so the past participle of class 3a kept u. Extension of umlaut to back vowels, causing it to apply also to verbs of class 6. The perfective prefix ga- came to be used (but neither exclusively nor invariably) as a marker of the participle. In English this prefix disappeared again in the Middle Ages. English Old English The following changes occurred from West Germanic to Old English: ai > ā eu > ēo au > ēa a > æ except when a back vowel followed in the next syllable ā > ǣ Breaking before certain consonants: æ > ea and e > eo West Saxon Palatalisation: i > ie after g The following are the paradigms for Old English: With j-presents (and other anomalies): hōf hōfon hafen ("to raise, heave") scōp scōpon scapen ("to create, shape") swōr swōron sworen ("to swear") The verb "to stand" follows class 6. The anomalous -n- in the present is a relic of the PIE nasal infix: stōd stōdon standen Some relics of class 7 reduplication remain in Old English, mostly in texts from Anglia (infinitive and past singular shown): bēatan beoft ("to beat") hātan hēht ("to call") lācan leolc ("to move about, leap") lǣtan leort ("to let") on-drǣdan on-dreord ("to dread") rēdan reord ("to advise") spātan speoft ("to spit") Changes that occurred from Old English to Modern English: ā > ō Great Vowel Shift The old second-person singular ("thou") form acquires the ending "-st" in the past, but the second-person singular falls out of common use and is replaced with the second-person plural. Elimination of almost all verb inflection in strong verbs, except for the third-person singular present ending -s (and the second-person ending "-(e)st", when used). Either the past singular form or the past plural form is generalised to the other number. As a result, only one form exists for all past tense forms and parts 2 and 3 are no longer distinguished. Combined with the above, all consonant alternations are eliminated by generalising the consonant of the present. Only be preserves the alternation: was versus were. Modern English In Modern English, generally speaking, the verb classes have disintegrated and are not easily recognisable. For the principal parts of all English strong verbs see: Wiktionary appendix: Irregular English verbs. The following modern English verbs resemble the original paradigm: Class 1 Class 1 is still recognisable, as in most other Germanic languages. The modern