German verbs

German verbs may be classified as either weak, with a dental consonant inflection, or strong, showing a vowel gradation (ablaut). Both of these are regular systems. Most verbs of both types are regular, though various subgroups and anomalies do arise. The only completely irregular verb in the language is sein (to be). although, textbooks for learners often class all strong verbs as irregular. There are more than 200 strong and irregular verbs, but there is a gradual tendency for strong verbs to become weak.

As German is a Germanic language, the German verb can be understood historically as a development of the Germanic verb.

The infinitive consists of the root and the suffix -en. With verbs whose roots end in el or er, the e of the infinitive suffix is dropped.

This is a general view of the most important German prefixes. The example is "legen" (to lay)

There are some verbs which have a permanent prefix at their beginning. These prefixes are never stressed. The most common permanent prefixes found in German are ver-, ge-, be-, er-, ent- (or emp-), and zer-.

The meaning of the permanent prefixes does not have a real system; the alteration in meaning can be subtle or drastic. The prefixes ver-, be- and ge- have several different meanings, although ge- is uncommon and often the root verb is no longer in existence. be- often makes a transitive verb from an intransitive verb. Verbs with er- tend to relate to creative processes, verbs with ent- usually describe processes of removing (as well as emp-, an approximate equivalent to ent- except usually used for root verbs beginning with an f), and zer- is used for destructive actions. Ver- often describes some kind of extreme or excess of the root verb, although not in any systematic way: 'sprechen', for example means to 'speak', but 'versprechen', 'to promise' as in 'to give ones word' and 'fallen', meaning 'to fall' but 'verfallen', 'to decay' or 'to be ruined'.

Many verbs have a separable prefix that changes the meaning of the root verb, but that does not always remain attached to the root verb. When attached, these suffixes are always stressed. German sentence structure normally places verbs in second position or final position. For separable prefix verbs, the prefix always appears in final position. If a particular sentence's structure places the entire verb in final position then the prefix and root verb appear together. If a sentence places the verb in second position then only the root verb will appear in second position. The separated prefix remains at the end of the sentence.

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