HOTEL Lecture 7.4 — Old English Morphology: Weak and Preterite-Present Verbs, Non-finite Forms

Why do we say he can, and not he cans? The last part of Lecture 7 covers the weak verbs (and why seek–sought and teach–taught were already irregular in Old English), the preterite-present verbs that became the English modal verbs, and the suppletive verbs be, go, do and will. It then turns to the non-finite forms — the two infinitives behind “to write” and “can write”, the two participles, and the absence of a gerund — and shows how the modern passive and perfect were built from them. It ends with a summary of the whole lecture and the answers to its three questions. Lecture 7 of the course History of the English Language (HOTEL), for third-year students of English Philology at Vasyl Stefanyk Carpathian National University. Lecturer: Lesya Ikalyuk, PhD.