Germanic Strong Verb - Class 1

Class 1

Class 1, Sweet's "drive conjugation", represents all verbs in which the IE Ablaut-vowel was followed by an i. This combination is effectively a diphthong in PIE, or in the zero-grade, a simple i. Regular vowel shifts in Germanic change ei > ī and oi > ai. Metaphony does not affect class 1. Compare with Latin venio ("I come"): infinitive venire, perfect active indicative vēni, and future active participle venturus.

In Old English, Germanic ai becomes ā.

• rīdan rītt rād ridon riden ("to ride")
• wrītan wrītt wrāt writon writen ("to write")
• scīnan scīnt scān scinon scinen ("to shine")

Modern English has experienced a diphthongisation of ī (though it is still spelled with an i) and a shift ā > ō. The modern preterite is taken from the old preterite singular, and in the case of "shine", the past participle has also assimilated to the preterite singular.

• ride rode ridden
• write wrote written
• shine shone shone

Class 1 verbs in modern English (excluding derived verbs such as abide and override) are bide, bite, chide, drive, hide, ride, rise, shine, shrive, smite, stride, strike, strive, thrive, write. However, note that, although these verbs have uniformity in their infinitive vowel, they no longer form a coherent class in further inflected forms – for example, bite (bit, bitten), ride (rode, ridden), shine (shone, shone), and strike (struck, struck/stricken, with struck and stricken used in different meanings) all show different patterns from one another – but bide, drive, ride, rise, smite, stride, strive, write do form a (more or less) coherent subclass. Most of these verbs are descended from Old English class 1 verbs. However:

• The French loan-word strive (albeit descended from a Frankish class 1 verb) is class 1 by analogy to drive.
• Similarly, thrive is a class 1 verb formed by analogy to drive, its Old English ancestor being weak and descended from Old Norse þrífa (itself a class 1 strong verb, meaning "to grasp").
• hide is a class 1 verb whose Old English ancestor, hȳdan, was weak.

In addition, writhe is an English class 1 verb that has class 1 forms (wrothe, writhen) only in archaic usage.

For the principal parts of all English strong verbs see: Wiktionary appendix: Irregular English verbs.

In Old High German, Germanic ai becomes ei, and then by OHG monophthongisation it becomes ē before a velar consonant. Thus Old High German has two subclasses, depending on the vowel in the preterite singular:

• 1a rītan rītu reit ritum giritan ("to ride")
• 1b līhan līhu lēh ligum giligan ("to loan" - note grammatischer Wechsel.)

Like English, Modern German diphthongises the ī (spelling it ei). The modern language takes its preterite from the old preterite plural, so the distinction between the two subclasses disappears. However a new subdivision arises because the i of the past tense forms is lengthened to ie before a single consonant. As it happens, reiten and leihen serve as examples of this too, but many OHG 1a verbs are in the modern long vowel group.

• (short vowel) reiten ritt geritten ("to ride")
• (long vowel) leihen lieh geliehen ("to loan")

Class 1 verbs in modern German are:

• with short vowels: beißen, bleichen, gleichen, gleiten, greifen, leiden, pfeifen, reißen, reiten, scheißen, schleichen, schleifen, schleißen, schmeißen, schneiden, schreiten, spleißen, streichen, streiten, weichen (also the originally weak verb kneifen by analogy)
• with vowel lengthening: bleiben, gedeihen, leihen, meiden, reiben, scheiden, scheinen, schreiben, schreien, schweigen, speien, steigen, treiben, verzeihen, weisen (also the originally weak verb preisen by analogy).

In Dutch, class 1 has remained very regular, and follows the pattern:

• grijpen greep gegrepen

Class 1 verbs in Dutch are bezwijken, bijten, blijken, blijven, drijven, glijden, grijpen, hijsen, kijken, knijpen, krijgen, lijden, lijken, mijden, prijzen, rijden, rijzen, schijnen, schijten, schrijden, schrijven, slijpen, slijten, smijten, spijten, splijten, stijgen, strijden, strijken, verdwijnen, vermijden, wijken, wijzen, wrijven, zwijgen.

In Gothic:

• dreiban draif dribun dribans