What is the "ge-" before infinitives in Old English?

Question

Things like "gestillan" and "stillan", or "geberan" and "beran" What does it do to a verb and does it stay in conjugaiton and how does it affect meaning?

Answer 1

The "ge-" verb prefix is only from Old Enlish, and even then it was not used all the time - it was falling out of use and was optional. It does not go with the infinitive - it goes with and is a marker for the past pariciple of strong verbs - those that change vowels to form their past tense and past participles. It doesn't really "do" anything to a verb - it's just a sign that it's the past participle. It is not conjugated - the "have" used with it to make present perfect tense is conjugated, as is "had" for the past perfect (well, technically conjugated - all "had" verb forms are the same.)

If it had survived into modern English, you would be saying things like "I have gewritten the letter"

"The ice has gefroren" Maybe gefrozen - who knows how that would have evolved.

"He has gedrifen many miles" Maybe gedriven.

This construction is alive and well in German. The "ge-" for strong past participles is the only way. There is no option. Also, in German, the past participle becomes the last word in a clause or sentence. Again, there is no option - that's the way the language is spoken. It gives some odd-looking translations if you go word for word - like; "I had to the store on Friday gone."

The Low Germanic ancestors of English were not as strict on word order as the High Germanic side, so that feature never really caught on in English.

Answer 2

In Old English, the ge- prefix was not a perfect marker. Perfect in Old English was marked, as it still is in English, with an inflected form of the verb habban 'have'. Historically, it derived from Proto-Germanic *ga-, which had perfective force, but it lost the perfective meaning with the development of the "have" auxiliary in all the Germanic languages. In Old English, the independent meaning of ge- was gone and we find both geberan and beran meaning exactly the same thing as the prefix was beginning its gradual decline in usage. Generally, it was only used on past tense forms in Old English, and most commonly on the past participle. By Middle English times, its use was declining rapidly and is only found on a few forms as y- or i-. For example, ysleped 'slept', etc.

Answer 3

Pretty well the same as modern German participles, I think.