5. Oe mōt (Pret.-Pres.) “be allowed, may”

	OE	ME	ENE	NE
Present	Sg mōt Pl mōton	moot moten	mut m ote	must
Past	mōste	moste	must	-----

The verb lost all Present forms in LME – ENE and the Past form moste [o:] acquired the meaning of obligation and began to be treated as a Present form.

6. Oe āZan (Pret.-Pres.) “own, possess”

	OE	ME	ENE	NE
Present	Sg āh, āZ Pl āZon	agen, owen	------ o we, own	ought
Past	āhte	aught	ought	-----

The verb gave three new verbs: the modal verb ought and two notional verbs owe and own.

7. Oe Zān (Suppletive) “go”

Infinitive: OE Zān – ME gon – NE go

Past:OE ēode - ME -----

ME wente – NE went

In ME the verb took the Past form wente from an entirely different verb, which also survived into NE: OE wendan – ME wenden – NE wend (poetic ‘to turn, depart’).

8. Oe bēon (Suppletive) “be”

The verb inherited its suppletive forms from OE dialectal divergence. The verb preserved the grammatical distinctions of number, person and mood which were practically lost in other verbs.

New grammatical categories of the verb in me and ne The category of Voice

The analytical passive forms developed in ME from OE verb phrases bēon (‘be’)+ Part II and weorÞan (‘become’) + Part II of transitive verbs. Gradually the verb werthen was replaced by other link-verbs: becomen (‘become’), geten (‘get’), semen (‘seem’). In LME the form with ben prevailed and extended to many parts of the verb system: the Future Tense, the Perfect forms, the Subjunctive Mood, the non-finite forms (Part. I and the Infinitive).

In ENE Passive forms began to be built from intransitive verbs with indirect and prepositional objects.

In 18 – 19 cc. the Passive Voice spread to the Gerund and some Continuous forms.

The category of Time-correlation

The forms developed in ME from OE verb-phrases:

habban + Part. II of transitive verbs,

bēon + Part. II of intransitive verbs.

In such phrases the verb ‘have’ lost the meaning of possession and began to be used with all kinds of verbs, whereas the use of ‘be’ became restricted. These analytical forms were called ‘perfect’ and in ENE spread to all parts of the verb system.

The category of Aspect

In OE we find free combinations bēon + Part. I denoting a quality or a lasting state.

In EME such phrases fell into disuse except Kent and the North. In LME they extended to other dialects and their frequency grew again. But such constructions didn’t differ from simple forms in meaning.

Only in the 18^th c. the Continuous forms acquired a specific meaning of their own giving rise to a new category – Aspect. Continuous forms extended to many parts of the verb system but not to Passive Voice. The Passive meaning was expressed by the Active form (the house is building) until the 19^th c.