the vowels -a- and -ái- as the thematic vowels. The two thematic vowels are used differently depending on form, with only -ái- being used in the past tense. The following is a sample paradigm of a class 3 weak verb, haban "to have": Class 3 is apparently a closed class, containing only the following verbs: áistan "to reverence", ana-silan "to be silent", andstaúrran "to murmur against", arman "to pity", bauan "to dwell", fastan "to fast, hold firm", fijan "to hate", gageigan "to gain", gakunnan "to recognize", haban "to have", hatan "to hate", jiukan "to contend", leikan "to please", liban "to live", liugan "to marry", maúrnan "to mourn", munan "to consider", reiran "to tremble", saúrgan "to sorrow", sifan "to rejoice", skaman (sik) "to be ashamed", slawan "to be silent", trauan "to trust", swēran "to honour", þahan "to be silent", witan "to watch, observe". Possibly also *bnauan "to rub" belongs here—only the present participle occurs, which is not enough to tell whether this is a Class 3 weak verb or Class 7 strong verb. Notes: bauan "to dwell" was originally a Class 7 strong verb (cf. Old Icelandic būa "to dwell", past singular bjō, past participle būenn), and the third singular present indicative is still normally bauiþ, a strong form (vs. *bauáiþ, the expected weak form). hatan also occurs as a Class 1 weak verb hatjan. Class 4 Class 4 weak verbs have the suffix -n, in addition to a thematic vowel -ō- in the past tense. In all other tenses, the suffix -n is used before strong verb suffixes. The following is a sample paradigm of a class 4 weak verb, fullnan "to become full": Preterite-present verbs So-called "preterite-present verbs" are a feature of Germanic languages that have a present tense formed like the past tense (or "preterite") of strong verbs. The verbs often have the semantics of modal verbs, and in fact the present-day English modal verbs "can, could, may, might, shall, should, must" are descended from Old English preterite-present verbs. The past tense of these verbs is a new formation and has the endings of weak verbs. Arguably, all seven classes of strong verbs are represented in Gothic by at least one preterite-present verb. The following table presents almost all extant forms of each of the existing preterite-present verbs in Gothic. Many of the missing forms can be derived from existing forms as the number of principal parts is