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16 W. FE. Lidforss.
-
granted, granted. In joining the terminations to the root, it should be
observed:
1. whenever the verb ends with e, this is not part of the root,
but a rest of inflection, which has been maintained in some verbs, and
it is dropped before every other termination.
2. verbs ending in y change this y, if preceded by a consonant,
into i before a following vowel, except the participial -iny; if, on the
contrary, the y is preceded by a vowel, it melts together with this to
a diphthong, and no change takes place. Thus: marry, marries, mar-
ried, marrying; but: convey, conveys, conveyed, conveying.
3. verbs ending with a single consonant preceded by a short vowel,
if accented on the last syllable, double the consonant before a following
vowel, thus: drop, dropped, dropping. This also takes place in some
verbs, the last syllable of which is unaccented ; thus: worship, worship-
ped, worshipping; frolid, frolicked, frolicking; but it is yet a matter of
convention how for the rule may be thus extended.
Thus much as to letters and signs! But there is still something
to be said about the pronunciation. To wit, the mediate e is pro-
nounced only after d, t, and th, else, as a pure point of spelling, it
is suppressed to the ear, and then, the ending radical being brought
in immediate contact with tho d of the preterit, this d keeps its own
sound after w and y, the flat consonants, and the liquids, but is sounded
like t? after the sharp consonants. Thus, out of the apparently simple
conjugation, we actually get three classes, corresponding exactly to
the first and second classes in the Swedish language, as exhibited by
RYDQVIsT in his Svenska Språkets Lagar: add, added, shift, shifted,
bathe, bathed, agree with kalla, kallade, kallad, weigh, weighed, smile,
smiled, buzz, buzzed, with bränna, brände, bränd, dip, dipped, toss,
tossed, crack, cracked, with lösa, löste, löst. Nor is an analogy with
the Swedish third class wanting, as we shall see hereafter.
This evolution of three different classes out of the one visible, na-
turally depends on the English orthography having stayed behind the
pronunciation, and marked a sound that was no longer heard. Such,
however, is not always the case; for in some verbs the mediate vowel
is really dropped, and the d or t of the preterit, now marked with
the proper signs, is joined immediately to the root as: say, said; keep,
kept. Of this we also had precedents in the Anglo-Saxon, as above
shown. But, following up the same kind of chase, the language now
has come to possess verbs, that drop not only the mediate vowel, but
also the characteristical d or t of the preterit, as: cut, cut, and of
such freedom there is no example in the Anglo-Saxon. However, granted
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