1. Middle English period great change Middle English Verbal System

2.The Middle English Verbal System

In structural terms the Middle English verbal system is almost identical with the Modern English system. Middle English verbs had the following simple forms:

• 
  one voice (active voice);
  
• 
  two numbers (singular and plural);
  
• 
  three persons;
  
• 
  two tenses (present and preterite);
  
• 
  three modes (indicative, subjunctive, imperative);
  
• 
  two participles (present and preterite).
  

All other tenses, aspects and voices were formed, as in Modern English, by means of auxiliary verbs, such as `be,' `have,' or `will.'
In contrast to Modern English, the Middle English pattern of verbal inflexion is quite complicated because of a great amount of temporal and regional variation. Table shows Chaucer's verb forms of the verbs heren (`hear') and riden (`ride') in a simplified form.

Resent	Weak preterite	Strong preterite
Infinitive			her-e(n)
Indicative		1st sg.	her-e	herd-e	rood
		2nd sg.	her-est	herd-est	rid-e
		3rd sg.	her-eth	herd-e	rood
		pl.	her-e(n)	herd-e(n)	rid-e(n)
Subjunctive		sg.	her-e	herd-e	rid-e
		pl.	her-e(n)	herd-e(n)	rid-e(n)
Participle			her-yng(e)	(y-)herd(-e)	(y-)rid-en
Imperative		sg.	her(-e)
		pl.	her-eth

In Chaucer's English we can find six different suffixes, which he uses to distinguish between the various forms of the verbs: , -e, -est, -eth, -en, and -ynge. As we said before, this model of the Middle English verbal inflectional system is simplified. In other texts, you will find different and more complex systems. In some cases, verb forms can be used as dialect criteria, especially the third-person forms and the present participle.

The individual groups of verbs

Since the productive class of Middle English verbs roughly corresponds to the Modern English regular verbs, there is no reason to deal with them in detail for our purposes. It is more important to distinguish between several groups of unproductive verbs, because many of their representatives are high-frequency verbs. All these verbs developed into irregular verbs in Modern English.
As mentioned above strong verbs form their preterite by changing the root vowel, as in riden, rod, riden. Traditionally, one can distinguish between seven different classes of strong verbs in accordance with the patterns of vowel gradation.
Weak verbs do not follow the simple inflectional pattern but show certain irregularities, like sellen/solde, bryngen/broghte, reden/radde, lenen/lente, maken/maade, or haven/hast/hath/han/hadde. It is easy to identify weak verbs, as they clearly show one or the other variant of the dental suffix in the preterite, like -de, -te, and others. Weak verbs are, however, unproductive, as no new verbs are formed according to this pattern.
The group of irregular verbs contains the remnants of two Indo-European verb classes, the so-called verbs on -mi and the preterite-present verbs:

Verbs on -mi

These are been, doon, goon, and wolen. Their name is due to the fact that they belong to an Indo-European verb class which formed its 1st person present on -mi, but which cannot be seen in Middle English any more except in the from I am (cf. Latin sum). The conjugation of these verbs is quite anomalous, especially with been, which is the only Modern English verb having eight different forms.

Preterite-present verbs

These are konne/koude, durre/dorste, moot/moste, mowe/myghte, shulle/sholde, wite/wiste. They got their name, because their original preterite took a present meaning in the Germanic languages and a new preterite was formed by means of a dental suffix.

Auxiliary verbs

As in Modern English, the usage of the auxiliaries is rather complex in Middle English. The exact meaning of an auxiliary is in many cases not identical with its Modern English meaning in a comparable collocation. On a more abstract level, however, we find very similar features. In both stages of the language, in Middle and in Modern English, auxiliary verbs mainly serve four communicative functions. Mind that these problems do not completely fall into the field of morphology in the strict sense of the term. They touch syntactic and semantic problems as well. The four functions are:

Modifying the meaning of other verbs

Because of this function verbs like can or shall are called modals or modal auxiliaries in Modern English grammars. The function as such has not changed very much since the Middle English period, but unfortunately the meaning and usage of the verbs.

Formation of compound tenses

As in Modern English auxiliaries are used to form the past and future compound tenses. In Middle English the verbs haven and been were used to express the perfect aspect. There are indications that haven was predominantly used with transitive and been with intransitive verbs. Mind that the function of the perfect forms is not identical with the Modern English usage. Shulle and wole are used to express the future in Middle English.

Formation of the passive voice

The auxiliary been + Pret. Part. is used to form the passive voice in Middle English. The rules of formation and the function of the passive are very similar to Modern English usage.