Participles, Building. Being building. HAVE been built. HAVE been building. TO HAVE built. TO HAVE been built. Having built. TO HAVE been building. Built, being built, hav- Having been building. ing been built. It will be observed that the simple tenses, the progressive, and the perfected, are given throughout in distinct type. sometimes with pronouns of the first and second persons for their subjects. We mean such verbs as, It becomes, It suits, &c. These present no difficulty. All that is peculiar in them, is the fact that a proposition may serve as their subject, and that matter comes under our consideration elsewhere. 3d. (8) There is still another very peculiar class of impersonal verbs now obsolete, but which claim notice, because they sometimes occur in our more ancient authors, and present a form of expression which puzzles inexperienced grammarians. (9) Those which occur most frequently in authors of the seventeenth century, are methinks, past tense methought, and meseems. The list might be much enlarged by having recourse to authors of an earlier date. (10) Such forms as melisteth, meliketh, &c., were once common. (11) All these verbs have a proposition for their subject, and are like other verbs of the same kind, save that they are not preceded by the substitute subject it. (12) In this they resemble verbs in other languages, which employ no word equivalent to it with a verb having a proposition for subject. (18) The pronouns which in this form precede the impersonal verb, me for example in methinks, are real datives. See further explanations of these forms when we come to treat of the dative modification. § 48. We subjoin a list of the verbs of the ancient conjugation, with the verbs of the modern conjugation, which have contracted preterits. This list is intended to include all the verbs of which the past tenses and perfect participles do not always end in ed; or what are (we think, improperly) called in most grammars, irregular verbs. We mark with con (contracted) those words which are manifestly contracted from a modern form, leaving all about which there is room for doubt to be accounted as of the ancient conjugation. When a verb has a preterit or participle of the regular modern form in use, besides the ancient or the contracted form exhibited in the list, we indicate this fact by placing -d or -ed after the form in the list. This -d or -ed is to be added to the root. The forms printed in italics are either out of use, or seldom used, or not used by reputable authors, and therefore to be avoided. In the column for perfect participles, we give all those which differ from the past tense in form, omitting those which coincide in form with that tense. We have occasionally used the mark of interrogation (?) to indicate a form, in our opinion, questionable. (8) What claim has the third class of impersonal verbs on our attention? (9) Name the verbs of this kind which occur most frequently in anthors of the 17th century. (10) Name others which occur in more ancient authors. (11) What distinguishes these from other verbs, which have a proposition for their subject? (12) Repeat what is said of their resemblance to impersonal verbs in other languages. (13) What is said respecting the which precede these verbs?] pronouns |