode_, from _endian_, _plantian_, _weardian_, _hatian_, and _eahtian_

2 The form may be looked upon, not as that of the praeterite, but as that of the participle in a transferred sense This is the viee have two forms, one with the vowel, and the other without it, as _bended_ and _bent_, _wended_ and _went_, _plighted_ and _plight_