_Moeso-Gothic._ _Singular._ _Dual._ _Plural._ 1. Skal. Skulu. Skulum. 2. Skalt. Skuluts. Skuluth. 3. Skall. Skuluts. Skulun. _Icelandic._ _Singular._ _Plural._ 1. Skall. Skulum. 2. Skalt. Skuludh. 3. Skal. Skulu. s. 353. _Thou spakest, thou brakest, thou sungest._[45]--In these forms there is a slight though natural anomaly. They belong to the class of verbs which form their praeterite by changing the vowel of the present; as _sing_, _sang_, &c. Now, all words of this sort in Anglo-Saxon formed their second singular praeterite, not in _-st_, but in _-e_; as _th['u] funde_=_thou foundest_, _th['u] sunge_=_thou sungest_. The English termination is derived from the present. Observe that this applies only to the praeterites formed by changing the vowel. _Thou loved'st_ is Anglo-Saxon as well as English, _viz._, _th['u] lufodest_. s. 354. In the northern dialects of the Anglo-Saxon the -dh of plurals like _lufiadh_=_we love_ becomes _-s_. In the Scottish this change was still more prevalent: The Scottes come that to this day _Havys_, and Scotland haldyn ay. WINTOUN, 11. 9. 73. James I. of England ends nearly all his plurals in _-s_. * * * * * {300} CHAPTER XX. ON THE NUMBERS OF VERBS. s. 355. The inflection of the present tense, not only in Anglo-Saxon, but in several other languages as well, has been given in the preceding chapter. As compared with the present plural forms, _we love_, _ye love_, _they love_, both the Anglo-Saxon _we lufiadh_, _ge lufiadh_, _hi lufiadh_, and the Old English _we loven_, _ye loven_, _they loven_, have a peculiar termination for the plural number which the present language wants. In other words, the Anglo-Saxon and the Old English have a plural _personal_ characteristic, whilst the Modern English has nothing to correspond with it. The word _personal_ is printed in italics. It does not follow, that, because there is no plural _personal_ characteristic, there is also no plural characteristic. There is no reason against the inflection of the word _love_ running thus--_I love_, _thou lovest_, _he loves_; _we lave_, _ye lave_, _they lave_; in other words, there is no reason against the vowel of the root being changed with the number. In such a case there would be no _personal_ inflection, though there would be a plural, or a _numeral_, inflection. Now, in Anglo-Saxon, with a great number of verbs such a plural inflection not only actually takes place, but takes place most regularly. It takes place, however, in the past tense only. And this is the case in all the Gothic languages as well as in Anglo-Saxon. Amongst the rest, in-- _Moeso-Gothic._