In the Germanic languages, weak verbs are by far the largest group of verbs, and are therefore often regarded as the norm (the regular verbs). They are distinguished from the Germanic strong verbs by the fact that their past tense form is marked by an inflection containing a /t/, /d/, or /ð/ sound (as in English I walk~I walked) rather than by changing the verb's root vowel (as in English I rise~I rose). Whereas the strong verbs are the oldest group of verbs in Germanic, originating in Indo-European, the weak verbs arose as an innovation in Proto-Germanic. Originally the weak verbs consisted of new verbs coined from pre-existing nouns (for example the noun name was turned into the verb to name), or coined from strong verbs to express the sense of causing the action denoted by that strong verb (for example the strong verb to rise was turned into the weak verb to raise). However, over time, the weak verbs have become the normal form of verbs in all Germanic languages, with most strong verbs being reassigned to the weak class. For example, in Old English the verb to lock (lūcan) was strong (present tense ic lūce 'I lock', past tense ic lēac 'I locked'), but has now become weak. This transition is ongoing. For example, the English verb to cleave currently exists in both a conservative strong form (past tense I clove) and an innovative weak form (past tense I cleaved~I cleft).
General description In Germanic languages, weak verbs form their preterites and past participles by means of a dental suffix, an inflection that contains a /t/ or /d/ sound or similar. (For comparative purposes, they will be referred to as a dental, but in some of the languages, including most varieties of English, /t/ and /d/ are alveolar instead.) In all Germanic languages, the preterite and past participle forms of weak verbs are formed from the same stem.
Historically, the pronunciation of the suffix in the vast majority of weak verbs (all four classes) was [ð] but, in most sources discussing Proto-Germanic, it is spelled ⟨d⟩ by convention. In the West Germanic languages, the suffix hardened to [d], but it remained a fricative in the other early Germanic languages (Gothic and often in Old Norse). In the English language, the dental is a after a voiced consonant (loved) or vowel (laid), a after a voiceless consonant (laughed), and after the dentals/alveolars and themselves, but English uses the suffix spelling ⟨ed⟩ regardless of pronunciation, with the exception of a few verbs with irregular spellings. In Dutch, /t/ and /d/ are distributed as in English provided there is a following vowel. When there is no following vowel, terminal devoicing leads to the universal /t/. Nevertheless, Dutch still distinguishes between the spellings in ⟨d⟩ and ⟨t⟩ even in final position: see the 't kofschip rule. In Afrikaans, which descends from Dutch, the past tense has fallen out of use altogether, and the past participle is marked only with the prefix ge-. Therefore, the suffix has disappeared along with the forms that originally contained it. In German the dental is always /t/ and always spelled ⟨t⟩ because of the third phase of the High German consonant shift (d→t). In Low German, the dental ending of the preterite tense was originally /d/ or /t/, according to the stem of the verb. However the ending has fallen out in pronunciation, starting in the 17th century when the preterite was written with the ending -er representing the sound [ɐ], which was already the last remnant of the former -de and -te endings of Middle Low German. Now, the only Low German verbs that still show a remnant of a dental ending are leggen, which has the preterite leed, and the verb hebben, which has harr with old r-ending from the Middle Low German dental. In Icelandic, the dental was originally a voiced dental fricative /ð/. It is preserved as such after vowels, voiced fricatives, and /r/ but has been hardened to a stop /d/ after nasals and /l/. It and has been devoiced to /t/ after voiceless consonants and in some other cases (in most Old Norse texts, the alternation is already found in heavy roots, but the light ones preserve /ð/). Furthermore, the voicing contrast between /d/ and /t/ has been replaced in modern Icelandic by an aspiration contrast, which may not be realized phonetically in all the relevant positions. The situation of early Norwegian was similar to Icelandic, but intervocalic /ð/ eventually disappeared. In the verbs in which it remains, the dental is /t/ or /d/, depending on conjugation class and dialect. It is spelled accordingly. In Nynorsk, it can be different in the preterite and the past participle. Swedish has a similar situation to that of Norwegian, but the dental is retained in the spelling, even between vowels. Some informal spellings indicate a lost dental, such as in sa ("said") from the standard spelling sade.
Classes of verbs In Proto-Germanic, there were seven types of weak verbs, five of which were common. However, they are normally grouped into four classes, based on the conjugational system of Gothic.
Class I verbs Class I verbs actually consist of three classes in Proto-Germanic:
Class I, subclass (i) A small class of verbs had no suffix in the present, and no suffix in the past (other than the -d- or -t- of all weak verbs). This class had only three members:
**bringaną "to bring", past tense **branht-. This verb was continued as such in all the descendants, although an alternate stem **brangij- occasionally appeared in some of the West Germanic languages (e.g., Old English brenġan). **brūkaną "to use", past tense **brūht-. This verb tended to move into other classes. For example, in Gothic this verb moved into subclass (ii) of Class I (brūkjan, past brūhta), whereas in Old English it became a Class II strong verb (brūcan, past tense brēac ← *brauk). **būaną "to dwell", past tense **būd-. This verb continued as such in most descendants but became a Class III weak verb bauan in Gothic.
Class I, subclass (ii) A small class of verbs had the suffix -j- in the present and no suffix in the past. This class had only five members in Proto-Germanic:
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