LESSON XXXVII. PERSON AND NUMBER. Tell how many forms of the verb hear are used with the different subjects in the following, and give the endings of the special forms: The different forms that a verb takes to correspond to the person and the number of its subject are called person and number forms. The second person singular has the ending est or st in both the present and past tenses of the indicative mode; as, The third person singular has, in the present indicative, the ending s or es and the old forms eth or th; as, — She sleeps or she sleepeth. He does or he doth or he doeth. The forms with thou and the forms in th or eth are now seldom used, except in prayer and in poetry. With the exception of the verb be, the first person singular and the plural forms for all the persons have no endings to mark person or number. The verb be has different forms for the singular and the plural in the present and past tenses of the indicative mode; as, Write the forms of the following verbs required for the subjects I, thou, he, and we, in the indicative present: — Tell how the past tenses of the following verbs are formed: PRESENT. PAST. PERF. PART. : PRESENT. PAST. PERF. PART. A verb that forms its past tense by adding ed or d to the present is a regular verb; as, walk, walked; move, moved. A verb that does not form its past tense by adding ed or d to the present is an irregular verb; as, drive, drove; give, gave. Verbs are divided into the strong and the weak conjugations. A verb that forms its past tense by changing the vowel of the present, without adding anything to the present, is a strong verb; as, fall, fell; throw, threw. The perfect participle of all strong verbs once ended in en or n, but this suffix has now disappeared from many verbs. As the strong verbs are the oldest verbs in the language, they are said to belong to the old conjugation. A verb that forms its past tense by adding ed, d, or t to the present, or without any change, is a weak verb; as, walk, walked; move, moved; deal, dealt. As the weak verbs include all new verbs and all new forms of old verbs, they are said to belong to the new conjugation. Most weak verbs are regular, but some are irregular; as, A few weak verbs have both regular and irregular forms; as, build, builded or built; kneel, kneeled or knelt. Some verbs have both strong and weak forms, or mixed forms; |