2. That the same view may be taken of the _ea_ in _break_, although the word by some persons is pronounced _brake_. _Gabrika_, _gabrak_, Moeso-Gothic; _briku_, _brak_, Old Saxon; _brece_, _brac_, Anglo-Saxon. Also of _bear_, _tear_, _swear_, _wear_. In the provincial dialects these words are even now pronounced _beer_, _teer_, _sweer_. The forms in the allied languages are, in {311} respect to these last-mentioned words, less confirmatory; Moeso-Gothic, _svara_, _b['a]ira_; Old High German, _sverju_, _piru_. 3. That the _ea_ in _tread_ was originally long; Anglo-Saxon, _tredan_, _trede_, _tr['ae]d_, _treden_. 4. _Lie._--Here the sound is diphthongal, having grown out of the Anglo-Saxon forms _licgan_, _l['ae]g_, _legen_. 5. _Sat._--The original praeterite was long. This we collect from the spelling _sate_, and from the Anglo-Saxon _s['ae]t_. _Ninth Class._ s. 372. _A_, as in _fate_, is changed either into the _o_ in _note_, or the _oo_ in _book_. Here it should be noticed that, unlike _break_ and _swear_, &c., there is no tendency to sound the _a_ of the present as _ee_, neither is there, as was the case with _clove_ and _spoke_, any tendency to secondary forms in a. A partial reason for this lies in the original nature of the vowel. The original vowel in _speak_ was e. If this was the _['e] ferm['e]_ of the French, it was a sound from which the _a_ in _fate_ and the _ee_ in _feet_ might equally have been evolved. The vowel sound of the verbs of the present class was that of _a_ for the present and that of _['o]_ for the praeterite forms; as _wace_, _w['o]c_, _grafe_, _gr['o]f_. Now of these two sounds it may be said that the _a_ has no tendency to become the _ee_ in _feet_, and that the _['o]_ has no tendency to become the _a_ in _fate_. The sounds that are evolved from the accentuated _['o]_, are the _o_ in _note_ and the _oo_ in _book_. _Present._ _Praeterite._ Awake Awoke. Wake Woke. Lade [50]Lode. Grave [50]Grove. Take Took. Shake Shook. Forsake Forsook. Shape [50]Shope. _Tenth Class._ s. 373. Containing the single word _strike_, _struck_, _stricken_. It is only in the Middle High German, the Middle Dutch, the New High German, the Modern Dutch, and the English, that {312} this word is found in its praeterite forms. These are, in Middle High German, _streich_; New High German, _strich_; Middle Dutch, _str[^e]c_; Modern Dutch, _str[^i]k_. Originally it must have been referable to the ninth class. _Eleventh Class._ s. 374. In this class we first find the secondary forms accounted for by the difference of form between the singular and plural numbers. The change is from the _i_ in _bite_ to the _o_ in _note_, and the _i_ in _pit_. Sometimes it is from the _i_ in _bit_ to the _a_ in _bat_. The Anglo-Saxon conjugation (A) may be compared with the present English (B). A.