C. The verbs bēon, wesan.

Participle I – bēonde, wesende

Participle II – no forms

Present Tense

1. 2. 3. 1-3.

eom eart is sind(on) sint

bēo bist biþ bēoþ

sīe, sī, sy, bēo   sīen, sīn, syn, bēon

2nd sg. wes, bēo   2nd pl. wesaþ, bēoþ

Past Tense

In Middle English the subjunctive preserved many features it had in Old English. It was often used in conditional, temporal and concessional clauses. But the formal distinctions between the subjunctive and indicative moods were to a large extent neutralized. The increased homonymy of the forms stimulated the more extensive use of modal phrases, indicating imaginary and probable actions. Thus, in the course of Middle English and Early Modern English there appeared several analytical forms of the subjunctive mood.

ME sholde and wolde began to weaken and even lose their lexical meanings and turn into auxiliaries. By the age of Shakespeare the change was complete and the forms should/would – originally Past Subjunctive of shall and will – had become formal markers of the new, analytical forms of the subjunctive mood.

As the frequency of the forms with shouldand would grew, the employment of the old synthetic forms became more restricted, but even in Early Modern English, the new analytical forms did not differ from the synthetic forms in meanings and usage and were interchangeable in any context.

In order to indicate improbable events in the past, a new set of forms came to be used: the Past Perfect forms which did not differ from the forms of the indicative mood. These forms occur already at the time of Chaucer and are quite common in later ages (Rastorguyeva 1983).

Unit 26

Date: 2014-12-22; view: 1564