Paradise Lost, b. ii.
we have a form from the Anglo-Saxon participle gefroren=frozen.
[§ 408]. The participle in -d, -t, or -ed.—In the Anglo-Saxon this participle was declined like the adjective. Like the adjective, it is, in the present English, undeclined.
In Anglo-Saxon it differed in form from the præterite, inasmuch as it ended in -ed, or -t, whereas the præterite ended in -ode, -de, or -te: as, lufode, bærnde, dypte, præterites; gelufod, bærned, dypt, participles.
As the ejection of the e reduces words like bærned and bærnde to the same form, it is easy to account for the present
identity of form between the weak præterites and the participles in -d: e. g., I moved, I have moved, &c.
[§ 409]. In the older writers, and in works written, like Thomson's Castle of Indolence, in imitation of them, we find prefixed to the præterite participle the letter y-, as yclept=called: yclad=clothed: ydrad=dreaded.
The following are the chief facts and the current opinion concerning this prefix:—
1. It has grown out of the fuller forms ge-: Anglo-Saxon, ge-: Old Saxon, gi-: Mœso-Gothic, ga-: Old High German, ka-, cha-, ga-, ki-, gi-.
2. It occurs in each and all of the Germanic languages of the Gothic stock.