Take that out of the Linguistic Miscellany Thread and put it into Ephemera's Random thread?
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The other day I happened to be reading something about the development of Proto-Germanic verbs. Germanic "strong" (irregular) verbs are divided into seven classes, depending on their path of development (mostly based around the structure of the root, except for class #7).
After poking around the origin of the irregular verbs of modern English for a while, I discovered that, as it turns out, modern English does still have at least one good example from each of the seven Proto-Germanic strong verb classes!
class 1 (-y- [j] inside PIE root):
Proto-Indo-European *Hreydh- > Proto-Germanic *rīdaną *raid *ridun *ridanaz
> Old English rīdan rād ridon (ġe)riden
> ModEng ride rode ridden
class 2 (-w- [w] inside PIE root):
Proto-Indo-European *prews- > Proto-Germanic *freusaną *fraus *fruzun *fruzanaz
> Old English frēosan frēas frūron (ġe)froren
> ModEng freeze froze frozen
class 3 (sonorant [m n r l] + consonant at PIE root end):
Proto-Indo-European *dhre(n)g- > Proto-Germanic *drinkaną *drank *drunkun *drunkanaz
> Old English drincan dranc druncon (ġe)druncen
> ModEng drink drank drunk
class 4 (bare sonorant at PIE root end, or sonorant + laryngeal at PIE root end):
Proto-Indo-European *gwem- > Proto-Germanic *kwemaną *kwam *kwēmun *kumanaz
> Old English cuman cwōm cwōmon (ġe)cumen
> ModEng come came come
class 5 (stop or oral fricative at PIE root end):
Proto-Indo-European *h1ed- > Proto-Germanic *etaną *ēt *ētun *etanaz
> Old English etan ǣt ǣton (ġe)eten
> ModEng eat ate eaten
class 6 (laryngeal h2 or -o- inside PIE root):
Proto-Indo-European *sleh2k- > Proto-Germanic *slahaną *slōh *slōgun *slaganaz
> Old English slēan slōg slōgon (ġe)slæġen
> ModEng slay slew/slayed slain/slayed
class 7 (reduplicated stem surviving in Proto-Germanic 2nd and 3rd principal parts):
Proto-Indo-European *ghreh1- > Proto-Germanic *grōaną *grerō *grerōun *grōanaz (i.e. grō- > gregrō > grerō)
> Old English grōwan grēow grēowon (ġe)grōwen
> ModEng grow grew grown
(Yes, I know modern English doesn't exactly come from good ol' Standard West Saxon, but the correspondences are strong nevertheless.)