A Handbook of the English Language

by R. G. Latham

CHAPTER XXX.

THE PAST PARTICIPLE.

[§ 346]. A. The participle in -EN.—In the Anglo-Saxon this participle was declined like the adjectives. Like the adjectives, it is, in the present English, undeclined.

In Anglo-Saxon it always ended in -en, as sungen, funden, bunden. In English this -en is often wanting, as found, bound; the word bounden being antiquated.

Words where the -en is wanting may be viewed in two lights; 1, they may be looked upon as participles that have lost their termination; 2, they may be considered as præterites with a participial sense.

[§ 347]. Drank, drunk, drunken.—With all words wherein the vowel of the plural differs from that of the singular, the participle takes the plural form. To say I have drunk, is to use an ambiguous expression; since drunk may be either a participle minus its termination, or a præterite with a participial sense. To say I have drank, is to use a præterite for a participle. To say I have drunken, is to use an unexceptional form.

In all words with a double form, as spake and spoke, brake and broke, clave and clove, the participle follows the form in o, as spoken, broken, cloven. Spaken, braken, claven are impossible forms. There are degrees in laxity of language, and to say the spear is broke is better than to say the spear is brake.

[§ 348]. As a general rule, we find the participle in -en wherever the præterite is strong; indeed, the participle in -en may be called the strong participle, or the participle of the strong conjugation. Still the two forms do not always coincide. In mow, mowed, mown, sow, sowed, sown; and several other words, we find the participle strong, and the præterite weak. I remember no instances of the converse. This is only another way of saying that the præterite has a greater tendency to pass from strong to weak than the participle.

[§ 349]. In the Latin language the change from s to r, and vice versâ, is very common. We have the double forms arbor and arbos, honor and honos, &c. Of this change we have a few specimens in English. The words rear and raise, as compared with each other, are examples. In Anglo-Saxon a few words undergo a similar change in the plural number of the strong præterites.