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    Strong and other irregular verbs
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    Next to the regular or weak verbs, Frisian has quite a number of irregular verbs. These could be divided into four groups, although the division is not without intersections.

    Most irregular verbs can be characterized as strong. Their main feature is ablaut. As a result of this historical event, the vowel of the stem varies: the past tense and/or past participle may show a different vowel than the infinitive. This is different from the regular weak verbs where the vowel of the stem remains constant. An example of a strong verb is the verb sluteto close, which has /y/ in the stem. Its past tense is sleat, with /I.ə/; the past participle is sletten, with /ɛ/. The vowel alternation is sufficient to indicate the past tense, and hence we see that the strong verbs lack the suffixes of the weak verbs which do mark them. Instead of the suffixes for the past participle (-d/-t for class I, -e for class II), we see the suffix -en as a second main feature of the strong verbs. An example is the participle slettenclosed, which can be analyzed as slet-en.

    Frisian also has weak verbs that are nevertheless irregular in that they show stem allomorphy. Irregularity emerged after historical phonological processes that affected a part of the paradigm. An example is meitsjeto make. In Old Frisian this was makia, in those days fully regular (as for instance Dutch maken is still a regular weak verb). The /i/ (or maybe later /j/) of the ending caused palatalization, both of the preceding consonant /k/ and the stem vowel. The result is an infinitive form meitsje, and a present tense paradigm which runs as follows: (ik) meitsjeI make - (do) makkestyou make - (hy) makkethe makes and (wy/jimme/hja) meitsje(we/you/they) make. The past tense makke and the past participle makke are regular, at least in the light of the Old Frisian forms. If, on the other hand, we were to take the infinitive meitsje and its putative derived stem meits- as point of departure, these forms would be irregular. Meitsje is a verb belonging to class II of the weak verbs. Another subgroup in this class displays an alternation /j~g/, for instance in the opposition jei vs. jage in the present versus past tense of the first person singular of the verb jeieto hunt. Furthermore, we find several weak verbs of class I that partially underwent a historical phonological shortening, which succeeded in a paradigm which is comparatively irregular. An example is the verb briedeto roast, with its first person double ik briedI roast.PRES vs. ik bretteI roast.PRET.

    A third group of irregular verbs consists of auxiliary verbs. As in other languages, the most irregular verb is wêzeto be. Another important category are the modal verbs, former preterite-present verbs. A characteristic feature is that they do not show a suffix -t in the third person present tense. So English 'he can' is Frisian hy kin, and not *hy kint.

    Monosyllabic verbs constitute a fourth irregular category. Their infinitive lacks an ending -e or -je. Moreover, these verbs often show different stems. The verb sjento see, for instance, has a present tense on the basis of the stem sjoch-.

    A minor irregular subgroup consists of the verbs sizzeto say and lizzeto lay. Their irregularity is also caused by historical palatalization processes. Finally, a minor group of verbs shows irregularity in the present tense in that the vowel of the form of the second and third person of the singular is shortened (and often lowered). An example is the verb biteto bite, which has /i/, where its second and third person show /I/. This alternation is obsolete nowadays, but it still occurs in the dialect of the island of Schiermonnikoog.

    Next to their inherent irregularity, strong and irregular verbs may display other peculiarities as well. For instance, auxiliary and monosyllabic verbs may have shortened forms, dealt with below in the section on apocope. An example is the present tense stem doch- of the verb dwaanto do, which may drop the final fricative, becoming do-. We also see developments with respect to the suffixal endings. One is the result of a historical rule of metathesis, which affected the past plural suffix -en. The order -ne can still be found after certain stems ending in a vowel, as described in past tense stems ending in a vowel. The plural past tense of the verb hawweto have, for instance, is hie-ne, and not something like *hie-en. We also see attempts to make the endings more transparent. One can be located in the west of the language area, where strong participles that have absorbed the ending -en in the stem are augmented with a suffix -d, probably transferred from the weak verbs of class I. Thus the past participle dien of the verb dwaanto do surfaces as diend in these dialects. A relatively new development is the reinforcement of the ending -st of the second person singular of the past tense. This may turn into -est by insertion of a schwa. For instance, we get the form do tochtestyou thought, which was do tochtst before.

    As might be expected, there is pressure to reduce irregularity. Levelling occurs at various places. In particular, deviating forms in the present and past tense are vulnerable.

    Finally, this topic also contains lists of strong and irregular verbs.

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    [+] Strong verbs

    As the other Germanic languages, Frisian has a considerable number of verbs, more than 100, that originate in the Germanic ablaut system. They lack the dental suffixes that build the preterite and the past participle. Instead, the stem of one or both of these categories displays a different vowel. An example is sluteto close. Its preterite is sleat, and sletten is the form of the past participle. A total of three different vowels is rather rare, however. Thus the vowel of the infinitive may return in one of the other forms, for instance ride-ried-ridento ride, with a deviating preterite. Or, as is often the case, preterite and past participle display the same vowel, as in skinke-skonk-skonkento give, to pour.

    A second feature of strong verbs is the ending of the past participle, which is -en, as may be seen in the examples above. In various cases, this ending is less conspicuous in that it is integrated in the stem syllable. If this is the case, the schwa of the suffix deleted. Examples are bedoarnspoiled, bleaunremained, bûntied and seancooked. The ending -en may even be the only indication that a verb is strong, at least historically. This is the case with the participle ladenloaded, from the infinitive ladeto load, which has a weak past tense ladeloaded.

    A few strong verbs also show variation in their consonantism, due to historical phonological processes. The verb sjitte-skeat-skettento shoot has a deviating onset in the infinitive and present tense, as a result of palatalization before a high front vowel; in Old Frisian the infinitive was skiata. Palatalization also yields a different onset in the verbs jitteto pour, ferjitteto forget and jildeto cost, be valid (cf. English yield). Compare, for instance, the preterite geat and the past participle getten with the infinitival form jitte. Apart from the prefix, ferjitteto forget displays the same forms. The verb jilde has the non-palatalized form gou as a preterite. The verb sjonge-song-songento sing has a similar onset as sjitteto shoot, but here as a result of some form of Old Frisian breaking (see Boutkan (1998). Something comparable has affected the first member of the triple fjochtsje-focht-fochtento fight.

    Furthermore, a couple of verbs with an infinitive stem ending in /k/ show palatalization and assibilation in the past participle (which must have occurred in a period in which the following ending had a front vowel; cf. older spellings like -in). This concerns the participles brutsen (from brekketo break), dutsen (from dekketo cover), lutsen (from lûketo pull), rutsen (from rekketo stretch), sprutsen (from sprekketo speak), stutsen (from stekketo stick), strutsen (from striketo iron) and trutsen (from trekketo pull). Around the year 1600 the form baetsen still occurred, from bakketo bake, a verb that later turned to the weak class in its entirety. In the first time after this palatalization, the original final /k/ remained intact in the preterite, but later, especially in the south, the preterite forms of all of the members of this cluster took over the rhyme of the stem form of the past participle. For instance, for many speakers in the north the verb brekketo break still has the pattern brekke-briek-brutsen, but in the south this is generally replaced by brekke-bruts-brutsen.

    Palatalization effects can also be observed at the end of the stem of the verbs sizzeto say and lizzeto lay, this time affecting the voiced velar consonant. It resulted, for instance, in a fricative /z/ in the infinitive (via intermediate /dz/), and in /j/ in some other forms. This resulted, among others, in the triple sizzesay.INFto say, seisaid.1SG.PRET/saj/ and seinsaid.PP/sajn/. Synchronically, no phonological relation between these various sounds exists anymore. As these verbs are originally weak, and moreover show other peculiarities, they will be dealt with in the verbs sizze en lizze in a separate section below.

    A few verbs show a peculiar behaviour. On the one hand, they show vowel alternation, which points to their being strong. This idea might be reinforced by the fact that the past tense and past participle even show an extra consonant, i.e. /χ/. An example is bringeto bring, which has the form brochtbrought both as past tense and past participle. Here is an overview of the verbs that have the same pattern:

    Table 1
    Infinitive 1/3SG.PRET Participle Translation
    bringe brocht brocht bring
    keapje kocht kocht buy
    sykje socht socht seek
    tinke tocht tocht think
    Note that the past participle ends in a dental stop, which rather reminds one of what is usual in the weak verbs. The present tense of these verbs is regular. This means that bringe and tinke are conjugated along the lines of the weak class I, and keapje and sykje along class II. The modal auxiliary meiemay shows a comparable pattern, with its past forms mochtmay.1/3SG.PRET and mochtmay.PP. There are differences, however. Firstly, although the orthography is the same, the vowel of mocht is one grade higher, i.e. pronounced with [o] instead of [ɔ]. Furthermore, the past participle has an alternative form meien. And as a modal auxiliary, the third person singular of the present tense behaves differently since it lacks the inflectional ending -t, as may be seen in auxiliary verbs below.

    Next to the unexpected final cluster /ɣt/ we also find a deviating final cluster /st/ in wist, the preterite of witteto know, and in doarst, one of the forms of the past tense and the past participle of doaredare. For the latter, see also the section on auxiliary verbs.

    Scattered remnants of Verner's law may be found in variation in the coda of the verbs friezeto freeze and ferliezeto lose. They have as preterite the forms frear and ferlear, in which /z/ turned to /r/.

    An alphabetical list of the Frisian strong verbs is offered in the List of strong verbs below.

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    Literature

    The traditional division of the strong verbs is along the lines of the original seven Germanic ablaut classes. Since it has become muddled in the later development by all kinds of analogies, this division is given up by modern grammarians. As is also done in the list of strong verbs, they confine themselves to an alphabetical list. Examples are Hoekema (1996:54-69), Tiersma (1999:77-82), Eisma and Popkema (2004) and Popkema (2006:331-342). The traditional division can still be found in Sipma (1913:71-74) and, with direct references to the situation in Old Frisian, in Sipma (1949:31-36). Also with respect to the dialects on the island of Terschelling: Knop (1938). A mixed sytem is offered by Fokkema (1967:70-74). Van Blom (1889:144-154) and Sytstra and Hof (1925:141-147) have extended the division to eleven classes, mainly along the criterion of rhyming.

    Kalma (1938:7-8) mentions the strong palatalized form baetsenbaked. A recent treatment of the historical development of Frisian strong verbs is offered by Strik (2015).

    [+] Inflectional forms of strong verbs

    Strong verbs do not deviate from weak verbs in their inflection of the present tense. As for an infinitive ending in -e or -je, they follow the rules as presented in weak verbs for class I and class II weak verbs. Likewise, the forms for the imperative, present participle and infinitive II need no extra attention, as they also follow the rules for weak verbs. Hence, the present tense has the endings -, -st and -t for the three persons singular, and the plural suffix is -e for most strong verbs. For the verb fineto find we then get ik fynI find, do fynstyou find, hy fynthe finds and wy/jimme/hja fine. This is exactly the same pattern that we find with class I verbs. Only a few strong verbs, displaying an infinitive ending in -je, appear to go along with the weak verbs of class II. These are bergjeto store, fergjeto require, hingjeto hang, lykjeto appear, terskjeto thresh, tingjeto haggle and waskjeto wash. The present tense of these verbs follows the rules for the weak verbs of class II. To be concrete, for hingjeto hang we then get for the present tense: ik hingjeI hang, do hingestyou hang, hy hingethe hangs and wy/jimme/hja hingjewe/you/they hang. Furthermore, the present participle is hingjende and the imperative is hingje.

    At first sight, there seems to be a difference for the past tense. Next to the vowel change in the stem, there is the following inflectional pattern:

    Table 2
    Number Person Suffix
    SG -
    1 -st
    2 -
    2 polite -en
    3 -
    PL
    1 -en
    2 -en
    3 -en
    For example, applied to the past tense stem naam (of the strong verb nimmeto take), this results in the following forms:

    Example 1

    a. ik naam
    I took
    b. do naamst
    you took
    c. jo namen
    you.POL took.PL
    you took
    d. de man naam
    the man took
    e. wy namen
    we took
    f. jimme namen
    you.PL took.PL
    you took
    g. de manlju namen
    the men took

    The suffixes represent person and number. A comparison reveals, however, that if we abstract away from the past tense markers -e/-de for class I or -e for class II, these endings are similar to what we see with the past tense of weak verbs. Likewise, one may observe the longer suffix -ste for the second person singular, for instance in the form do naamsteyou took.

    It should be noted that the inflectional pattern for the past tense is the same in all cases, irrespective of the infinitive ending in -e or -je. A verb like hingjeto hang shows the following preterite forms: ik hongI hung, do hongstyou hung, hy honghe hung and wy/jimme/hja hongenwe/you/they hung. The past tense suffixes of class II are not added, so we do not have *ik honge or *do hongest or *hy honge. And the past participle is prototypically hongen, and not a *honge or even *hongene.

    It is worth mentioning that in the older language (18th/19th century) also a longer past plural ending -ene occurred. Probably, this was the result of a metathesis rule which turned -en to -ne, with the subsequent insertion of a schwa. Relics of this metathesis can still be found in a small set of verbs with a past tense stem ending in a centralizing diphthong, see past tense stems ending in a vowel.

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    Literature

    The existence of the ending -ene was first noticed in Dyk (1996). That such endings are the result of metathesis is argued for Hoekstra (2008).

    [+] Irregular weak verbs belonging to class II

    Next to the strong verbs, there is a group of verbs displaying different vowels in the past tense and the past participle as well. However, their past participle does not end in -en but rather in a form familar from the weak verbs. In fact, these verbs are weak. They do not belong to the set of traditional strong verbs with ablaut. More specifically, their deviating vowels are the result of historical phonological processes. The two weak classes have their irregular verbs. In class I, shortening has applied. The irregular forms of class II are the result of palatalization of a velar final consonant of the stem.

    For the irregular verbs of class II we have to differentiate between stems ending in the voiceless velar stop /k/ and those which have a voiced velar fricative /ɣ/ as final segment. The former, combined with /j/ of the verbal suffix -je, end in a cluster /tsj/ after palatalization. A side effect of this palatalization is that the vowel turns to a diphthong ending in /j/. That change only applies before the suffix -je. This implies that only the infinitive, the first person singular and the three persons plural of the present tense, the present participle and the imperative are affected. For the verb meitsjeto make, for example, we thus get the following paradigm for the present and past tense:

    Table 3
    Tense Number Person Form
    present
    SG
    1 meitsje
    2 makkest
    2 polite meitsje
    3 makket
    PL
    1 meitsje
    2 meitsje
    3 meitsje
    past
    SG
    1 makke
    2 makkest
    2 polite makken
    3 makke
    PL
    1 makken
    2 makken
    3 makken
    In addition, the past participle makke remains unpalatalized. This is not the case for both infinival forms meitsje and meitsjen, the present participle meitsjend(e) and the imperative meitsje!.

    The irregular weak verbs with a stem ending in /k/ are the following:

    Table 4
    Infinitive 3SG.PRET Translation
    koaitsje kôke cook; boil
    laitsje lake laugh
    meitsje makke make
    ploaitsje plôke pluck
    reitsje rekke;rakke get; hit
    smeitsje smakke taste
    weitsje wekke watch
    The now obsolete verb loaitsjeto look could be added to this set. At least for a number of the speakers levelling has occurred to a form with original /k/ in koaitsje, ploaitsje and weitsje. This resulted in the infinitives kôkje (also shortened to kokje), plôkje and its shortened variety plokje, and wekje, respectively.
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    Dialectical differences

    The palatalization of /k/ never took place in the dialect of Hindeloopen. Of the verbs in the table above, Blom (1981) mentions the forms kòkje, lakje, meikje, plòkje, reikje, smeikje and wekje. It may also be the case that this extended to some verbs in other southern dialects. Southwestern forms like kokje, plokje and wekje are possible kandidates. In the Schiermonnikoog dialect, some of the verbs above did not palatalize either, as seen in lakjeto laugh and plokjeto pluck. In the other verbs, as is generally the case in this dialect, we do not see assibilation. So, verbs like katjeto cook or metjeto make are without an intermediate /s/.

    The irregular verbs of class II with a stem ending in /ɣ/ also underwent palatalization. We may assume that the original sound turned to /j/, which then merged with the initial sound of the suffix -je. Apart from that, the distribution of the palatalized forms is the same as above. One peculiarity, however, is the fact that we see no final schwa in the first person singular of the present tense, in contrast to the normal paradigm of the weak verbs of class II. As an example, here is the paradigm of the verb jeieto hunt.
    Table 5
    Tense Number Person Form
    present
    SG
    1 jei
    2 jagest
    2 polite jeie
    3 jaget
    PL
    1 jeie
    2 jeie
    3 jeie
    past
    SG
    1 jage
    2 jagest
    2 polite jagen
    3 jage
    PL
    1 jagen
    2 jagen
    3 jagen
    The past participle is jage. We also see palatalized forms in both infinitives (I and II), in the present participle and in the imperative.

    The irregular weak verbs with a stem historically ending in /ɣ/ are the following:

    Table 6
    Infinitive 3SG.PRET Translation
    feie fage sweep
    jeie jage hunt
    kleie klage complain
    koaie kôge chew
    krije krige get
    loeie loege pile
    ploeie ploege plough
    toaie tôge carry
    It should be noted that as a consequence of the latest spelling reform in 1980 it is less conspicuous that these are class II weak verbs; before, the orthography was feije etc.
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    Other possible members

    It remains to be investigated whether there have been more members of this group. A possible candidate is the verb druieto dry, which exists next to droegje. The latter seems to be a direct conversion of the adjective droechdry. The first could be a product of palatalization, although it must be admitted that the verb nowadays belongs to the regular weak class I. A comparable pair is kluieto gnaw next to kloegje, both forms being fairly obsolete. For the tendency of these palatalization verbs to convert to class I, see the section on schwa deletion below.

    Another possible candidate is boeieto turn a horse to the right, which might be connected to bûgjeto bow, although, according to Dyk (1984-2011) this verb is regularly inflected as a member of the weak class I.

    There is quite some levelling within this group. The verbs with a back vowel tend to be restored to a single stem with /ɣ/; we then get the infinitives kôgjeto chew, loegjeto pile, ploegjeto plough and tôgjeto carry. The others show levelling in the present tense to a stem only with /j/. For instance, for many speakers the present tense of krijeto get reads as follows:
    Table 7
    Present tense Translation
    ik krij I get
    do krijst you get
    hy krijt he gets
    wy/jimme/hja krije we/you/they get
    Usually, we do not see levelling of the past tense and the past participle in these verbs: the form with /ɣ/ remains in use. Thus we have ik krigeI got and ik haw krigeI have got. Further levelling is not excluded, however. For some speakers, verbs like feieto sweep of kleieto complain may have become fully weak. On the other hand, for quite some speakers krije has become strong, with a past tense kriich and a participle krigen. This may possibly have occurred under the influence of the Dutch counterpart, which is also strong.
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    Schwa deletion

    A peculiar feature of this second group of irregular weak verbs of class II is the deletion of the final schwa both in the first person of the present tense and in the imperative. We have ik krijI get and the imperative krij!. However, we do not see *ik krije or *krije!, although these would be the forms expected if the verb follows the paradigm of class II verbs in a regular manner. This could be an indication that the form of the Frisian imperative is rather based on the form of the first person instead of the stem (for this issue, see also categories and also the imperatives of the category of monosyllabic verbs).

    A possible explanation might be found in the phonology. In the normal case, class II verbs never occur with a stem ending in a vowel. Instead, we find -je only after a consonant. If, then, the final schwa deletes, this will always result in a final cluster -Cj, which is intolerable in the phonotactics of Frisian. Only here, where /j/ happens to follow a vowel as the accidental effect of palatalization, we happen to meet the suitable context for the deletion of the final schwa.

    The circumstance of schwa deletion in the first person of the present tense might have the further effect of levelling in the present tense. The first person form krij might be reinterpreted as a form of the weak class II, which also lacks an ending after the stem. This could be reinforced by the form of the present plural, which is krije. Analyzed as a class II verb, this would be krij-je. However, phonetically there is no objection against the analysis krij-e. The pronunciation is similar, but in the latter case the verb would be a member of class I. If so, it is conceivable that the two remaining forms would also turn to class I. This would result in the second person singular krijst (analyzed as krij-st) and the third person singular krijt (< krij-t), which are the actual forms for many speakers. (For a comparable effect in the realm of conversion verbs, see Hoekstra (1998:152)).

    [+] Irregular weak verbs belonging to class I

    As stated above, weak verbs of class I may become irregular as a result of a historical shortening in a part of the paradigm. In fact, we see that the non-affected members are subjected to other sound changes, so that the difference within the paradigm even increases. With respect to irregular class I verbs, there are three subtypes. One has a shortening resulting in /ɛ/, another in /a:/ (after a subsequent compensatory lengthening, see Spenter (1968:16)), and finally we have a change resulting in /I/. From a historical perspective the distribution within the paradigm is the opposite of what we saw with the irregular weak verbs of class II. That is, those members of the paradigm that remained stable in class II are typically affected by the sound change in class II. The overall effect is that we find an equal distribution of the allomorphs, but in class I we typically see effects in the second and third person of the present tense, the whole of the past tense and the past participle. Here is a paradigm of the verb bliedeto bleed, which belongs to the first subtype:

    Table 8
    Tense Number Person Form
    present
    SG
    1 blied
    2 bletst
    3 blet
    PL bliede
    past
    SG
    1 blette
    2 blettest
    3 blette
    PL bletten
    infinitive I bliede
    infinitive II blieden
    present participle bliedende
    imperative blied
    The following verbs belong to this subtype with /ɛ/:
    Table 9
    Infinitive 3SG.PRET Translation
    bliede blette bleed
    briede brette roast
    fertriette fertrette vex
    fiede fette feed
    liede lette ring
    moete mette meet
    rêde rette save
    riede rette guess
    sliepe slepte sleep
    In this group, we find levelling to a high degree, especially in the present tense. The effect is that the short sound /ɛ/ is losing ground in favour of the sound of the infinitive. Levelling can also go in the opposite direction, see infinitives like fertretteto vex and metteto meet in Veen (1984-2011). The forms with /ɛ/ of the verb sliepe are mainly found in the eastern part of the language area; in other parts, breaking may apply, see weak verbs.

    For the irregular weak verbs of class I showing long /a:/ as alternating vowel, we take spriedeto spread as an example. Here is an abridged paradigm:

    Table 10
    Tense Number Person Form
    present
    SG
    1 spried
    2 spraatst
    3 spraat
    PL spriede
    past
    SG
    1 sprate
    2 spratest
    3 sprate
    PL spraten
    infinitive I spriede
    infinitive II sprieden
    past participle spraat
    present participle spriedend(e)
    imperative spried
    The following verbs belong to this subtype with alternating long /a:/:
    Table 11
    Infinitive 3SG.PRET Translation
    deie date kill
    liede late lead
    skiede skate part
    spriede sprate spread
    stjitte state push
    Levelling primarily occurs in the present tense in favour of the vowel of the infinitive, but the past tense and the past participle are not excluded, with the result that for many speakers these verbs have become fully regular. The verb deie in its entirety has become quite rare nowadays. It is replaced by its more transparant synonym deadzjeto kill (cf. the adjective deadead).

    The third subtype of the irregular weak verbs of class I only consists of one verb: lijeto suffer. Its alternating vowel is /I/. The verb has the following paradigm:

    Table 12
    Tense Number Person Form
    present
    SG
    1 lij
    2 litst
    3 lit
    PL lije
    past
    SG
    1 litte
    2 littest
    3 litte
    PL litten
    infinitive I lije
    infinitive II lijen
    past participle lit
    present participle lijend(e)
    imperative lij
    Also here we see levelling, especially in the present tense, where the second and third person tend to be replaced by the forms lijst and lijt, respectively.
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    Literature

    A good source for this section, apart from the usual grammars, is Hoekstra (1989). In particular, he calls attention to historical shortenings that have been levelled out nowadays. Sipma (1944) points to the existence of some doublets in the subtype with a preterite with /ɛ/. Many details about levelling effects can be found in Hof (1951). The deviating forms in the second and third person singular in the present tense are put in a comparative perspective in Dammel (2010).

    [+] The verbs sizzeto say and lizzeto lie; to lay

    In a sense, the verb pair sizzeto say and lizzeto lie; to lay resemble the verbs above. Originally, they had regular paradigms (although lizze is a merge of strong Old Frisian lidzato lie and the weak causative ledzato lay). Nowadays their present tense is irregular, also with the second and third person singular as deviating members with their stem sei-. However, the causing factor of the irregularity is not shortening but rather palatalization. Thus the final consonant /z/ of the stem siz- is a result of palatalization from Proto-Frisian seggia, via Old Frisian sedza, of which the stem vowel raised to Old Frisian sidza. Later, the consonant cluster /dz/ simplified to single /z/. In other contexts, the original /ɡ/ palatalized to /j/, resulting in the stem sei/saj/, although the verb lezeto lay in the dialect of Schiermonnikoog still has preterite forms with a velar fricative.

    The verbs sizzeto say and lizzeto lay are mainly strong nowadays, displaying the forms seisay.1/3SG.PRET and seinsay.PP. However, an area in the northeast, the neighbouring island of Schiermonnikoog, and the dialect of Hindeloopen still have weak past participles in seid and leid, in the northeast also abbreviated to sei and lei.

    Here is a paradigm of sizze; the verb lizze goes the same way:


    Table 13
    Tense Number Person Form
    present
    SG
    1 sis
    2 seist
    3 seit
    PL sizze
    past
    SG
    1 sei
    2 seist
    3 sei
    PL seine(n)
    infinitive I sizze
    infinitive II sizzen
    past participle sein (seid)
    present participle sizzend(e)
    imperative sis

    It should be pointed out that these verbs were practically the first to develop a reinforcement of the ending in the second person singular of the past tense, to discriminate it from the similar form of the present tense. We then get the preterite seidest, as will be dealt with in reinforcement in the past tense of the forms of the second person.

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    The historical development of sizzeto say is briefly described and presented in a comparative context in Nübling (1999:61). See also Nübling (2000). Hof (1933:174) has a map of the distribution of the forms of the past participle of sizze. For the data of Schiermonnikoog: Visser and Dyk (2002). For Hindeloopen: Blom (1981).

    [+] Auxiliary verbs

    Traditionally, auxiliary verbs are divided into four categories: those for aspect (hawweto have, wêzeto be for the perfect), tense (sillewill for the future), passive (wurdeto be) and for modality. Especially the latter have some common characteristics.

    As in other languages, the most irregular verb is wêzeto be. It has four different stems. The stem of the infinitive also occurs in the present participle wêzend(e) and in the imperative wês. The vowel is shortened in the past participle west. Most forms of the present tense show a stem bin (which surfaces only partially in the second person bist). The form of the third person singular is is. Finally, the stem of the past tense is wie.

    The imperative is wês. This would be a regular form if we derive the imperative as being similar to the stem of the infinitive. However, in this respect the verb wêze is exceptional: if the infinitive and the first person singular of the present tense appear to possess different stems, it is rather the form of the first person that is on the basis of the form of the imperative; see monosyllabic verbs for some data. The past participle of the verb deserves two remarks. First its form. It has a "weak" ending, spelled as -t). The Old Frisian strong form wesen only survived on the island of Schiermonnikoog as wein. In the southwest the form weest is coming up, probably under the influence of Dutch geweest. Secondly, the past participle west needs the auxiliary hawweto have. This is equal to the situation in English, but different from Dutch and German, which take the auxiliary zijn and sein, respectively. Again under Dutch influence, many speakers of Frisian change to a form of wêze, nowadays.

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    For a dialectical map of the distribution of the forms west and weest, see Hof (1933:130). For the choice of the auxiliary, see Popkema (1984) and De Rooij (1988). Hoekstra and Wolf (2004) discuss the fact that the transition to a form of wêze as auxiliary of the participle west is hampered in more complex verbal clusters, in which the auxiliary emerges as an infinitive. They explain the aversion against the combination west wêze as an instance of a syntactic OCP-effect. For a historical account, both of the form of the participle and its auxiliary selection, see Johnston (1994).

    About the auxiliaries hawweto have and wurde there is less to say. The first is dialectically the most interesting of the two. Hawwe varies along the choice of the stem vowel, which is /ɛ/ in the south western half, and the final consonant of the stem. Varieties with /b/ occur in a broad strip in the southeast, with /v/ in the rest of the language area. Both hawwe and wurde are strong, although the preterite of the latter tends to weaken in the south. The past participle wurden has the form woarn in northeastern dialects. In more or less the same area the past participle is used in participial passive constructions, along with the situation in English and German. Thus English this has been washed is dit is wasken wurden/woarn in the northeastern dialects; compare also German dies is gewaschen worden. The rest of the Frisian language area is without this overt representation of the passive: dit is wosken. Compare this with Dutch dit is gewassen (*geworden). The passive participle may also optionally be deleted after a modal verb. Next to dit moat meand wurdethis must mowed bethis should be mowed we have also dit moat meandthis must mowed.

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    On the four dialectical variants of the infinitive of hawwe, see the map in Hof (1933:70). Tamminga (1963:207-209) gives some morphological, syntactic and semantic data about wurde. The northeastern passive construction is briefly dealt with in Hoekema (1963).

    A salient feature of many modal auxiliaries is the fact that they lack a suffix -t in the third person of the present tense. In this way the third person becomes similar to the first person. This is the case with the following verbal forms: kincan.3SC.PRS, meimay.3SG.PRS and wolwant.3SG.PRS. The modal verb moattemust might be expected to show the same behaviour, but this cannot be verified as its stem already ends in [t] by itself. The verb doaredare also used to have doardare.3SG.PRS, especially in northern and western clay area, but more and more this form tends to be replaced by regular doart. It seems that in the area where this verb shows breaking, the suffix -t is always obligatory. It should be noted that a present tense third person singular without -t can also be found with the verb dogeto be right, although this is not an auxiliary. This form dooch will now be almost obsolete, however. For many speakers the verb kenneto know is formally merged with kinne, with the result that this verb may also show a third person without -t.

    A deviating form for the second person in the present tense once existed in the older language. The modal verbs sille and wolle displayed a form without the suffix -st. The Renaissance poet Gysbert Japicx (1603-1666), for instance, had the forms sitte and wotte. These forms have only survived in the dialect of the island of Schiermonnikoog, as satte and wotte, respectively. The deletion of the stem final /l/ is not unusual is these verbs; see apocope for more information about this subject.

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    This suffix -te has not been studied separately in Frisian linguistics. For the Middle Dutch (13th century) ending -t, see Berteloot (1999). It appears that also in Middle Dutch the same two verbs, Dutch zullen and willen, are the most persistent ones in the retention of this special suffix.

    Several modal verbs have the feature that they have two forms at their disposal for the past participle, often dialectically distributed. One is strong, with the suffix -en, the other weak with -d, or even irregular. Here is an overview:

    Table 14
    Infinitive 3SG.PRES Strong participle Weak participle Translation
    doar(r)e doar(t) doar(r)en doard/doarst dare
    hoege hoecht hoegen hoegd need
    kinne kin kinnen kind can
    meie mei meien mocht may
    moatte moat moatten must
    sille sil sillen sild shall/will
    wolle wol wollen wold want
    That moatte lacks a weak ending may possibly be ascribed to its stem ending in a dental stop, which would preclude transparency of the participial form. The irregular forms of the participles of meie and doare/doarre also occur in the preterite of these verbs.

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    A general description is Hoekstra (1992). He also pays attention to the infinitival complementation of these verbs (with or without the particle te). The participles ending in -en can easily mislead us in thinking that they are in fact infinitives. That such an assumption may lead to wrong conclusions is shown in Hoekstra (2010).

    An auxiliary verb that belongs to the formal register is pliigjeto be used to. It is defective as it has no past participle. The verb was weak in Old Frisian, but interestingly, its past tense is irregular nowadays: the forms placht- and plicht- not only show a vowel different from the infinitive, but also the addition of an extra /t/ to the stem. It is not fully clear where these forms come from. Placht- may be direct interference from Dutch. The shortening and lowering in plicht- reminds one of a comparable phenomenon, but that is restricted to the present tense, and only to infinitives ending in -e. It seems that the preterite form plicht- has been the basis of a variant verb plichtsje, which is fully regular.

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    On the diffuse semantics of the tenses of this verb, especially in Old Frisian, see Meijering (2003). Possibly, this unclear situation also was the basis of the development of the variant plichtsje.

    [+] Monosyllabic verbs

    There is another group of irregular verbs that is mostly referred to as "monosyllabic". As such, these verbs can be considered as strong: they show vowel change in the past tense and past participle, and the latter also ends in /n/. However, they display some additional features, which calls for a separate treatment. This group has the following members:


    Table 15
    Verb Translation
    dwaan do
    gean go
    jaan give
    sjen see
    slaan hit
    stean stand
    tsjen set forth
    (fleane) fly

    Although the infinitive of fleaneto fly is not monosyllabic, it does originally belong to this group, too. Anyway, the corresponding infinitival form fjain in the Schiermonnikoog dialect is definitely monosyllabic, and the Renaissance poet Gysbert Japicx (1603-1666) still had the monosyllabic form flean. Also, the dialect of Hindeloopen had an older form flên, next to modern flêne. The verb tsjento set forth is restricted to the higher registers nowadays, and tends to become obsolete.

    One conspicious feature of this group is the fact that its members have only one infinitival form at their disposal. Probably it is not monosyllabicity that is the causing factor here, but rather the fact that these verbs do not end in a schwa. Normally, the infinitive I ends in a schwa, either as the suffix -e or the suffix -je. For the infinitive II an /n/ is added. Indeed, we see this pattern also for the verb fleane, which has the form fleane as infinitive I and fleanen as infinitive II. But for the other members of this group only a single infinitival form is found. Compare:

    Example 2

    a. Hy wol fleane
    he wants fly
    He wants to fly
    b. Hy wol stean
    he wants stand
    He wants to stand
    c. Ik sjoch him fleanen
    I see him fly
    I see him fly
    d. Ik sjoch him stean
    I see him stand
    I see him standing

    Another feature of several members of this group is that they have a separate stem in the present tense. Mostly its rhyme is -och (or -uch in the clay area) for instance in the first person singular forms (ik) doch (from dwaanto do), (ik) sjoch (from sjento see) and (ik) tsjoch (from tsjento set forth). Note that in this feature fleaneto fly with its form (ik) fljoch is in conformity with the other members of this group. Mostly, this stem with -och covers the whole present tense, for instance in the verb dwaanto do:


    Table 16
    Person Form
    1 doch
    2 dochst
    3 docht
    PL dogge

    The same can be observed with sjento see and tsjento set forth. The situation in fleaneto fly is less straightforward. The grammar of Sytstra and Hof (1925:148), for example, mentions forms with -och only for the second and third person singular, but as an alternative also for the full paradigm of the present tense. On the other hand, quite some speakers have levelled into the other direction, so that the present tense does not show another stem and is regularly in accordance with the stem of the infinitive. We then get ik flean, do fleanst, etcetera.

    A pattern with deviating stems for the second and third person singular can also be observed in the verbs gean, steanto stand and slaanto hit. Here is an overview of the present tense of these verbs:


    Table 17
    Infinitive 1SG 2SG 3SG Plural
    gean gean giest giet geane
    stean stean stiest stiet steane
    slaan slaan slachst slacht slane

    There is a great deal of dialectical variation in these verbs, especially in gean and stean, some of which can be traced back to different infinitival forms in the Old Frisian period. On the other hand, the verb jaan has a stem jou- in the entire paradigm of the present tense. It should be noted, however, that this is the present-day situation. For earlier stages, Veen (1984-2011) mentions the stem jaan for the first person singular and for the plural.

    Of those verbs in this group that show a different stem in the infinitive and the first person singular of the present tense, the imperative invariably opts for the latter, as can be seen in the following figure:


    Table 18
    Infinitive 1SG.PRES Imperative
    dwaan doch doch
    jaan jou jou
    sjen sjoch sjoch
    tsjen tsjoch tsjoch
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    A difference with Dutch

    Dutch also has monosyllabic verbs ending in /n/, although the corresponding verbs of Frisian jaanto give and tsjento set forth do not belong to the stock in Dutch. A more serious difference has a structural character. In Dutch, the final /n/ of the infinitive can be analysed as a suffix, comparable to the infinitival suffix -en, of which the schwa is deleted after the stem that ends in a vowel. If we view it in this way, the Dutch endings of these verbs are fully regular. In Frisian, on the other hand, the stem does not end in a vowel but rather has incorporated the final element /n/. In as far as the stem of the infinitive and the present tense are identical, we see regular endings, on the assumption that /n/ belongs to the stem. The first person singular then gets a zero ending, for instance (ik) gean(I) go of the verb geanto go. And the plural form of the present tense is geane, to be analysed as gean-e. For the Dutch facts, see monosyllabic verbs.

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    A detailed and comprehensive overview of historical and dialectical variation with respect to the verbs gean, stean and dwaan is offered by Hof (1946). He also gives the Old Frisian forms of these verbs; for the Old Frisian forms of the other verbs, see for instance Sytstra and Hof (1925:147-149). Middle Frisian forms, i.e. those of the poet Gysbert Japicx, can be found in Brandsma (1936). A historical treatment is also Kramer (1996). He also gives parallels in East and North Frisian dialects.

    [+] Apocope

    Not all items are pronounced exactly as they occur in the morphological paradigms described above. Especially in frequent forms we see reduction, which mostly boils down to some form of truncation of suffixes or even final parts of stems. For finite forms, only those of the present tense are affected. Reduction in infinitives and participles is relatively rare.

    The deletion of a suffix is seen in the plural -e of the present tense. In fact, all auxiliary and the monosyllabic verbs show this behaviour, especially in more rapid speech. Quite common are forms like wy binwe are instead of wy binne, jim moatyou (plural) must instead of jim moatte, or se geanthey go instead of se geane. Many speakers delete -e in the paradigm of lexical verbs as well, especially before clitics, for instance in dan sitt' we te smokenthen sit-we to smokethen we are smoking.

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    Deletion of -t in the dialect of Schiermonnikoog

    The dialect of the island of Schiermonnikoog lacks the suffix -t of the third person present tense singular in three irregular verbs, where the other dialects are regular in this respect. The forms giego.3SG.PRSgoes of the verb gainto go, stiestand.3SG.PRSstands of stainto stand and (optionally) seisay.3SG.PRSsays of sezeto say are involved. This deletion is probably quite old: Reyner Bogerman, the author of a collection of proverbs of the midst of the sixteenth century, also had the form hahave.3SG.PRShas of the verb hawweto have. He originated from the mainland, but was from the same northeastern region. The deletion reminds one of the lack of -t in the third person of the present tense of the weak verbs of class II in the same dialect, as it is mentioned in the table above.

    We also see truncation in the stem. For finite forms, this truncation is dependent on the quality of the final consonant, i.e. we see the process only with /ɣ/, /l/ and /v/. The following stems are involved:


    Table 19
    infinitive translation full stem reduced form
    dwaan do doch do
    fleane fly fljoch fljo
    hoege need hoech hoe
    sjen see sjoch sjo
    sille will; shall sil si
    wolle want wol wo
    hawwe have haw ha
    hoeve need hoef hoe

    De verb hoege/hoeveneed has two varieties, where hoege is more to be found in the northeast, and hoeve in the southwest. Both display a shortened stem, however. The verb hawweto have has stems ending in /v/ and /b/, depending on the dialect, as we have seen in the section on auxiliary verbs. Those with /b/ are not involved in the reduction process.

    Although the stem is reduced, we do see the full endings -st and -t of the second and third person, the latter only if this is applicable; hence -t is lacking in the verbs sille and wolle. The presence of an inflectional ending is different for the suffix -e of the plural persons: if the stem is truncated, this suffix is deleted as well. For a verb doggeto do, for example, this results in the following reduced forms:


    Table 20
    Number Person Full form Reduced form
    SG
    1 doch do
    2 dochst dost
    3 docht dot
    PL dogge do

    The reduced forms are not represented in the orthography, with the exception of the verb hawwe. However, the reduction itself is also different, in that the final consonant of the stem of this verb, whether it is /v/ or /b/, is never heard in the second and third person singular. Hence, these forms are invariably spelled as hast and hat, respectively. In addition, we see the spelling ha, which can correspond to the full form haw for the first person singular or full hawwe of the plural forms.

    Before the clitics 'kI, wewe, jeyou (polite) and jimyou (plural), the verb moattemust shows reduction as well, in that the final /t/ of the stem may vanish. This may result in the sequence /mak/ next to moat ekmust I. The verbs hâldeto keep and wurdeto get show a similar behaviour. On the other hand, reduction of final /l/ of the verbs sille and wolle is not seen before the clitic erhe, which significantly has an initial vowel. Hence, the sequence *wo erwants he is not heard; rather it is wol er.

    The verb moattemust is special in that it shows a subject-object asymetry. That is, deletion of the stem-final /t/ only occurs bfore subject clitics. Before objects, it is retained:

    Example 3

    a. Dat majem net dwaan
    that must-you not do
    You shouldn't do that
    b. *Ik majem wat fertelle
    I must-you what tell
    I must tell you something
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    The most extensive treatment of these reduction phenomena is Visser (1988:210-216). They have also been dealt with shortly in Tamminga (1963:145-148) and Tamminga (1985:121-123). The author rejects the habit of some younger writers to reflect the reduced forms in their spelling. A clear comparison with verbs that do not show such deletion is given by Veenstra (1994:121-124). An indication that shortened forms already existed in the 19th century is offered by Brouwer (1969:197). For an account of these phenomena from a phonological perspective, see verb stems with and without final consonant and shortened words in combination with clitics. See also (Meer 1986). A dialect map of both variants of the verb hoege/hoeveneed can be found in Van der Veen et al. (2001:62).

    Of the infinitival forms, we see only truncation in the infinitive I of hawweto have, which often reduces to ha, the same form that also occurs as the reduced plural of the present tense. The infinitive II is usually the full form hawwen, although in some dialects of the northeast reduced ha exists as well, for instance as te hato have instead of te hawwen.

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    /r/ as stem final consonant

    If even infinitive II ends in a vowel, one may conclude that the stem of the verb is reanalyzed completely. Such a reanalysis will be the reason that in the same northeastern area, superficially speaking, a new stem has developed. For instance, one can hear a sequence like har ikhave I there. Veenstra (1994) also mentions the forms dor (of the verb dwaanto do), sjor (of sjento see) en slar (of slaanto beat). He considers /r/ a hiatus filler, in this particular Frisian case the result of rule inversion: R-deletion is normally prohibited before a vowel, and therefore this context might be favourable for R-insertion as well. See also Veenstra (1994).

    The insertion of /r/ is different from stems with /ɣ/ (or possibly /χ/), which can be observed with some speakers and in some internet fora, where one may encounter sequences spelled as ik hachI have or wy hachewe have. The emergence of such forms is possibly analogical, a kind of rule inversion of the apocope that we see in certain other irregular verbs; for the relevant forms see in the table above.

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    Shortened infinitives in dialects

    In the dialect of the island of Schiermonnikoog some more infinitives may be truncated. Next to ha from hawweto have we also have lee from lezeto lay, see from sezeto say, wa from wazzeto be and wè from wezzeto get. According to the dialect's dictionary Visser and Dyk (2002), these shortened infinitives typically occur at the end of a sentence. This restriction, however, does not apply to mainland Frisian ha. Shortened infinitives may be found on an even larger scale in the mixed Dutch-Frisian rural dialect of the region Het Bildt in the northwest of the province. Examples are gee from geveto give, bly from bliveto remain, hoe from hoege/hoeveneed and mâ from mâgemay. In this dialect, also finite forms are fairly often truncated. See Buwalda et al. (2013:xxxvi-xxxix) for a quick overview. As far as is known, all cases of truncation in these dialects apply to the infinitive I. Infinitive II, the one with the suffix -en, is not affected.

    [+] Past tense stems ending in a vowel

    Verbs with a stem ending in a vowel, which boils down to ending in a diphthong, may show two peculiarities. Firstly, we see a deviating ending -ne in the plural of the past tense, instead of regular -en. An example is hie-nehad.PL. Furthermore, after such stems a /d/ may be inserted before the clitic form erhe. Hence we get hied erhad he next to hie er.

    The ending -ne especially occurs after centralizing diphthongs. In the table below is an overview, the columns showing the stem, the past plural, the infinitive and a translation, respectively:


    Table 21
    Stem Plural Infinitive Translation
    die diene dwaan do
    gie giene gean go
    hie hiene hawwe have
    snie sniene snije cut
    stie stiene stean stand
    wie wiene wêze be
    koe koene kinne can
    soe soene sille will
    woe woene wolle want
    bea beane biede offer
    sea seane siede boil

    In addition, we find the ending -ne in those dialects which have the diphthong /öə/ in the past tense of strong verbs with the pattern -iuwe in there infinitive, for instance the verbs bliuweremain or skriuwewrite. Such verbs may show plural past tense forms like bleaune or skreaune.

    However, we see regular -en in those dialects which have a past tense stem ending in the semivowel /w/. For instance, in the south and east we have the plural past tense /bljɔwən], mostly spelled as bleauwen. This is in accordance with other past tense stems with a falling diphthong ending in /w/, like gou (from jildeapply) or stau (from stowedash, rush, be dusty), which likewise show regular -en. Also the past stems ending in a falling diphthong with the semivowel /j/ are regular, however, with the exception of the verbs lizzelay; put and sizzesay. These may show the plural past tense forms leine and seine, respectively.

    Probably, the ending -ne can best be understood as a relict of an older metathesis, which turned original -en to -ne. This process affected the strong or irregular verbs ending in a consonant as well. In addition, a schwa was inserted between the final consonant of the stem and the element /nə/. Thus for a form like namene (from the verb nimmeto take) we could assume a development namen > (with metathesis:) naamne > (with schwa insertion:) namene. Such endings in -ene disappeared in the course of the 19th century, thereby apparently dropping the final schwa, with the result that original -en reappeared. But in a number of the verbs the reversed order -ne remained, probably because the initial /n/ started to function as a hiatus filler between the final schwa element of the diphthong of the stem and the schwa of the ending. As a further development, we see that these formations ending in -ne analogically conform to the general pattern which demands that past tense forms end in a schwa plus /n/. As a result, we nowadays see a form hienen next to hiene, etc. What has remained, however, is the unexpected /n/ right after the stem hie-.

    With respect to the set of verbs with an infinitive ending in -iuwe, some speakers went one step further in that they reanalyzed this /n/ as belonging to the stem. See the following table for what this means for a verb like skriuweto write:


    Table 22
    Person singular Standard Reanalyzed
    1 skreau skreaun
    2 skreaust skreaunst
    3 skreau skreaun

    The fact that this set of verbs in particular could undergo this reanalysis may possibly be attributed to the circumstance that the new stem is similar to the form of the past participle, i.e. skreaunwrite.PPwritten. Of the other strong verbs, also biedeoffer with its past participle bean is known to show stem-final /n/: ik beanI offered etc.

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    The idea that the form -ne is a result of a metathesis rule has been put forward in Hoekstra (2008). Visser (1989) takes a synchronic view, and sees /n/ primarely as a hiatus filler. For a phonological perspective, see also the plural preterite of strong verbs. A lot of historical material can be found in Breuker (1993). Reanalyzed forms like ik bleaunI remained have been observed first by De Haan (1949). For historical and dialectical variation of the verbs with the patterm -iuwe, see Dyk (2002).

    Verbs with a past tense stem ending in a vocalic segment show another peculiarity. They may optionally invoke the insertion of a segment /d/ before the third person singular masculine clitic er/ər/. Again, the verbs sizzeto say and lizzelay join these verbs in this feature. In this way, we get formations like wie-d-erwas he, woe-d-erwanted he or sei-d-ersaid he. As above, we may assume that /d/ has a function of a hiatus filler. Although /d/ is normally orthographically connected to the stem, for instance written as wied er, it cannot be part of the stem in a structural sense; in that case, voiced /d/ would have turned into voiceless /t/ before the clitic. Therefore, /d/ is possibly better connected to the clitic. The form der would then be a variant of er, but only occurring in quite specific circumstances. Note that we also find D-insertion before the same clitic er after stems ending in /r/, /l/ and /n/. For this issue, see the topic on D-insertion.

    The stems discussed in this section still have another property: they can easily invoke reinforcement of the ending of the second person singular. For this topic, see reinforcement in the past tense of the forms of the second person.

    [+] Developments with respect to the ending of the strong past participle

    The ending of the past participle of strong verbs is regularly -en. In Frisian, however, this ending may become integrated in the stem, with the effect that the schwa of the suffix is deleted, and, moreover, that the remaining /n/ is no longer part of a separate syllable. This historical event occurred with the following verbs:

    Table 23
    Infinitive Translation Participle
    bedjerre spoil bedoarn
    begjinne begin begûn
    bidde pray bean
    biede offer bean
    bine tie bûn
    bliuwe stay bleaun
    driuwe drift dreaun
    dwaan do dien
    farre sail fearn
    ferdjerre ruin ferdoarn
    ferdwine disappear ferdwûn
    ferlieze lose ferlern
    fine find fûn
    fleane fly flein
    gean go gien
    hawwe have hân
    jaan give jûn
    kliuwe climb kleaun
    lizze lie, lay lein
    priuwe taste preaun
    rinne walk rûn
    riuwe lace, string reaun
    siede cook sean
    sizze say sein
    sjen see sjoen
    skriuwe write skreaun
    slaan hit slein
    snije cut snien
    spije spit spein
    spinne spin spûn
    stean stand stien
    stjerre die stoarn
    swije be silent swein
    swine disappear swûn
    triuwe push treaun
    tsjen go, proceed tein
    wine wind wûn
    winne win wûn
    wiuwe wave weaun
    wriuwe rub wreaun
    Some dialects have variants with full -en after different stems, as for instance gongen (of the verb geanto go), or with other endings. As these variants are irrelevant for the subject at hand, they have not been listed in the table. Note further that in the pronunciation the rule of R-deletion applies in participles as ferlern[fəlɛn]lost and a few others.

    In the western part of the language area, these reduced forms of the past participle are usually augmented by a segment /d/. This results in forms like bleaundstayed, dienddone, handhad (with shortening of the vowel) or seindsaid. One may safely assume that the reason for this change is an attempt at making the participle more transparent, as the original suffix -en is absorbed in the stem. Moreover, in contrast to for instance German and Dutch, Frisian lacks a prefix ge- that marks the category of the past participle. The ending /d/ must have been transferred from the weak class I, which suffix of the past participle is likewise -d.

    This doubling of the participle in order to create greater transparency is, in a certain sense, a mirror of what can be observed in the weak class I itself, where we see an addition of the "strong" ending -en after stems that end in /d/ or /t/. (See for that phenomenon weak verbs). However, it should be remarked that although the core of both changes lies in the west, the areas do not fully coincide: the combination of -d with strong participles is restricted to the west, indeed, where we may find -en with weak participles in a much wider area nowadays.

    The participles in the table above all end in -n. Therefore we could maintain that a remnant of the original ending -en still survives. This is different with some verbs ending in the other nasals, /m/ and /ŋ/. A comparable deletion process may be observed after stems ending in these nasal consonants. The difference is that in this case nothing of an alveolar nasal is left behind. Here is an overview of relevant verbs:


    Table 24
    Infinitive Translation Full participle Reduced form
    glimme glimmer glommen glom
    klimme climb klommen klom
    komme come kommen kaam/kôm
    nimme take nommen naam/nôm
    swimme swim swommen swom
    fange catch fongen fong
    hingje hang hongen hong
    sjonge sing songen song
    springe spring sprongen sprong

    The variation seems to be dialectical, the shortened forms being preferred in the east. There is a small intersection with the western area in which -d is added. In this transition zone, a participial form like fongdcaught has been attested.

    The verbs kommeto come and nimmeto take may also take a participle with -d, as in komd and nomd. These forms are not restricted to the intersection area. Rather the opposite is the case, as they have also been attested in the north, although the core area of these forms remains in the west.

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    The addition of -d, and also the reason of better visibility of the participial form, is mentioned in Tamminga (1964:332) and Hoekstra (1992) and in some recent grammars. Miedema (1968) reports that the phenomenon already existed in the first half of the 19th century in the village of Skraerd in the midwest, and Miedema (1986:69) even found traces in a text written in the now extinct dialect of the village of Molkwerum, situated in the deep southwest. In the dialect survey in Van der Veen (1993) various maps of d-addition can be found. The only in depth study is Ybema (2013), which is mainly based on the data of Goeman (2008).

    The truncation after /ŋ/ is observed in Tamminga (1984:90). A dialect map of the participles of kommeto come and nimmeto take may be found in Hof (1933:183). According to Knop (1954:207) the suffix -en must also have disappeared after [ŋ] and [m] on the island of Terschelling.

    [+] Reinforcement in the past tense of the forms of the second person

    Especially in the speech of the younger generation we can hear forms of the second person singular past tense with insertion of an element -de- or -te-. Examples are seagdestsaw-PRET-sSGsaw and holptesthelp.PRET-PRET-2SGhelped. No doubt, the source of the elements should be found in the paradigm of the weak verbs of class I, with its past tense suffixes -de and -te. The distribution is also similar, that is, -te follows a voiceless stem, and -de a voiced one. The net result, the endings -dest, and -test, is similar to what we find in class I of the weak verbs.

    Apparently, the change began in those strong verbs that have an identical singular second person form for both the present and past tense. For the voiceless stems, this is quite striking in the pair witst and wist of the verb witteto know, which, although spelled differently, have the same pronunciation. Something comparable, at least in some dialects, applies to the second person forms of the verbs moattemust and doaredare. With respect to voiced stems, the origin can be taken to be in the verbs sizzeto say and lizzeto lay, with their common present and past tense forms seist and leist. Later on, the suffix -de spread via other stems ending in a vowel:

    Table 25
    Original New Translation Infinitive
    do wiest do wiedest you were wêze
    do hiest do hiedest you had hawwe
    do diest do diedest you did dwaan
    do stiest do stiedest you stood stean
    do giest do giedest you went gean
    do soest do soedest you should sille
    do koest do koedest you could kinne
    do woest do woedest you wanted wolle
    From there, -de spread to all possible stems of strong verbs. Examples are foeldest (of falleto fall, fûndest ( fineto find), kaamdest (of kommeto come), songdest (of sjongeto sing), riedest (of rideto ride), bleafdest (of bliuweto stay) and joegdest (of jaanto give).

    The first step in the spread of the suffix -te was seen in stems ending in /xt/:

    Table 26
    Original New Translation Infinitive
    do brochtst do brochtest you brought bringe
    do tochtst do tochtest you thought tinke
    do sochtst do sochtest you sought sykje
    do kochtst do kochtest you bought keapje
    do mochtst do mochtest you might meie
    do fochtst do fochtest you fought fjochtsje
    Afterwards, the innovation also affected other stems ending in /t/, as in bietest (of biteto bite), hietest (of hitebe called), lietest (of littelet, sietest (of sitteto sit and smietest (of smiteto throw). There are attestations of the phenomenon after other stems ending in a voiceless consonant, but these are relatively rare.

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    Data for this section have been drawn from Hoekstra (2013). He gives an analysis of the putative historical development, and also points at an extension of the insertion to certain complementizers, with forms like attestif you, dattestthat you and toendestwhen you.

    [+] Shortening in the present tense

    We have seen irregular weak verbs belonging to class I that some weak verbs have undergone shortening in the second and third person of the present tense, in the past tense and in the past participle. With respect to some strong verbs we see something comparable. Thus the verb biteto bite which has a stem vowel /i/ may have a second person singular present tense bitst and a third person bit, both with a vowel /I/. This is the result of a historical shortening that dates from the Old Frisian period.

    Since this shortening did not occur in the past tense and the past participle, it meant that the deviating alternant had a weak place in the paradigm, weaker than the output of shortening of the irregular weak verbs of class I. This had the consequence that these deviating forms have been fully levelled out nowadays, with one dialectical exception. However, in the 19th century and in the Middle Frisian period (1550-1800), we can come across alternate forms in the second and third person of the present tense. As far as the spelling is reliable, we might conclude that the result of shortening is the sound /I/. The input sound is /i(:)/.

    The following verbs have been observed in being involved in the change (the shortened forms are given in the spelling of the source):


    Table 27
    Infinitive Observed 3SG.PRES Translation
    bite bit bite
    glide glit/glidt glide
    ite it eat
    krite krit cry
    ride rit/ridt ride
    smite smit throw

    (Dijkstra 1900-1911) mentions the forms bit and glidt as still existing in a northeastern region. This is conceivable in as far as in the dialect of the island of Schiermonnikoog the alternation is still alive and well. In addition to the verbs in the table above, it appears that (in the dialect's orthography) also the verbs schyteto shit, slyteto wear and splyteto split are involved.

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    The source for older Frisian is Hoekstra (1989). He views the change only as a shortening. The forms in the dialect of Schiermonnikoog can be found in Fokkema (1969:44-45). The alternation is reminiscent of what may be observed in Lower Saxon dialects and in German on a larger scale. See Bloemhoff (2008:100-102) for more details.

    [+] Levelling

    Irregularity tends to be done away with, especially in less frequent forms. We see this phenomenon at various levels: with respect to deviating forms in the present tense, to the form of the past tense as a whole, and even to the verb itself, which can turn to a regular verb in its entirety.

    One field which levelling has taken place rather massively is in the classes which show stem alternation in the present tense. The deviating stems of the second and third person singular are replaced by those of the rest of the paradigm of the present tense. Such levelling has been signalled in the sections on irregular weak verbs of class II, also in the ones of class I, in monosyllabic verbs and in verbs that display lowering.

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    Levelling in the paradigm of the irregular weak verbs of class II is discussed in Tiersma (1978).

    Of the three potentially different stems of strong verbs - present tense, past tense, past participle - the one of the past tense is less frequent in common usage. The effect is that its stem may disappear and become similar to one of the other stems, mainly to the one of the past participle since this is also used to refer to an event that took place in the past. We see this effect most prominently with those verbs in which stem-final /k/ has been palatalized to /ts/. An example is the triple brekketo break - briek - brutsen, which is replaced by brekke - bruts - brutsen, especially in the south. Other verbs following this pattern are mentioned in the section about strong verbs. Another case in which the form of the participle superseded the form of the past tense can be observed is the set of verbs with the rhyme -iuwe, like bliuweto stay or skriuweto write. The result for a verb like bliuwe is that the stem bleau of the past tense may have turned to bleaun, similar to the participial form bleaun. For more information about this change, see the table above.

    The strength of the past participle has possibly been most intense in the verb ferliezeto lose. In the standard language, this has the triple ferlieze - ferlear - ferlern. Several speakers in the southwest have totally weakened this verb on the basis of the participle, and thus have changed to the triple ferlerne - ferlernde - ferlernd. Two factors may have contributed to this remarkable transition. Firstly, the variation in final consonants /z/ ~ /r/ ~ /n/ (the spelled <r> in the participle is not pronounced because of R-deletion) builds an extra complication for the already existing vocalic variation. Secondly, the participle already received a weak ending -d in the relevant dialects; this phenomenon has been dealt with in developments with respect to the ending of the strong past participle.

    The participle is not the only force to replace the form of the past tense. Sometimes, the work can also be done by the infinitive in connection with the present tense. Thus with respect to the verb bliuweremain, there are also speakers who weaken the past tense. They then replace the original triple bliuwe - bleau - bleaun by bliuwe - bliuwde - bleaun. In the south, the preterite of lêzeto read has likewise become weak: lêsde instead of strong lies.

    On the other hand, there is also a minor pattern in which the participle must have been weakened, whereas the past tense remained strong. This is reported in the 19th century for the verbs skoweto shift and stoweto dash, to rush. The participle is reported to be weak (skood and stood, respectively), whereas the past tense is strong (skau and stau). Nowadays, these verbs are weak in all of their forms.

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    The levelling in verbs like brekke and bliuwe is dealt with in Tiersma (1980:82-84). One can get a glimpse of the dialectical spread of the preterite forms stiek and stuts of the verb stekketo stick in Van der Veen et al. (2001:165). The rise and spread of the variants with -uts is also discussed in Loopstra (1937). Piebenga (1935) already notes the stem ferlern for the present tense of ferliezeto lose. The preterite forms of skowe and stowe are mentioned in Van Blom (1889:154).

    The final stage of levelling is the situation that the whole verb has become weak. Thus those speakers who have the triple sjongeto sing - sjongde - sjongd instead of sjonge - song - songen have definitely transferred this verb to the weak class. Another verb that has gone the same way is farreto sail, at least for some speakers.

    Full regularization may also occur with irregular weak verbs. An example is kleieto complain, which got the weak preterite kleide and the weak past participle kleid for some speakers.

    In some cases, weakening may have been influenced by Dutch if the corresponding verb in that language happens to be weak. This could have been the case with verbs like dekketo cover, strekketo stretch, winketo beckon, krinketo offend, swinketo swerve and mingeto mix.

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    Versloot (2002) mentions that uncertainty with respect to the status of the verb as either strong or weak exists especially in the southwest of the language area. De Haan (1997:72) points at Dutch influence in the weakening of certain Frisian strong verbs. Weakening is sometimes also mentioned (and complained about) by writers of popular columns about subjects of language. Examples are De Jong (1988) and De Jong (1990).

    Although rare, a movement in the opposite direction, from weak to strong, also occurs. This is only possible on the basis of a certain analogy. An example is the verb skoweto slide, which may become strong along the lines of the set of verbs with the infinitival rhyme -iuwe, at least in those dialects where this is pronounced with /o:/. In this way, the weak participle skood may turn to strong skeaun[skɵ.ən]. Another example is the weak verb skoppeto kick. We occasionally hears the strong preterite skôp instead of weak skopte, presumably on the basis of the strong verb roppeto call, which has the form rôp as its past tense. The original weak verb strekketo stretch became strong for some speakers after strong verbs with a similar rhyme, like brekketo break, stekketo stab, sprekketo speak and still some others. The weak pattern strekke - strekte - strekt then turned to strekke - striek/struts - strutsen.

    In addition, there is presumably one case of a transition to a strong verb under the influence of Dutch. This is the (irregular) weak verb krijeto get, which, at least for some speakers, has become strong with the past tense krych and the participle krigen. The Dutch counterpart krijgen is a strong verb.

    A curious subcase whichs fits in this pattern is the verb begjinneto begin. This verb is strong, having begûn as the form for its past tense and past participle. On the basis of a certain phonological and also semantic resemblance, some speakers are beginning to take over forms of the verb geanto go, also in the present tense, for instance with third person forms like begjit or begot, depending on dialect. In this way the original strong verb may become even more irregular. An example of a transition to an irregular weak verb is weak riereto stir, which some speakers decline as riedeto guess, that is, with the irregular stem ret-. Next to the identical vowel, a rule inversion with d-rhotacism must underly this change. For more phonological details, see intervocalic /d/ and /r/ . A comparable case is kenneto know, which takes over the irregular paradigm of the modal verb kinnecan. For many speakers, especially in the north, the verb wenneget accustomed to is conjugated like the strong verb winneto win.

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    The change in conjugational class of the verbs wenneto get accustomed to and begjinneto begin is dealt with in Tamminga (1963:140-142).

    [+] List of strong verbs

    The following list of strong verbs is ordered alphabetically; no attempt has been made to reconstruct the original ablaut-system. The form of the past tense is the one of the first or third person singular; the forms of the other persons get additional endings. Only the most common forms are given here. For more details the user is referred to Veen (1984-2011), or at on the internet.


    Table 28
    Infinitive Past Past participle Translation Remarks
    bedjerre bedoar bedoarn spoil
    bedrage bedreach bedragen cheat The past can also be bedroech, as the past participle may be bedroegen, possibly in analogy to the verb drage. The participle also has the variant bedreagen.
    befelle befoel befellen command, order The past tense can also be weak.
    befrieze befrear beferzen freeze (over, up)
    begjinne begûn begûn begin This verb is open to influence from the verb gean, as can be seen in preterite forms like begong and begyng or even irregular present tense singular forms like begost and begot in the north east.
    belide belied beliden profess, admit
    bergje burch burgen store, hold, contain The northeast has a variant bargje. The verb may also be weak.
    beswike beswiek beswykt succumb The verb may also be weak.
    bidde bea bean pray Nowadays, the verb is mostly weak.
    biede bea bean offer Also weak, especially in the south.
    bine bûn bûn bind, tie
    bite biet biten bite
    blaze blies blazen blow A variant blieze, with a preterite bloes has now become obsolete. The verb blaze has become weak for most speakers.
    blike bliek bleken appear, turn out This verb may also be weak.
    blinke blonk blonken shine
    bliuwe bleau bleaun stay, remain There is a great deal of dialectal variation with this verb.
    brekke briek brutsen break The past stem can also be levelled to bruts.
    bringe brocht(e) brocht bring, take
    dekke diek dutsen cover, lay (the table) The past stem can also be levelled to duts. Also full weakening to dekke - dekte - dekt occurs.
    drage droech droegen bear, carry; wear
    drinke dronk dronken drink
    drite driet driten relieve oneself This verb is obsolete.
    driuwe dreau dreaun float, drive This verb has a lot of dialectal variation.
    dûke doek dûkt dive The preterite may also be weak dûkte.
    dwaan die dien do This verb has further irregularities, see the charter below.
    erve urf urven inherit Also weak.
    falle foel fallen fall
    fange fong fongen catch, capture In eastern dialects also weak. An older form of the past participle is finzen.
    farre foer or fear fearn sail Also weak.
    ferdjerre ferdoar ferdoarn ruin, be ruined; decay, spoil, go bad
    ferdwine ferdwûn ferdwûn disappear, vanish
    fergje furch furgen require, demand Also weak.
    ferjitte fergeat fergetten forget The past participle can also be ferjitten.
    ferlieze ferlear ferlern lose In a region in the southwest fully weakened in the verb ferlerne.
    fine fûn fûn find
    fjochtsje focht fochten fight Next to fjochtsje, the infinitive can also be fjochte, fjuchtsje, fjuchte, fechtsje or fechte.
    fleane fleach flein fly This verb has further irregularities, see below.
    flechtsje flocht flochten plait, braid Also weak.
    frette friet fretten eat, stuff oneself
    frieze frear ferzen freeze
    gean gong gongen go This verb has many additional forms and irregularities; see below.
    genêze genies genêzen heal, recover, cure Also weak. The infinitive can also have the form geneze with a possible irregular pattern genees, geneesde/genies, genezen.
    geniete genoat genoaten enjoy, relish There is also a weak variant genietsje.
    glide glied gliden glide, slide The infinitive can also have the form glydzje, which may have a weak pattern.
    glimme glom glommen glimmer, gleam, shine, glow Also weak.
    glûpe gloep glûpen sneak, steal However, mostly weak.
    grave groef groeven dig Sometimes also weak.
    gripe griep grepen seize, grasp Also weak.
    hawwe hie hân have This verb has additional forms; see below.
    hâlde hold holden hold, keep The verb can also have the more regular pattern hâlde - hâlde - hâlden. Next to hold the form holde occurs. The verb shows quite some variety in the pronunciation. Note that <l> is only a (historicized) spelling convention; the corresponding segment is not pronounced.
    helpe holp holpen help
    hingje hong hongen hang Also weak.
    hjitte hiet hiten be called, order The past participle can also be hjitten. The infinitive is hite in the north, with hiten as participle. In both varieties, the preterite may also be weak.
    ite iet iten eat
    jaan joech jûn give This verb has a separate stem for the present tense, see the charter below.
    jilde gou gouwen apply, be in force, cost The strong paradigm is getting obsolete, and is ousted by the more weak pattern jilde - jilde - jilden.
    jitte geat getten pour The more regular triple jitte - jitte - jitten also occurs.
    keapje kocht(e) kocht buy Past forms with -ft as in koft are getting obsolete. The past participle can also be weak keape.
    kenne koe kennen know Past participle also kend. The verb has partly merged with the more irregular paradigm of kinne, see the charter below.
    kerve kurf kurven carve, notch Also weak.
    kieze keas keazen choose The past participle can also be weak kiesd.
    kinne koe kinnen can, be able to Past participle also kind. The present tense is irregular, see the charter below.
    klimme klom klommen climb
    klinke klonk klonken soud, clink, nail
    kliuwe kleau kleaun climb This verb has quite some dialectal variation.
    knipe kniep knepen pinch, squeeze Also weak.
    komme kaam kommen come Past participle also komd or kaam. The past has variants kwam, kôm, and kwaam.
    krimpe kromp krompen shrink
    kringe krong krongen push, press (forward
    krinke kronk kronken offend, hurt Also weak.
    krite kriet kriten wail, weep
    krûpe kroep krûpt creep, crawl Also fully weak. The preterite kroep can be found in northern dialects.
    lêze lies lêzen read Also weak, especially in the south.
    lige leach leagen lie, tell lies Nowadays mostly weak.
    like liek lutsen leak Dialectally, and possibly obsolete and ousted by regular weak lekke.
    lykje liek like seem, appear Also with a weak preterite.
    litte liet litten let, allow, cause to
    lûke loek lutsen draw, pull The past stem can also be levelled to luts.
    melke molk molken milk
    merke murk murken mark, notice
    minge mong mongen mix, mingle
    mjitte meat metten measure The past tense can also be mjitte, with mjitten as past participle.
    moatte moast moatten must, have to This modal verb has a great deal of dialectal variation.
    nimme naam nommen take Past participle also nomd, naam or nôm. The stem of the past tense can also be nôm-.
    pliigje plichte use to The infinitive can also have the form pliigje. The past can also have the following pattern: placht(e), plachtest/plachtst, placht, plachten. A past participle does not occur. Next to these forms, there is a fully weak variant plichtsje.
    priuwe preau preaun taste The verb can also have the regular pattern priuwe, priuwde, priuwd. The strong verb has a lot of dialectal variation.
    rekke riek rutsen stretch (out) The past pattern can also be levelled to ruts. Also full weakening to rekke - rekte - rekt occurs.
    ride ried riden drive, ride
    rinne rûn rûn walk Also possible with past tense and past participle forms roan/roon/ron, particularly in the east. The southwest has an infinitive ronne with the pattern rôn - rôn (as participle alsorond).
    rite riet riten rip, tear The verb is quite rare.
    riuwe reau reaun thread, string, baste This verb has a lot of dialectal variation.
    roppe rôp roppen call, cry The northeast has roop as past tense. Also fully weak.
    rûke roek rûkt smell Also weak.
    siede sea(r) sean cook, boil A more regular pattern also occurs: siede - siede - sieden.
    sykje socht socht look for
    sinke sonk sonken sink
    sitte siet sitten sit
    sjen seach sjoen see, look The verb has a separate stem for the present tense, see the charter below.
    sjitte skeat sketten shoot The verb can also be more regular with past tense sjitte and past participle sjitten.
    sjonge song songen sing The participle is song in the east.
    skelle skold skolden curse, call names Also weak.
    skeppe skoep skepen create, set up
    skinke skonk skonken pour (out); present with
    skite skiet skiten shit
    skrikke skrok skrokken be frightened Also weak.
    skriuwe skreau skreaun write There is a lot of variation of this verb.
    slink(e) slonk slonken shrink, dwindle, subside (pain)
    slite sliet sliten wear out
    slûpe sloep slûpen sneak, steal, slink Also weak, especially in the south.
    slute sleat sletten shut, close The past participle can also be sluten.
    smelte smolt smolten melt
    smite smiet smiten fling, throw
    snije snie snien cut Also weak.
    snute snuet snuten blow one's nose The past tense can also be weak: snute.
    spije spei spein spit, vomit The infinitive spije can also have the regular pattern: spij, spijde, spijd. Most speakers have the weak verb spuie.
    spinne spûn spûn spin For some speakers also weak.
    spite spiet spiten regret, be sorry For some speakers the verb is weak.
    splite spliet spliten split, cleave Also weak.
    sprekke spriek sprutsen speak (publicity) The past stem is also levelled to spruts.
    springe sprong sprongen jump, leap Past participle is also sprong in the east.
    stappe stoep stapt step The verb is weak for most speakers. The strong preterite especially in the north.
    stean stie stien stand This verb has additional irregularities and dialectal variants; see below.
    stekke stiek stutsen stab, sting, stick The past stem is also levelled to stuts.
    stelle stiel stellen steal
    stjerre stoar stoarn die
    stjonke stonk stonken stink, smell
    stowe sto/stau stowen dash, rush,be dusty For most speakers weak, nowadays.
    strekke striek strutsen stretch, extend This verb was originally weak, and it often still is. For some speakers it became strong, in analogy to the pattern of verbs like strike, stekke and others.
    stride stried striden fight, struggle
    strike striek strutsen strike (iron), lower The past stem can also be levelled to struts.
    strûpe stroep strûpt skin, strip Also weak. The strong preterite especially in the north.
    swerve swurf swurven wander, roam
    swije swei swein be silent, keep silent This verb tends to become weak.
    swimme swom swommen swim
    swine swûn swûn swing The verb is relatively rare.
    swinge swong swongen swing
    swinke swonk swonken swerve, turn around Also weak.
    terskje tursk tursken thresh Also weak.
    tingje tong tongen haggle, bargain Also weak.
    tinke tocht tocht/tochte think
    treffe trof troffen hit, strike
    trekke triek trutsen brew The past stem can also be levelled to truts.
    triuwe treau treaun push, thrust, shove This verb shows quite some dialectal variation.
    tsjen teach tein set forth, draw, pull The verb has a separate stem in the present tense, see the charter below.
    twinge twong twongen force
    ûntginne ûntgûn ûntgûn reclaim, clear Also weak.
    waakse woeks woeksen grow
    wage woech woegen weigh The infinitive can also have the dialectal forms weageweagje, waagje and wege.
    waskje wosk wosken wash
    wenne wûn wûn accustom The verb has become strong especially in the north, under the influence of winneto win.
    werpe wurp wurpen throw The verb is rare nowadays; a synonym like smite is preferred.
    wêze wie west be For the many irregularities of this verb, see below and also in the section on auxiliary verbs.
    wike wiek wykt give in/away, disappear Also fully weak.
    wine wûn wûn wind Also weak.
    winke wonk wonken beckon, motion Also weak.
    winne wûn wûn win, gain The past tense and past participle have the dialectal variants won and woan.
    wite wiet witen blame
    witte wist witten know There is also a variant wite with a participle witen in the eastern and southern dialects. All have the paste tense wist in common.
    wiuwe weau weaun wave This verb has quite some dialectal variation.
    wolle woe wollen want, wish Past participle can also be wold. The present tense is irregular, see below.
    wreke wriek wrutsen revenge, avenge The past tense is often levelled to wruts. The infinitive can also have the form wrekje or wrekke.
    wringe wrong wrongen wring
    write wriet writen rip, tear Also weak. The verb is getting obsolete.
    wriuwe wreau wreaun rub This verb has quite some dialectal variation.
    wurde waard wurden become This verb has quite some dialectal variation. The preterite may get weak, especially in the south.
    [+] List of irregular verbs

    Irregular verbs can be inherently strong or weak. The irregularity is mostly concentrated in a separate stem for the present tense and/or an irregular paradigm in the present tense singular. Therefore, we present here the full paradigm of the singular present tense, plus the first person of the plural. For comparison the persons for the past tense are given. The verbs are presented in alphabetical order.

    Bliedeto bleed


    Table 29
    Person Present Past Past participle
    1SG blied blette blet
    2SG bletst blettest
    3SG blet blette
    1PL bliede bletten

    The verb bliedebleed can also have bliedst and bliedt in, respectively, 2SG and 3SG in the present.

    Briedeto brood; to fry


    Table 30
    Person Present Past Past participle
    1SG bried brette bret
    2SG bretst brettest
    3SG bret brette
    1PL briede bretten

    The present forms can also be briedst for 2SG and briedt for 3SG. The past participle can also be brieden.

    Deieto kill


    Table 31
    Person Present Past Past participle
    1SG dei date daat
    2SG daatst datest
    3SG daat date
    1PL deie daten

    This verb is becoming obsolete, in as far it is not levelled to a stem dei-.

    Doareto dare


    Table 32
    Person Present Past Past participle
    1SG doar doarst doarst
    2SG doarst doarst
    2SG doar doarst
    1PL doare doarsten

    This verb shows levelling and quite some dialectical deviation.

    Dwaanto do


    Table 33
    Person Present Past Past participle
    1SG doch die dien
    2SG dochst diest
    3SG docht die
    1PL dogge diene

    Feieto sweep, to wipe


    Table 34
    Person Present Past Past participle
    1SG fei fage fage
    2SG fagest fagest
    3SG faget fage
    1PL feie fagen

    In the present tense, the 2SG form can also be feist and the 3SG form feit. The verb can even be fully weakened as feie, feide, feid.

    Fertrietteto grieve


    Table 35
    Person Present Past Past participle
    3SG fertret fertrette fertret

    This is an impersonal verb, only occurring in the third person singular. It often levelled, both to a stem fertriet- and to fertret-.

    Fiedeto feed


    Table 36
    Person Present Past Past participle
    1SG fied fette fet
    2SG fetst fettest
    3SG fet fette
    1PL fiede fetten

    There is a strong tendenyc to levelling to a stem fied-. Moreover, the verb is pretty rare in Frisian.

    Fleaneto fly


    Table 37
    Person Present Past Past participle
    1SG flean fleach flein
    2SG fljochst fleachst flein
    3SG fljocht fleach flein
    1PL fleane fleagen flein

    In the present tense, the 1SG form can also be fljoch. On the other hand, one also sees levelling to a stem flean- for the whole present tense.

    Friezeto freeze


    Table 38
    Person Present Past Past participle
    1SG
    2SG
    3SG friest frear ferzen
    1PL

    Geanto go


    Table 39
    Person Present Past Past participle
    1SG gean gong gongen
    2SG giest gongst
    3SG giet gong
    1PL geane gongen

    The present tense can also have the pattern go(n), gost, got, gonne or gjin, gjist, gjit, gjin(ne) and the present tense of 2SG and 3SG can be resp. gyst and gyt. The past tense can also have the pattern gie, giest, gie, giene(n) or gyng, gyngst, gyng, gyngen or gûng, gûngst, gûng, gûngen. The past participle can also be gien or gong.

    Hawweto have


    Table 40
    Person Present Past Past participle
    1SG haw hie hân
    2SG hast hiest
    3SG hat hie
    1PL ha hiene

    Other infinitival forms are habbe, hewwe and hebbe. The present plural may also show the full form hawwe.

    Jaanto give


    Table 41
    Person Present Past Past participle
    1SG jou joech jûn
    2SG joust joechst
    3SG jout joech
    1PL jouwe joegen

    Jeieto hunt, to race


    Table 42
    Person Present Past Past participle
    1SG jei jage jage
    2SG jagest jagest
    3SG jaget jage
    1PL jeie jagen

    In the present tense, 2SG can also have the form jeist and 3SG can also have the form jeit.

    Kenneto know. See kinne.

    Kinnecan


    Table 43
    Person Present Past Past participle
    1SG kin koe kinnen/kind
    2SG kinst koest
    3SG kin koe
    1PL kinne koene

    The verb kenneto know takes the same pattern, although in some dialects the vowel - as is also indicated by the etymological orthography - may be different.

    Kleieto complain


    Table 44
    Person Present Past Past participle
    1SG klei klage klage
    2SG klagest klagest
    3SG klaget klage
    1PL kleie klagen

    In the present tense, 2SG can also have the form kleist and 3SG can be kleit. Sometimes, also the past tenses are weakened to kleide and kleid.


    Table 45
    Person Present Past Past participle
    1SG koai kôge kôge
    2SG kôgest kôgest
    3SG kôget kôge
    1PL koaie kôgen

    Often one may observe levelling to a stem kôg-.

    Koaitsjeto cook, boil


    Table 46
    Person Present Past Past participle
    1SG koaitsje kôke kôke
    2SG kôkest kôkest
    3SG kôket kôke
    1PL koaitsje kôken

    Krijeto get, receive


    Table 47
    Person Present Past Past participle
    1SG krij krige krige
    2SG krigest krigest
    3SG kriget krige
    1PL krije krigen

    2SG and 3SG in the present can also be krijst and krijt. The past tense can get the strong pattern: kriich, kriichst, kriich, krigen (also with a short vowel). The past participle can also become strong krigen.

    Laitsjeto laugh


    Table 48
    Person Present Past Past participle
    1SG laitsje lake lake
    2SG lakest lakest
    3SG laket lake
    1PL laitsje laken

    Liede Ito lead


    Table 49
    Person Present Past Past participle
    1SG lied late laat
    2SG laatst latest
    3SG laat late
    1PL liede laten

    There is a slight tendency to level to a stem lied-, particularly in the present tense.

    Liede IIto ring, to peal, to chime


    Table 50
    Person Present Past Past participle
    1SG lied lette let
    2SG letst lettest
    3SG let lette
    1PL liede letten

    2SG and 3SG in the present can also be liedst and liedt.

    Lijeto suffer, to endure, to bear


    Table 51
    Person Present Past Past participle
    1SG lij litte lit
    2SG litst littest
    3SG lit litte
    1PL lije litten

    There is a tendency to level to a stem lij-, especially in the present tense.

    Lizzeto lay, to lie


    Table 52
    Person Present Past Past participle
    1SG lis lei lein
    2SG leist leist
    3SG leit lei
    1PL lizze leine(n)

    Loaitsjeto look, to see


    Table 53
    Person Present Past Past participle
    1SG loaitsje lôke lôke
    2SG lôkest lôkest
    3SG lôket lôke
    1PL loaitsje lôken

    The verb is virtually obsolete.

    Loeieto load


    Table 54
    Person Present Past Past participle
    1SG loei loege loege
    2SG loegest loegest
    3SG loeget loege
    1PL loeie loegen

    Nowadays often restored to a stem loeg-.

    Meiemay


    Table 55
    Person Present Past Past participle
    1SG mei mocht mocht/meien
    2SG meist mochtst
    3SG mei mocht
    1PL meie mochten

    Meitsjeto make


    Table 56
    Person Present Past Past participle
    1SG meitsje makke makke
    2SG makkest makkest
    3SG makket makke
    1PL meitsje makken

    Moattemust, should


    Table 57
    Person Present Past Past participle
    1SG moat moast moatten
    2SG moatst moast
    3SG moat moast
    1PL moatte moasten

    Although the spelling is uniform, the pronunciation of vowel of the infinitive, present tense and past participle is with [a] in most dialects, e.g. (ik) moat[mat], where this is [u] in the past tense, e.g. (ik) moast[must].

    Moeteto meet


    Table 58
    Person Present Past Past participle
    1SG moet mette met
    2SG metst mettest
    3SG met mette
    1PL moete metten

    There is a tendency to level to a stem moet-.

    Ploaitsjeto pick


    Table 59
    Person Present Past Past participle
    1SG ploaitsje plôke plôke
    2SG plôkest plôkest
    3SG plôket plôke
    1PL ploaitsje plôken

    Mostly levelled to a stem plôk-.

    Rêdeto save; to fix


    Table 60
    Person Present Past Past Participle
    1SG rêd rette ret
    2SG retst rettest
    3SG ret rette
    1PL rêde retten

    The irregularity is almost obsolete nowadays, in favour of a stem rêd-.

    Reitsjeto reach


    Table 61
    Person Present Past Past participle
    1SG reitsje rekke rekke
    2SG rekkest rekkest
    3SG rekket rekke
    1PL reitsje rekken

    The south has rakke instead of rekke etc.

    Riedeto guess


    Table 62
    Person Present Past Participle
    1SG ried rette ret
    2SG retst rettest
    3SG ret rette
    1PL riede retten

    There is a tendency to level to a stem ried-.

    Silleshall


    Table 63
    Person Present Past Past participle
    1SG sil soe sillen/sild
    2SG silst soest
    3SG sil soe
    1PL sille soene

    Sizzeto say


    Table 64
    Person Present Past Past participle
    1SG sis sei sein
    2SG seist seist sein
    3SG seit sei sein
    1PL sizze seine(n) sein

    Sjento see


    Table 65
    Person Present Past Participle
    1SG sjoch seach sjoen
    2SG sjochst seachst
    3SG sjocht seach
    1PL sjogge seagen

    This verb shows dialectical variation in most of its stems.

    Skiedeto part


    Table 66
    Person Present Past Past participle
    1SG skied skate skaat
    2SG skaatst skatest
    3SG skaat skate
    1PL skiede skaten

    There is a tendency to level to a stem skied-, especially in the present tense.

    Slaanto strike, to hit, to beat

    Table 67
    Person Present Past Past participle
    1SG slaan sloech slein
    2SG slachst sloechst
    3SG slacht sloech
    1PL slane sloegen
    The full present tense may be levelled to a stem slach-.

    Sliepeto sleep

    Table 68
    Person Present Past Past participle
    1SG sliep slepte slept
    2SG slepst sleptest
    3SG slept slepte
    1PL sliepe slepten
    This pattern mainly exists in the east. In other parts of the language area, one may find breaking instead of the deviating forms.

    Smeitsjeto taste

    Table 69
    Person Present Past Past participle
    1SG smeitsje smakke smakke
    2SG smakkest smakkest
    3SG smakket smakke
    1PL smeitsje smakken
    The verb is mainly impersonal, and hence the first and second person are somewhat arteficial.

    Spriedeto spread


    Table 70
    Person Present Past Past participle
    1SG spried sprate spraat
    2SG spraatst spratest
    3SG spraat sprate
    1PL spriede spraten

    There is a tendency to level to a stem spried-, especially in the present tense.

    Steanto stand


    Table 71
    Person Present Past Past participle
    1SG stean stie stien
    2SG stiest stiest
    3SG stiet stie
    1PL steane stiene

    The stem vowel <ie> is a falling diphthong [iə], but in the present tense it is often broken to [jI]. This verb shows considerable dialectal variation. The northeast has a short vowel /o/ in the present tense. Other past tense stems are styng-, stoe-, ston-, stûn- and stûng-. There are also different forms for the participle.

    Stjitteto push, to thrust

    Table 72
    Person Present Past Past participle
    1SG stjit state staat
    2SG staatst statest
    3SG staat state
    1PL stjitte staten
    There is a tendency to level to a stem stjit-, especially in the present tense.

    Toaieto carry


    Table 73
    Person Present Past Past participle
    1SG toai tôge tôge
    2SG tôgest tôgest
    3SG tôget tôge
    1PL toaie tôgen

    Nowadays mostly restored to a regular verb with the stem tôg-.

    Tsjento trek


    Table 74
    Person Present Past Past participle
    1SG tsjoch teach tein
    2SG tsjochst teachst
    3SG tsjocht teach
    1PL tsjogge teagen

    Weitsjeto wake, to watch


    Table 75
    Person Present Past Past participle
    1SG weitsje wekke wekke
    2SG wekkest wekkest
    3SG wekket wekke
    1PL weitsje wekken
    Also levelled to a stem wek-.

    Wêzeto be

    Table 76
    Person Present Past Past participle
    1SG bin wie west
    2SG bist wiest
    3SG is wie
    1PL binne wiene(n)
    IMP wês!
    The past participle can also have te forms wist, wêzen, wêst and weest.

    Wollewant


    Table 77
    Person Present Past Past participle
    1SG wol woe wollen/wold
    2SG wolst woest
    3SG wol woe
    1PL wolle woene
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    ABOUT THIS TOPIC
    Author(s):
    Siebren Dyk
    Category:
    Frisian Morphology
    Publication date:
    07 August 2019
    Keywords:
    strong verb irregular verb
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