Forms of Verbs



There are strong verbs and weak verbs. Strong verbs change their stems to form the past tense. They also tend to have different endings in the past tense. For *some* strong verbs, you can check out hafa, vera, munu,verða, geta, eigi, fá, fara, mega and Þurfa by clickng here .
Weak verbs are formed by a suffixed ending. In English a weak verb would be any verb that ends in -ed. ex. worked. A strong verb example is: run, ran or swim, swam.

The suffixed endings for weak verbs are divided into three groups:
Group One: -aði, -ði ex. tala, skipa
Group Two: -di, ex. dreyma
Group Three: -ti, ex. setja, keppa

Weak Declension Example
ég talaði
Þú talaðir
hann talaði
við töluðum
Þið töluðuð
Þeir töluöu

This is a good example because it also shows the u-umlaut which would have taken place even without the past tense ending. It should be mentioned however, that some weak verbs will undergo another umlaut known as the i-umlaut. This will cause the vowel in the stem to change like the u-umlaut but this vowel change does not make it a strong verb. To recognize weak verbs, it is crucial that you recognize their weak endings. The u-umlaut changes any a to ö when followed by a u. The i-umlaut affects several vowels in several ways. If an e is followed by an i then the resulting vowel is a. Example: segja in the past becomes sagði. If the letter yi, the resulting vowel change is u. Example: spyrja in the past tense becomes spurði. If the diphthong au is followed by an i then the resulting diphthong is ey. Example: kaupa in the past becomes keypti.

Strong Verbs


All of these verbs (with the exception of *fara) alliterate on B. This is how I learned to memorize and chant Old Norse verbs in my class with Craig Davis and I attribute this method to him.
Infinitive Past 1st Person Singular Past 1st Person Plural Past Participle class
bíta beit bitum bitinn 1
bjóða bauð buðum boðinn 2
bresta brast brustum brostinn 3
binda batt bundum bundinn 3
bera bar bárum borinn 4
biðja bað báðum beðinn 5
fara * fór fórum farinn 6
blása blés blésum blásinn 7
búa bjó bjuggum búinn 7


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