Lecture Word Stock of Middle English Period. Phonetic peculiarities of Middle English

Conjugation of Verbs in Middle English 
The meanings of the tense forms were also very general, as compared with later ages and 
with present-day English. The forms of the Pres. were used to indicate present and future actions. 
With verbs of perfective meaning or with adverbs of future time the Pres. acquired the meaning 
of futurity; Cf: þonne þu þa in bringst, he ytt and bletsaþ þe — futurity — 'when you bring them, 
he will eat and bless you' þu gesihst þæt ic ealdige 'you see that I am getting old' the Pres. tense 
ealdie indicates a process in the present which is now expressed by the Continuous form. Future 
happenings could also be expressed by verb phrases with modal verbs: 
forþæm ge sculon ... wepan 'therefore you shall weep'. 
The Past tense was used in a most general sense to indicate various events in the past 
(including those which are nowadays expressed by the forms of the Past Continuous, Past 
Perfect, Present Perfect and other analytical forms). Additio nal shades of meaning could be 
attached to it in different contexts, e. g.: 

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Ond þæs ofer Eastron gefor Æpered cyning; ond he ricsode fīf gear 'and then after Easter died 
King Aethered, and he had reigned five years' (the Past Tense ricsode indicates a completed 
action which preceded another past action — in the modem translation it is rendered by had 
reigned). 
Grammatical Categories of the Verbals 
In ME there were two non-finite forms of the verb: the Infinitive and the Participle. In 
many respects they were closer to the nouns and adjectives than to the finite verb; their nominal 
features were far more obvious than their verbal features, especially at the morphological level. 
The verbal nature of the Infinitive and the Participle was revealed in some of their functions and 
in their syntactic "combinability": like finite forms they could take direct objects and be modified 
by adverbs. 
The forms of the two participles were strictly differentiated. P I was formed from the 
Present tense stem (the Infinit ive without the endings -an, -ian) with the help of the suffix -ende. 
P II had a stem of its own — in strong verbs it was marked by a certain grade of the root-vowel 
interchange and by the suffix -en; with weak verbs it ended in -d/-t. P II was commonly marked 
by the prefix ge-, though it could also occur without it, especially if the verb had other word-
building prefixes. 
Infinitive Participle I Participle II (NE bindan bindende gebunden bind)