Verbals in the history of English
Infinitive: Though sometimes the traces of these meanings are still visible. In ME the Infinitive lost the Dative Case (the inflected form) and only one form was left. Particletoremained in NEas a formal sign of the infinitive with no meaning of direction or purpose. In OEthe Infinitive resembled the Noun and had the category of Case (only two Cases – Nominative (Nom) and Dative (Dat))
Participle 1:The formation of the Participle 1 was as follows. In OEParticiple 1 was considered Present Participle, had only the form of the Active Voice, possessed the categories of Number, Gender, Case. It was used predicatively and attributively (agreed with the noun in Number, Gender, Case). In MEit 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: 1)in strong verbs – with the help of the suffix –en(+ sometimes root-vowel interchange) + often marked by prefix ζe-. In MEprefix ζe-was weakened toprefixi-/y, 2)in weak verbs – with the help of the suffix -t/-d:. Participle 2, unlike Participle 1, had two meanings of the category of Voice. Thus in OEParticiple 2 was considered Past Participle, had the forms of the Active and Passive Voice, possessed the categories of Number, Gender, Case. It was used predicatively and attributively (agreed with the noun in Number, Gender, Case). In MEit lost the category of Voice and the categories of Number, Gender, Case and became unchangeable.
Gerund: The Gerund appeared only in the 12th c. Actually it presented a mixture of the OE Verbal Noun (with suffix -unζ/-inζ) and Participle 1 and its characteristics were: 1) It took direct object (verbal feature); 2) It could be preceded by an article or a possessive pronoun (noun feature).
26. the cause of changes in the morphol-l system in ME &NE
The simplification of the nominal paradigms and the replacement of synthetic means by analytical means of word connection — took place mainly in the Early ME period.
The OE division into classes of weak and strong verbs was completely rearranged and broken. Most verbs have adopted the way of form-building employed by the weak verbs: the dental suffix instead of vowel gradation. The strict classification of the strong verbs with their regular system of form-building degenerated. All these changes led to increased regularity and uniformity and to development of a more consistent and simple system of building and principal forms of the verb. Strong verb: In ME the final syllables of the stems were weakened, in early NE most of them were lost. The OE endings –an, -on, -en were reduced to ME –en. The root-vowels underwent the regular changes of stressed vowels. The most imp. Change in the system of strong verbs was the reduction in the number of stems from 4 to 3.