Participles.—1. The active or imperfect participle ends in -ende or -ande, the former being the Midland and the latter the Northumbrian form. The Southern affix is -inde, from which we have the modern -ing (O.E. -inge).
Our author rhymes specande with lockende, and in the Bestiary we find that the participle in -ande rhymes with an infinitive in -en,[[65]] and this accounts for such forms as stinken = stinkende, brennen = brennende, in the present poem.
2. The passive or perfect participle of regular or weak verbs terminates in -ed; of irregular or strong verbs in -en. In bigote (begotten), funde (found), geue (given), the absence of the n is probably an error of the scribe.
3. The prefix i- or y- (A.S. ge-) is not of frequent occurrence either in this poem or in the Bestiary; in the former we have i-wreken (avenged), i-wrogt (wrought), ybiried (buried), y-oten (called); and in the latter we find i-digt (arranged).
There are two conjugations of verbs, regular (weak) and irregular (strong). The regular verbs form their past tense in -ede, -de, or -te; the past participle ends in -ed, -d, or -t. Irregular verbs form their past tense by a change of vowel, and the past participle terminates in -en.
CONJUGATION OF REGULAR VERBS.
I. Class. Infinitive Mood—Loven, love.
INDICATIVE MOOD.
| PRESENT. | |
| Singular. | Plural. |
| 1. love, | 1. loven, |
| 2. lovest, | 2. loven, |
| 3. loveð. | 3. loven. |
| PAST TENSE. | |
| Singular. | Plural. |
| 1. lovede, | 1. loveden, |
| 2. lovedest, | 2. loveden, |
| 3. lovede. | 3. loveden. |
SUBJUNCTIVE MOOD.