Class 5
Class 5, Sweet's "give conjugation", represents all verbs in which the IE Ablaut-vowel was followed by a single consonant other than a nasal or a liquid. This class is originally similar to class 4 except in the participle. There is also a small subgroup called "j-presents" which show umlaut throughout the whole of the present stem.
| Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | |
| Proto Indo-European | lés- | lésiti | lelóse | lelēsń̥d | lesó- |
| Proto Germanic | lesaną | lisidi | las | lēzun | lezanaz |
| Old English | lesan | lisþ | læs | lǣron | leren |
| Old Saxon | lesan | lisid | las | lārun | gileran |
| Old High German | lesan | lisit | las | lārun | gileran |
| Old Norse | lesa | less | las | lásu | lesinn |
| Gothic | lisan | lisiþ | las | lēsun | lisans |
In Old English the preterite is in æ/ǣ, as in class 4.
- sprecan spricþ spræc sprǣcon sprecen ("to speak")
- cweþan cwiþþ cwæþ cwǣdon cweden ("to say", cf. "bequeath", archaic past "quoth")
With West Saxon palatal diphthongization (after c, g)
- giefan geaf gēafon giefen ("to give")
With j-presents
- biddan bæd bǣdon beden
Contracted, anomalous:
- sēon sihþ seah sāwon sewen ("to see")
In Modern English this group has lost all group cohesion.
- eat ate eaten
- give gave given
- lie lay lain
- see saw seen
- sit sat sat
Class 5 verbs in Modern English: bid, eat, give, lie (= lie down), see, sit. Get, speak, tread, weave are now class 4.
In Old High German this group is relatively uniform. The model is geban, or for the j-presents, bitten.
- geban gibu gab gābum gigeban ("to give")
- bitten bat bātum gibetan ("to ask")
In Modern German this group is little changed from Old High German:
- geben (gib) gab gegeben
- bitten bat gebeten
The verb essen ("to eat") had a past participle giezzan in OHG; in MHG this became geezzen which was contracted to gezzen and then re-prefixed to gegezzen:
- essen (iss) aß gegessen
Class 5 verbs in modern German: essen, geben, genesen, geschehen, lesen, messen, sehen, treten, vergessen; with j-presents, bitten, liegen, sitzen.
In Dutch, class 5 is much as in German, except that the preterite retains the vowel length distinction which we also observed in class 4 above.
- geven gaf (gaven) gegeven
- bidden bad (baden) gebeden
- eten at (aten) gegeten
zien ("to see") has experienced a loss of the original /h/, with a resulting assimilation of the stem vowel to the vowel of the inflection, and shows Grammatischer Wechsel between this original /h/ and a /g/ in the preterite:
- zien, zag (zagen), gezien
Class 5 verbs in Dutch: eten, geven, genezen, lezen, meten, treden, vergeten; anomalous: zien; with j-presents: bidden, liggen, zitten.
In Gothic:
- giban gaf gēbun gibans
- saiƕan saƕ sēƕun saiƕans
Read more about this topic: Germanic Strong Verb
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