I. Many strong verbs become weak; whilst no weak verb ever becomes strong.
II. All the strong verbs are of Saxon origin. None are classical.
III. The greater number of them are strong throughout the Gothic tongues.
IV. No new word is ever, upon its importation, inflected according to the strong conjugation. It is always weak. As early as A.D. 1085, the French word adouber=to dubb, was introduced into English. Its præterite was dubbade.[[56]]
V. All derived words are inflected weak. The intransitive forms drink and lie, are strong; the transitive forms drench and lay, are weak.
The fourth statement will again be recurred to. The present object is to show that the division into strong and weak is natural.
[§ 387]. Obsolete forms.—Instead of lept, slept, mowed, snowed, &c., we find, in the provincial dialects and in the older writers, the strong forms lep, step, mew, snew, &c. This is no more than what we expect. Here there are two forms, and each form is of a different conjugation.
[§ 388]. Double Forms.—In lep and mew we have two forms, of which one only is current. In swoll and swelled, in clomb and climbed, and in hung and hanged, we have two forms, of which both are current. These latter are true double forms. Of double forms there are two kinds.
1. Those like swoll and swelled; where there is the same tense, but a different conjugation.