Wednesday, December 9, 2015

How do you conjugate Early Modern English verbs (other than present tense)?

I was wondering how one might conjugate verbs in early modern English in various tenses. I am aware of the fact that for second person and third person singular specifically, the verb endings are -est and -eth respectively, but once you move away from simple present tense, it seems to get a bit trickier.



I recall reading somewhere that if you want to make a verb past simple, you add did between the noun and the verb. For example,




He ?dideth walk to the store.





As opposed to the modern English,




He walked to the store.




And as opposed to how I might say it:




He ?walkedeth to the store.





Unfortunately, I haven’t learned quite as much of English as others may, but I know enough to suspect that “He dideth walk to the store” might be a different tense entirely from “He walkedeth to the store”, at least in modern English.



I am an aspiring and amateur writer, and there is a character that speaks entirely in Early Modern English, and so the answer to this would be quite helpful.

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