The Germanic Third Weak Class

Abstract

Germanic verbs of the 3rd weak class form presents characterized by an alternation between predesinential *ai (e.g. Go. 3sg. habaib) and *a (e.g. lpl. habam). These verbs are usually compared with the 'e-verbs' of Italic and BaltoSlavic, but no IE present built on the stative suffix *-ewill account phonologically for the form of the suffix in Germanic. Instead, it can be shown that the characteristic Germanic paradigm results from the 'activization' of an older middle paradigm in which a 3sg. in *-ai (< IE *-oi; cf. Skt. duhd 'milks') was further suffixed by the productive active ending *-bi (< IE *-ti).