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A verb (from Latin verbum 'word') is word that generally conveys an action (bring, read, walk, run, learn), an occurrence (happen, become), or a state of being (be, exist, stand). In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive.
Many of these can be classed as Germanic strong verbs, such as sing (past sang), while others are weak verbs with irregularly pronounced or irregularly spelt past forms, such as say (past tense said /sɛd/). The verb be has two past tense forms: was (first and third person singular) and were (plural and second person).
Strong verbs use a Germanic form of conjugation known as ablaut. They form the past tense by changing their stem vowel. These verbs still exist in modern English; sing, sang, sung is a strong verb, as are swim, swam, swum and break, broke, broken. In modern English, strong verbs are rare, and they are mostly categorised as irregular verbs.
The development of weak verbs in Germanic meant that the strong verb system ceased to be productive: practically all new verbs were weak, and few new strong verbs were created. Over time, strong verbs tended to become weak in some languages, so that the total number of strong verbs in Germanic languages has decreased over time.
German verbs may be classified as either weak, with a dental consonant inflection, or strong, showing a vowel gradation ().Both of these are regular systems. Most verbs of both types are regular, though various subgroups and anomalies do arise; however, textbooks for learners often class all strong verbs as irregular.
These can be strong (able to carry a full syllable) or weak (likely to collapse under the weight of a prefix or suffix). Verbs with a weak radical are termed weak verbs, and form partially regular exceptions to the normal conjugation rule. The consonants he, waw, and nun are among those likely to make a verb weak.
English is also a strong example, where all weak verb classes have merged, many older strong verbs have become weak, and all other verbs are considered irregular relic formations. Dutch and German also show this development, but the non-productive strong verb classes have remained more regular.
Strong verb may refer to: Germanic strong verb, a verb that marks its past tense by means of changes to the stem vowel; Strong inflection, a system of verb conjugation contrasted with an alternative "weak" system in the same language; Irregular verb, any verb whose conjugation does not follow the typical pattern of the language to which it belongs