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Å Survey of the English Conjugation.
By
W. E Lidforss.
Ås was formerly the case with all German languages, so the English
grammarians generally admit only one conjugation for the English verbs:
such as differ more or less from the standard of that conjugation, are
considered as irregular. This fashion of viewing tbe matter had grown
to be so common, that it took thirty years after the publication of
RAsK’S and GRIMM’S works upon the German languages, till a born
Englishman, D:r LATHAM ventured upon adapting the principles there
set forth, to his native tongue, and consequently brought the English
verbs under two conjugations, the Strong and the Weak. And indeed,
considering that the essentially constituent elements of the English
language are the Anglo-Saxon and the Norman-French, melted together
in such a manner, that the latter has exercised a great influence upon
the pronunciation and supplied richly to the vocabulary, but that the
system of laws constituting the etymology and syntax, is Anglo-Saxon
in all its distinctive characteristics !), it is but reasonable, from a sci-
-entifical point of view, to bring the phenomena of the English grammar
in a connexion with the related German languages, and then, holding
forth those of the present age for an inspection and a comparison with
the former stages, thus to trace historically the development of the
language. It will afterwards be an easy thing to decide, how far the
results thus won be of practical use and serviceable to the elementary
grammar.
It then we go back to examine the verbal inflection of old times,
we shall find that the Gothic, the eldest sprig known of the Low-
!) ”Ia no point of importance is the grammar of the English language
any thing more than & simplification of the grammar of the Anglo-Saxon.”
The History of English Literature with an Outline of the Origin and Growth
of the English Language. By WILLIAM SPALDING. 7:th Ed. Edinburgh 1861.
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