| nouns | verbs | adjectives | pronouns | numerals | prepositions | conjunctions | adverbs |
· strong endings · strong class I · strong class II · strong class III · strong class IV · strong class V · strong class VI · strong class VII (reduplicated) · weak class 1 · weak class 2 · weak class 3 · weak class 4 · preterito-presentic verbs · the copula · the medio-passive inflexion ·

STRONG VERBS CLASS I

to Old Swedish inflection


The strong verbs of the 1st class have the stem vowel /í/ (which cannot be i-umlauted). In the preterite tense it changes into /ei/ in the singular and /i/ in the plural. In the perfect it's also /i/.
infinitivepreteriteperfect
participle
sing.plur.
bítabeitbitumbitinn

like bíta:
· bíta 'bite'
· ríða 'ride'


This verb class consists of verbs from PIE roots with the diphtong /ei/, which in its e-grade turned into a long /i:/ in germanic (bheid-o-no-m > bíta). The PIE perfect tense had the o-grade in the singular and the zero-grade in the plural, which rendered the ON preterite tense stem vowels/diphtongs /ei/ (< /ai/ < /oi/) and /i/ (< /i/). The perfect participle also had the zero-grade (/i/ < /i/).
© Peter Pettersson