East Germanic strong verb

See also the articles West Germanic strong verb and Germanic verb.

[edit] Indo-European

The Indo-European vowel-alternations could be as follows:

• ei — oi — i
• eu — ou — u
• e — o — null

These are all the same, being an alternation between e - o - null with various modifications. Another type of ablaut was as follows:

• o — ō — a

Which is descended from:

• eh₃ - oh₃ - h₃

Where h₃ is a laryngeals which "colors" a preceding vowel in different ways. The important point is that all these classes are one and the same from an Pre-Proto-Indo-European point of view (that is, before the vowel coloring took place).

[edit] Germanic

In Germanic, these became the following classes:

• ī — ai — i
• eu — au — u/o
• e/i — a — u/o
• a — ō — a

In the last class there was also a lengthened grade with ē

In Gothic we find these forms:

• dreiban (ei = ī) — draif (3sing) — dribun (3pl) — dribans (past participle)
• biudan — bauþ — budun — budans
• hilpan (from *helpan) — halp — hulpun — hulpans
• qiman (from *qeman) — qam — qemun (e = ē) — qumans
• faran — for (o = ō) — forun (o = ō) — farans

In addition, we find a class of reduplicating verbs, with or without vowel alteration:

• haitan — haihait (=hehait) — haihaitun (=hehaitun) — haitans
• tekan — taitok — taitokun — tekans