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NOTE. In the foregoing tenses this verb is used either as a princi

pal verb or as an auxiliary.

INFINITIVE MODE.--PRESENT TENSE, To have.

PERFECT TENSE,

To have had. PRESENT PARTICIPLE, Having. PAST or PERFECT, Had. COMPOUND PERFECT, Having had.

The words did, hast, hath, has, had, shalt, wilt, are evidently, as Wallis observes, contracted for doed, havest, haveth, haves, haved, shallst, willst.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE VERB SUBSTANTIVE.

§ 288. THE VERB SUBSTANTIVE, which is generally dealt with as a single Irregular Verb, is made up of Three different Verbs, each of which is Defective in some of its parts. The parts which are defective in one verb are supplied by the Inflections of one of the others.

I. WAS is Defective, except in the Preterite Tense, where it is found both in the Indicative and the Subjunctive. In the older stages of the Gothic languages the word has both a Full Conjugation and a Regular one. it has an Infinitive, a Participle Present, and a Participle In the Anglo-Saxon Past. In Maso-Gothic it is inflected throughout with s; as, Visa, vas, vêsum, visans.

In that language it has the

power of the Latin maneo = to remain.

II. BE is inflected, in Anglo-Saxon, throughout the Present Tense, both Indicative and Subjunctive; found, also, as an Infinitive, béon; as a Gerund, to beonne; and as a Participle, beonde.

The ancient form was as follows:

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PRESENT.

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2. Thou beest, Ye be.

3. He be,

They be.

We be, They be.

Be thou, Be ye.

It is stated by Grimm, D. C., i., 1051, that the AngloSaxon forms beó, bist, bið, beod, or beó, have not a Present, but a Future sense; that while am means I am, beó means I shall be; and that in the older languages it is only where the form am is not found that be has the power of a Present

form.

If we consider the word beon, like the word weordan (see below), to mean not so much to be as become, we get an el

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ement of futurity; and from the idea of futurity we get the idea of contingency, and this explains the Subjunctive power of be.

III. AM. The m is no part of the original word, but only a sign of the First Person, just as it is in all the Indo-European languages. Am, art, are, and is, are not, like am and was, parts of different words, but forms of one and the same word. This we collect from a comparison of the Indo

European languages.

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1. The Substantive Verb is used, 1st. As an Auxiliary in the Passive Voice. 2d. As a Copula, in connecting the predicate of a proposition with the subject. 3d. In Predicating pure or absolute existence; as, God is; that is, God exists. In the following example it is used in each of the last two senses: "We believe that thou art, and that thou art the rewarder of them who diligently seek thee." It was called by the Latins the Substantive verb, in distinction from verbs which, besides the copula, contain in themselves an attribute, and which are called Adjective verbs. See § 401.

2. This verb differs so much from other verbs, that it is separated from them by some grammarians and classed with relational words, as if its office were merely to indicate a relation, viz., that of the predicative adjective or substantive to the subject, or else those of mode, time, and personality. See § 134.

§ 289. WORTH is a fragment of the Anglo-Saxon weorðan, to be, or to become.

"Woe worth the chase, woe worth the day

That cost thy life, my gallant gray."-Lady of the Lake.

"Thus saith the Lord God, Howl ye and say, woe worth the day."-Ezekiel, xxx., 2.

§ 290. CONJUGATION OF THE VERB "TO BE."

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2. Thou hast been, you have been. 2. Ye or you have been.

3. He has been.

3. They have been.

Past Perfect Tense.

Singular.

Plural.

1. I had been.

2. Thou hadst been, you had been. 2. Ye or you had been.

1. We had been.

3. He had been.

3. They had been.

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