Germanic Strong Verb - Class 2

Class 2

Class 2, Sweet's "choose conjugation", represents all verbs in which the IE Ablaut-vowel was followed by a u. In PIE it is therefore very similar to class 1. A regular vowel shift in Germanic changes ou > au. In two separate metaphonic processes, the present singular (part 2) is umlauted (eu > iu) because of an i in the inflection and the u in the past participle (part 5) is assimilated to the a in the inflection (u > o). A small number of verbs form a subgroup with ū in parts 1 and 2, for reasons which have not been entirely explained; this anomalous form may originate in Proto-Indo-European.

In Old English, Germanic eu becomes ēo.

• scēotan scīett scēat scuton scoten ("to shoot")
• bēodan bīett bēad budon boden ("to command, bid")
• flēogan flīehþ flēag flugon flogen ("to fly")
• cēosan cīest cēas curon coren ("to choose" - note grammatischer Wechsel)

An Old English example with the present stem in ū:

• scūfan scŷfþ scēaf scufon scofen ("to shove")

In Modern English, this is a small group characterised by the o vowel of the participle being assimilated to the preterite:

• choose chose chosen
• fly flew flown

Class 2 verbs in Modern English are choose, cleave, dive (AE), fly, freeze, which do not form a coherent class, as each verb has different irregularities from each other verb.

In Old High German, the usual pattern is:

• biogan biugu boug bugum gibogan ("to bend")

An Old High German example with present stem in ū:

• sūfan siufu souf sufum gisofan ("to drink")

An example with wandel affecting the whole of the present stem.

• briuwan briuwu brou brūwum gibrūwan ("to brew")

A small group sometimes called class 2b has Old High German monophthongisation in the preterite singular:

• biotan biutu bōt butum gibotan ("to offer")

Regular shifts on the way to Modern German change io > ie and ou > o. The modern preterite is based on the OHG preterite singular:

• biegen bog gebogen ("to bend")
• schieben schob geschoben ("to shove")
• saugen sog gesogen ("to suck")

Class 2 verbs in Modern German are: biegen, bieten, fliegen, fliehen, fließen, frieren, genießen, gießen, klieben, kriechen, riechen, schieben, schießen, schließen, sprießen, stieben, verlieren, ziehen; with ū-present: saufen, saugen.

Two anomalous class 2 verbs in modern German are lügen ("to tell a lie") and trügen ("to deceive"). This no doubt arises from a desire to disambiguate Middle High German liegen from ligen (class 5), which would have sounded the same in Early Modern German. Trügen would have followed in its wake, because the two words form a common rhyming collocation.

In Dutch, class 2 follows the patterns

• bedriegen bedroog bedrogen ("to deceive")
• sluiten sloot gesloten ("to shut")

The present stem in ui represents the old ū-present, but interestingly this subgroup has grown, as a number of class 2 verbs which originally did not have ū-presents have taken the ui by analogy. Class 2 verbs in modern Dutch are: bedriegen, bieden, genieten, gieten, kiezen, liegen, schieten, verliezen, vliegen, vriezen; with ū-present: buigen, druipen, duiken, fluiten, kruipen, ruiken, schuilen, schuiven, sluiten, snuiven, spuiten, stuiven, zuigen, zuipen.

In Old Norse the past participle and plural present stem were subject to change due to assimilation.

In Gothic:

• biudan bauþ budun budans
• lūkan lauk lukun lukans