to go by, elapse. It is now used adverbially, as "a long time ago." "By Saint Mary, and I wist that, I would be ago." HICKSCORNER, p. 167, ed. 1874. 66 Who, think you, brought here this figure? Himself not long agone." The Four Elements, p. 28, ed. 1874. Do, did, done, is a reduplicated verb, and of course belongs to the strong conjugation of verbs. The Sanskrit dha to place is cognate with English do, and its perfect dadhau is formed by reduplication, like English did Verbal Inflexions. PERSONAL ENDINGS. 200. Verbs are of two kinds, primary and derivative. All the strong verbs are of primary origin; the weak verbs are of secondary formation. To bear is a primary verb, because it is formed directly from the root, bar; but tell, as we have seen (p. 157), is formed from the nominal theme, tale, and is therefore a derivative verb. The root is the significant element in the verb, to which are added endings to mark person, tense, or mood. Sometimes the personal terminations are added directly to the verbal root, as in do-st, do-th, or by means of a connecting vowel, as in lov-e-st, lov-e-th. The person-endings were originally pronominal roots placed after, and compounded with, the verbal root or theme, as if we were to say love-I, lovethou, love-he, &c. 201. The suffix of the first person singular, was originally m (for mi), which we still retain in the verb, a-m. Cp. Lat. su-m, Gr. el-u, Sansk. as-mi = I am, Ger. bin, O.H.G. pim, O.E. (Northern) beom, I be. 202. The suffix of the second person singular is -st; it was originally -t, which can be traced back to a suffix -ti, identical in origin with the root of thou. In the subjunctive mood this suffix is altogether lost. The original t occurs in shal-t, wil-t, ar-t. Strong verbs in O.E. lost this t of ti, and the second person singular ends only in e; as, heold-e = held-e-st, didst hold. This st belonged only to weak verbs in the earliest period, but it was gradually extended to strong verbs in the fourteenth century. 203. The suffix of the third person is -th (the root of the, tha-t) = he, that. As early as the eleventh century, in the Northern dialects, th was softened to s; but the former is now archaic. In the past tense of strong and weak verbs, the endings in the first and third persons singular have altogether disappeared. 204. In modern English we have no plural suffixes. In O.E. the indicative present plural of all persons ended in -th (originally the ending of the second person plural), as (1) ber-a-th; (2) ber-a-th; (3) ber-a-th. The past indicative and the subjunctive (present and past) ended all their persons in -n (the original suffix of the third person plural); as, subjunctive present find-e-n; indicative past, fund-o-n, and subjunctive past, fund-e-n, or fund-o-n. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, we find the Southern dialect keeping -th for the present plural indicative, the Midland -n, and the Northern dropping all endings, or taking -s in the second and third persons. (See § 49, p. 31). = In O.E. the personal endings were often dropped when the pronoun followed the verbs; as gâ ge gath ge (go ye); ete weeten we (eat we, let us eat). The plural in -en was in use up to the middle of the sixteenth century, and a few examples are to be found in Spenser and Shakespeare; Hall, (contemporary with Milton) uses it in his Satires, eg. "And angry bullets whistlen at his ear." vi. 46. In O.E. the imperative plural ended in -th, as nimath, take ye. In M.E. this ending was kept up in the Midland and Southern dialects, but not in the Northern dialect, where -s was used instead of it. |