VERBS CLASSIFIED ACCORDING TO FORM.

244. According to form, verbs are strong or weak.

A strong verb forms its past tense by changing the vowel of the present tense form, but adds no ending; as, run, ran; drive, drove.

A weak verb always adds an ending to the present to form the past tense, and may or may not change the vowel: as, beg, begged; lay, laid; sleep, slept; catch, caught.

245. TABLE OF STRONG VERBS.

NOTE. Some of these also have weak forms, which are in parentheses

Remarks on Certain Verb Forms.

246. Several of the perfect participles are seldom used except as adjectives: as, "his bounden duty," "the cloven hoof," "a drunken wretch," "a sunken snag." Stricken is used mostly of diseases; as, "stricken with paralysis."

The verb bear (to bring forth) is peculiar in having one participle (borne) for the active, and another (born) for the passive. When it means to carry or to endure, borne is also a passive.

The form clomb is not used in prose, but is much used in vulgar English, and sometimes occurs in poetry; as,—

The forms of cleave are really a mixture of two verbs,—one meaning to adhere or cling; the other, to split. The former used to be cleave, cleaved, cleaved; and the latter, cleave, clave or clove, cloven. But the latter took on the weak form cleft in the past tense and past participle,—as (from Shakespeare), "O Hamlet! thou hast cleft my heart in twain,"—while cleave (to cling) sometimes has clove, as (from Holmes), "The old Latin tutor clove to Virgilius Maro." In this confusion of usage, only one set remains certain,—cleave, cleft, cleft (to split).

Crew is seldom found in present-day English.

Historically, drunk is the one correct past participle of the verb drink. But drunk is very much used as an adjective, instead of drunken (meaning intoxicated); and, probably to avoid confusion with this, drank is a good deal used as a past participle: thus,—

Sometimes in literary English, especially in that of an earlier period, it is found that the verb eat has the past tense and past participle eat (ĕt), instead of ate and eaten; as, for example,—

This is also very much used in spoken and vulgar English.

The form gotten is little used, got being the preferred form of past participle as well as past tense. One example out of many is,—

Hung and hanged both are used as the past tense and past participle of hang; but hanged is the preferred form when we speak of execution by hanging; as,

The verb sat is sometimes spelled sate; for example,—

Usually shear is a weak verb. Shorn and shore are not commonly used: indeed, shore is rare, even in poetry.

Shorn is used sometimes as a participial adjective, as "a shorn lamb," but not much as a participle. We usually say, "The sheep were sheared" instead of "The sheep were shorn."

Went is borrowed as the past tense of go from the old verb wend, which is seldom used except in poetry; for example,—

Exercises.

(a) From the table (Sec. 245), make out lists of verbs having the same vowel changes as each of the following:—

• 1. Fall, fell, fallen.
• 2. Begin, began, begun.
• 3. Find, found, found.
• 4. Give, gave, given.
• 5. Drive, drove, driven.
• 6. Throw, threw, thrown.
• 7. Fling, flung, flung.
• 8. Break, broke, broken.
• 9. Shake, shook, shaken.
• 10. Freeze, froze, frozen.