Germanic Strong Verb - Class 4

Class 4

Class 4, Sweet's "Bear conjugation", represents all verbs in which the ablaut vowel was followed by a single nasal or liquid. The zero-grade in the participle becomes a u in Germanic, but, outside of Gothic, changes to o by a-mutation; as a single nasal is not enough to block this mutation, subgroups do not form in the Germanic class 4 as they do in class 3.

In Old English, the general pattern is:

• beran bierþ bær bǣron boren ("to bear")
• brecan bricþ bræc brǣcon brocen ("to break")

With West Saxon palatal diphthongization (after c, g):

• scieran scear scēaron scoren ("to shear")

The verb come is anomalous in all the West Germanic languages because it originally began with qu-, and the subsequent loss of the w sound coloured the vowel of the present stem.

• cuman cymþ cōm cōmon cumen ("to come")

Also anomalous:

• niman nimþ nōm nōmon numen ("to take")

In Modern English, regular class 4 verbs have all kept the –n in the participle, though eliminating the medial e after r, this class exhibits near homogeneity of vowel pattern:

• break broke broken

Class 4 verbs in English are bear, break, get, shear, speak, steal, swear, tear, tread, wake, weave; and without the -n and of irregular vowel progression: come. Get, speak, tread and weave were originally of class 5, wake and swear were originally class 6.

Although the verb to be is suppletive and highly irregular, its preterite follows the pattern of a class 4 strong verb, with grammatischer Wechsel, and in English and Dutch this verb has retained the singular/plural distinction of both ablaut grade and consonant in the modern languages. Old English: wæs/wǣron, English: was/were. For full paradigms and historical explanations see Indo-European copula.

In Old High German, the pattern is:

• neman nimu nam nāmum ginoman ("to take")

In Modern German the preterite is based on the preterite singular. As the only difference between the historical classes 3b and 4 was the preterite plural, these two classes are now identical.

• nehmen nahm genommen ("to take")

Kommen still has the anomalous o in the present stem (although some dialects still pronounce this as kemmen.)

• kommen kam gekommen ("to come")

Class 4 verbs in modern German: brechen, gebären, nehmen, schrecken, sprechen, stechen, stehlen, treffen; anomalous: kommen.

The preterite of sein ("to be") is Old High German: was/wârum, but levelled in modern German: war/waren.

In Dutch, class 4 and 5 verbs still show the distinction in vowel between the preterite singular and plural: ik nam ("I took") has the plural wij namen (not *nammen), that is, the 'short' vowel of the singular is replaced by the 'long' in the plural. (Note the relationship of consonant doubling to vowel length, which is explained at Dutch orthography). The pattern is therefore:

• breken brak (braken) gebroken ("to break")

In the case of komen, the w is retained in the preterite.

• komen kwam (kwamen) gekomen ("to come")

Class 4 verbs in Dutch are: bevelen, breken, nemen, spreken, steken, stelen; and anomalous: komen.

The preterite of wezen/zijn ("to be") still shows both (quantitative) ablaut and grammatischer Wechsel between the singular and plural: was/waren.

In Gothic:

• qiman qam qēmun qumans
• brikan brak brēkun brukans