Received 14.11.2025, Revised 20.02.2026, Accepted 24.03.2026

The history of verb studies in Germanic and English linguistics

Nazgul Dzharkinbaeva, Amangeldy Bekbalaev, Elmira Zhumakeeva, Aiana Murzabaeva

The systematic description of the verb across morphological, semantic, and syntactic levels remained a theoretical challenge in Germanic linguistics, given the typological divergence between English – an analytically structured West Germanic language – and German, which preserved a fuller inflectional paradigm. The aim of this study was to analyse the English verb within the context of the Germanic languages, specifically examining its tense, aspect, person, mood, verb paradigm (finite/infinite), and its role in sentence structure, particularly in terms of its predicative and valency properties. Drawing on academic grammars of English and German, reference terminological dictionaries, and theoretical works of classical and contemporary scholars, the study employed comparative-typological, descriptive, and conceptual-synthesis methods alongside diachronic-synchronic analysis and syntactic valency analysis. Verbal theory was traced from Pāṇini’s analysis of Sanskrit verbal roots and the Alexandrian doctrine of mood through the foundational contributions of A.A. Potebnya and V.V. Vinogradov to current phylogenetic and corpus-based research. A comparative analysis of finite and non-finite paradigms revealed a core typological asymmetry: while morphological person marking had been reduced to the third-person singular Present Simple, English developed sixteen tense-aspect forms across four aspectual groups and three temporal planes, including four Future-in-the-Past constructions whose diachronic origin and modal-temporal semantics remained theoretically contested. The notional-structural distinction, examined through three competing classification frameworks, proved gradient rather than categorical, shaped by grammaticalisation pressure and functional frequency. The dominant role of the verb-predicate was confirmed through the theory of centripetal potency and cross-linguistic valency data, establishing that the verb’s argument-opening capacity was a typologically stable feature of the Germanic family. These findings were applied to university courses in theoretical grammar, Germanic typology, and the history of the English language, providing a basis for lexicographical and corpus-based descriptions of verbs

diachrony; finite forms; centripetal potency; valency properties; grammaticalisation; periphrastic constructions
32-41
Dzharkinbaeva, N., Bekbalaev, A., Zhumakeeva, E., & Murzabaeva, A. (2026). The history of verb studies in Germanic and English linguistics. Bulletin of the Bishkek State University, 24(1), 32-41. https://doi.org/10.35254/ss/1.2026.32

References

  1. Arkadiev, P.M. (2020). Morphology in typology: Historical retrospect, state of the art, and prospects. In Oxford research encyclopedia of linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.013.626.
  2. Asri, W.K., Rhamadanty, W.A.U., Burhamzah, M., & Alamsyah, A. (2024). Analyzing semantic shifts in English and German by exploring historical influences and societal dynamics. Studies in English Language and Education, 11(2), 1085-1100. doi:10.24815/siele.v11i2.37460.
  3. Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G.N., Conrad, S., & Finegan, E. (2021). Grammar of spoken and written English. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
  4. Blokh, M.Y. (1994). A course in theoretical English grammar. Moscow: Higher School.
  5. Camp, H. (2020). Morphology in English. Macrolinguistics and Microlinguistics, 1(2), 78-84. doi: 10.21744/mami.v1n2.7.
  6. Chafe, W.L. (1975). Meaning and the structure of language. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
  7. Close, R.A. (1975). A reference grammar for students of English. London: Longman.
  8. Craevschi, A., Babinski, S., & Cathcart, C. (2025). Semantics drives analogical change in Germanic strong verb paradigms: A phylogenetic study. arXiv. doi: 10.48550/arXiv.2502.17670.
  9. Deng, Y., Liu, D., & Wu, S. (2022). Academic English verbs across disciplines: A corpus study and its implications. Ampersand, 9, article number 100093. doi: 10.1016/j.amper.2022.100093.
  10. European Commission. (2024). Verb valency in Germanic: Diachronic analysis and reconstruction of protolinguistic scenario. doi: 10.3030/101150253.
  11. Fedulenkova, T., & Basova, T. (2020). Representation of issues in modern linguistics in the textbook by L.N. Churilina. Nizhny Novgorod Linguistics University Bulletin, 49(1), 166-174. doi: 10.47388/2072-3490/lunn2020-49-1-166-174.
  12. Fehringer, C. (2019). German grammar in context (3rd ed.). London, UK: Routledge.
  13. Galkina-Fedoruk, E.M. (1957). Modern Russian: Lexicology, phonetics, morphology: A textbook for departments of Russian language and literature at teacher training colleges (2nd ed.). Moscow: State Educational and Pedagogical Publishing House of the RSFSR.
  14. Günther, F., Smolka, E., & Marelli, M. (2019). “Understanding” differs between English and German: Capturing systematic language differences of complex words. Cortex, 116, 168-175. doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2018.09.007.
  15. Halliday, M.A.K. (1994). An introduction to functional grammar. London: E. Arnold.
  16. Harchaoui, S., & Modicom, P.‑Y. (Eds.). (2025). Verb‑third phenomena in Germanic verb‑second languages: Historical and variational perspectives (Open Germanic linguistics 15). Berlin: Language Science Press. doi: 10.5281/zenodo.16309627.
  17. Hlykhovtseva, K., & Hlykhovtseva, I. (2022). Reflection of the essence of linguistic units in the forms of statements about language. Philological Review, 2(20), 13-21. doi: 10.31499/2415-8828.2.2022.268639.
  18. Hogg, R., & Denison, D. (2008). A history of the English language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  19. Iskandarova, Sh.M., & Ganieva, Sh.A. (2024). On the issues of phraseological valency. Educational Administration: Theory and Practice, 30(6), 2142-2145. doi: 10.53555/kuey.v30i6.5668.
  20. Ivanova, I.P., Burlakova, V.V., & Pocheptsov, G.G. (1981). Theoretical grammar of modern. English. Moscow: Higher School.
  21. Kashyap, A.K. (2019). Language typology. In G. Thompson, W.L. Bowcher, L. Fontaine & D. Schönthal (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of systemic functional linguistics (pp. 767-792). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  22. Kodukhov, V.N. (1974). General linguistics. Moscow: Higher Education.
  23. Laporte, E., Nam, J., Ranaivoson, J.F., & Nakamura, T. (2025). Support verbs that are not verbs. Language Sciences, 111, article number 101741. doi: 10.1016/j.langsci.2025.101741.
  24. Leech, G., Hundt, M., Mair, C., & Smith, N. (2010). Change in contemporary English: A grammatical study. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/CBO9780511642210.
  25. Lyons, J. (1968). Introduction to theoretical linguistics. London: Cambridge University Press.
  26. Manzini, M.R., & Savoia, L.M. (2011). Grammatical categories: Variation in romance languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/CBO9780511974489.
  27. Maslov, Yu.S. (1975). Introduction to linguistics. Moscow: Higher School.
  28. Morozova, I.B., & Pozharytska, O.O. (2025). Theory of English grammar: A university manual (students’ major language). Odesa: University Book.
  29. Oreshko, O. (2009). Verbal government in the Russian language: A comparison of constructions in Russian and Czech. (Bachelor’s thesis, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic).
  30. Ospanova, Z. (2023). The communicative and pragmatic potential of non-standard vocabulary. Xlinguae, 16(1), 246-255. doi: 10.18355/XL.2023.16.01.19.
  31. Parrott, M. (2010). Sentence constituents: Basic principles. In Grammar for English language teachers (pp. 292-314). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/9781009406536.024.
  32. Potebnya, A.A. (1958). Notes on Russian grammar. Moscow: State Educational and Pedagogical Publishing House of the RSFSR.
  33. Qobilova, N.S., Majidova, Z.M., & Saidov, X.Sh. (2021). Introduction to Germanic philology: Study guide. Bukhara: Bukhara State University.
  34. Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G., & Svartvik, J. (1982). A university grammar of English. Harlow: Longman.
  35. Radford, A. (1988). Transformational grammar: A first course. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  36. Reformatskiy, A.A. (1998). Introduction to linguistics. Moscow: Aspekt‑Press.
  37. Robins, R.H. (1967). A short history of linguistics. London: Longman.
  38. Robins, R.H. (1989). General linguistics (4th ed.). London: Routledge.
  39. Shvedova, N.Yu., Belousov, V.N., Kasimova, G.K., & Korobova, M.M. (1989). Word and grammatical laws of the language: Verb. Moscow: Bukinist.
  40. Skvayrs, E. (2022). Syntactic and morphological aspects of the Russian translation of Low German surnames from historical documents of Lübeck (14th-16th centuries). Tomsk State University Journal of Philology, 75, 221-244. doi: 10.17223/19986645/75/11.
  41. Smirnitsky, A.I., & Passek, V.V. (1957). Syntax of the English language. Moscow: Publishing House of Foreign Language Literature.
  42. Smirnitsky, A.I. (1959). The morphology of the English language. Moscow: Publishing House of Foreign Language Literature.
  43. Tao, S., Donatelli, L., & Hahn, M. (2024). More frequent verbs are associated with more diverse valency frames: Efficient principles at the lexicon‑grammar interface. In L.‑W. Ku, A. Martins & V. Srikumar (Eds.), Proceedings of the 62nd annual meeting of the association for computational linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers) (pp. 11795-11810). Bangkok: Association for Computational Linguistics. doi: 10.18653/v1/2024.acl‑long.635.
  44. van Goethem, K., & Koutsoukos, N. (2022). How typology shapes the constructional network: Denominal verb constructions in English, Dutch and German. Journal of Word Formation, 6(1), 7-57. doi:10.3726/zwjw.2022.01.01.
  45. Vinogradov, V.V. (1947). The Russian language: A grammatical theory of the word. Moscow: State Educational Publishing House of the Ministry of Education RSFSR.
  46. Yartseva, V.N. (1968). Studies in general theory of grammar. Moscow: Nauka.