weak verb
nounEtymology Calque of German schwaches Verb (19th c.). Jacob Grimm called “weak” those classes of conjugation and declension which had lost more distinctions between forms or grammatical categories. The later use of Semitic is a semantic loan from Arabic فِعْل مُعْتَلّ (fiʕl muʕtall).
Grammar, Human sciences, Linguistics, Sciences In the Germanic languages One of a class of verbs which use a dental suffix appended to the stem to indicate the past tense.
- A Weak Verb adds d, ed, or t, to the Present Tense, to make the Past Tense; as, invite, invited; betray, betrayed; step, stept.1866, William Francis Collier, A Grammar of the English Language, with a Sketch of its History, etc., Edinburgh: Thomas Laurie, →OCLC, page 36:
Grammar, Human sciences, Linguistics, Sciences In the Germanic languages A regular verb of this class (thus excluding verbs that do have a dental suffix, but show some formal peculiarity, as in tell > told).
- Storage clearly is assumed for irregular verb forms. But what about regular or weak verb forms?1998, Katrin Linder, “Overgeneralization revisited: the case of German past participles”, in Ray Fabri, Albert Ortmann, Teresa Parodi, editors, Models of inflection, Tübingen: M. Niemeyer, page 161:
Grammar, Human sciences, Linguistics, Sciences In non-Germanic languages A member of a verb class that is customarily called “weak”, and usually distinguished from another class called “strong”.
Grammar, Human sciences, Linguistics, Sciences In the Semitic languages, In non-Germanic languages A verb formed from a root that includes a semivowel or another consonant prone to elision (so-called “weak roots”).
- Three basic root consonant classes exist: the strong verb, roots with weak initial root consonant (I-weak verbs), roots with weak final consonants (III-weak verbs), and a composite class...2009, Charles Häberl, The Neo-Mandaic Dialect of Khorramshahr, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, →ISBN, page 177:
- Coordinate terms
- strong verb