Participles. Present: -inge, -ing. The fuller form in -inge is rare, being chiefly employed, for the rime, at the end of a line, as gliteringe, A 2890; thunderinge, A 2174; flikeringe, A 1962.
Note. The pres. part. is not to be confounded with the sb. of verbal origin. Thus singinge, floytinge (A 91), whistling (A 170), are present participles; but priking, hunting (A 191), winning (A 275), lerninge (A 300), teching (A 518) are substantives. The pl. sb. rekeninges occurs in A 760.
Past Participles. The pp. of weak verbs ends in -ed, -d, or -t; and that of strong verbs in -en, -n, -e. The prefix y- (i), representing the A.S. ge- (ye-), often occurs with past participles; as in y-ronne, A 8, from A.S. gerunnen. The same prefix occurs, very rarely, before an infinitive; as in y-finde, y-here, y-knowe, y-see, y-thee. It also appears in the adj. y-sene (A.S. gesēne), which has often been mistaken for a pp. But the pp. of see is y-seyn or y-seye.
[§ 90]. Seven Conjugations of strong verbs. Strong verbs usually exhibit a vowel-change (gradation) in the stem, as in the mod. E. sing, sang, sung.
There are seven conjugations, corresponding to the types of the verbs drive, choose, drink, bear, give, shake, fall. See Sievers, A.S. Grammar.
The 'principal parts' of strong verbs are (a) the infinitive (which has the primary grade); (b) the past tense singular (which
has the middle grade); (c) the past tense plural (which in A.S. usually differs, as to its vowel, from the singular); and (d) the pp. In strict grammar, the 2 p. s. of the pt. t. has the same vowel as the pp. Thus biginne has the pp. bigonnen, and the 2 p. s. pt. t. is bigonne, thou didst begin, without any final -st.
1. Infin. dryven (driivən); Pt. s. dròòf, dròf (draof); Pt. pl. driven (drivən); Pp. driven (drivən).
Thus the characteristic vowels are: y (ii); òò (ao); i; i. So are conjugated abyden or abyde, agryse, aryse, byde, byte, glyde, ryde, ryse, ryve, shyne, shryve, slyde, smyte, (be)stryde, stryke, thryve, wryte, wrythe[[67]]. Chaucer also treats stryve as a strong verb, though it was originally weak; with pt. t. stròòf, pp. striven. To this conjugation belongs wryen, to hide, put for wrīhen; hence the pp. would be wrĭh-en, which appears in Chaucer as wryen.
2. Infin. chēsen (cheezən); Pt. s. chèès (chaes); Pt. pl. chōsen (chao·zən); Pp. chōsen (chao·zən).