PAST TENSE OF WEAK VERBS. Singular: 1. 3. _-ede_, _-ed_, _-de_, _-te_; 2. _-edest_, _-dest_, _-test_. Plural: 1. 2. 3. _-eden_, _-den_, _-ten_; _-ede_, _-de_, _-te_, also _-ed_ (occasionally). SUBJUNCTIVE MOOD: PRESENT. Singular: 1. 2. 3. _-e_. Plural: _-en_, _-e_. PAST (STRONG VERBS); suffixes as in the present subjunctive. PAST (WEAK VERBS); like the past tense of the indicative; but _-st_ may be dropped in the second pers. singular. IMPERATIVE MOOD. Singular: 2 pers. (no suffix, usually); _-e_ (in some weak verbs). Plural: 2 pers. _-eth_, _-th_, sometimes _-e_[66]. The rest of the Mood is supplied from the subjunctive. INFINITIVE: _-en_, (often) _-e_. The gerundial infinitive, preceded by the prep, _to_, and usually expressive of purpose, has a special form only in a very few instances, as _to bene_, to be; _to done_, to do; _to sene_, to see, A 1035; _to seyne_, to say; for which _to doon_, _to seen_ or _to see_, _to seyn_ or _to seye_, also occur. In other verbs, it does not differ from the ordinary infinitive. The true infinitive occurs without the prep. _to_, and remains in mod. E. in such expressions as _I can sing_, _I might go_. PARTICIPLES. Present: _-inge_, _-ing_. The fuller form in _-inge_ is rare, being chiefly employed, for the rime, at the end of a line, as _gliteringe_, A 2890; _thunderinge_, A 2174; _flikeringe_, A 1962. NOTE. The pres. part. is not to be confounded with the sb. of verbal origin. Thus _singinge_, _floytinge_ (A 91), _whistling_ (A 170), are present participles; but _priking_, _hunting_ (A 191), _winning_ (A 275), _lerninge_ (A 300), _teching_ (A 518) are substantives. The pl. sb. _rekeninges_ occurs in A 760. PAST PARTICIPLES. The pp. of weak verbs ends in _-ed_, _-d_, or _-t_; and that of strong verbs in _-en_, _-n_, _-e_. The prefix _y-_ (i), representing the A.S. _ge-_ (_ye-_), often occurs with past participles; as in _y-ronne_, A 8, from A.S. _gerunnen_. The same prefix occurs, very rarely, before an infinitive; as in _y-finde_, _y-here_, _y-knowe_, _y-see_, _y-thee_. It also appears in the adj. _y-sene_ (A.S. _ges[=e]ne_), which has often been mistaken for a pp. But the pp. of _see_ is _y-seyn_ or _y-seye_. s. 90. SEVEN CONJUGATIONS OF STRONG VERBS. Strong verbs usually exhibit a vowel-change (gradation) in the stem, as in the mod. E. _sing_, _sang_, _sung_. There are seven conjugations, corresponding to the types of the verbs _drive_, _choose_, _drink_, _bear_, _give_, _shake_, _fall_. See Sievers, A.S. Grammar. The 'principal parts' of strong verbs are (_a_) the infinitive (which has the primary grade); (_b_) the past tense singular (which has the middle grade); (_c_) the past tense plural (which in A.S. usually differs, as to its vowel, from the singular); and (_d_) the pp. In strict grammar, the 2 p. s. of the pt. t. has the same vowel as the pp. Thus _biginne_ has the pp. _bigonnen_, and the 2 p. s. pt. t. is _bigonne_, thou didst begin, without any final _-st_.