Go (verb)

Template:Short description The verb go is an irregular verb in the English language (see English irregular verbs). It has a wide range of uses; its basic meaning is "to move from one place to another". Apart from the copular verb be, the verb go is the only English verb to have a suppletive past tense, namely went.

Principal parts

File:Soliloquies OE - ga (British Library Cotton MS Vitellius A XV, folio 5r).jpg

'Ga,' one of the Old English forms of 'go'

The principal parts of go are go, went, gone. In other respects, the modern English verb conjugates regularly. The irregularity of the principal parts is due to their disparate origin in definitely two and possibly three distinct Indo-European roots.

Unlike every other English verb except be, the preterite (simple past tense) of go is not etymologically related to its infinitive. Instead, the preterite of go, went, descends from a variant of the preterite of wend, the descendant of Old English and Middle English . Old English (modern wend) and (mod. go) shared semantic similarities. The similarities are evident in the sentence "I'm wending my way home", which is equivalent to "I'm going home".

Etymology

Go descends from Middle English , from Old English , from Proto-Germanic , from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) 'to go, leave'. Cognates in the Germanic languages include West Frisian , Dutch , Low German , German , Danish, Norwegian, Swedish , Crimean Gothic .

Origin of ēode

Old English did not use any variation of went for the general preterite of go; instead, the word (variant ) was used, which lingered on as the now obsolete yede, yode and yead.

Old English 'he went' (plural ) is made up of a defective preterite base and the weak dental suffix } common in most modern English past tense forms (cf. ache : ached). The base and its Gothic counterpart Template:Tlit (pl. Template:Tlit) show the following development:

• PIE perfect singular (singular) → → →
• PIE perfect plural (plural) → (Holtzmann's law) → (i-mutation) → Proto-Germanic → Gothic Template:Tlit.

Both forms are derived from the PIE root (late ) based on close matches with past tense forms of Sanskrit Template:Tlit 'he goes, travels' (cf. imperfect Template:Tlit, perfect Template:Tlit, and aorist Template:Tlit). The root is regarded as an iterative-intensive derivative of the more common 'to go' (present ). One reflex of is Latin 'to go' (present 'I go') which gave many English words such as ambition, exit, introit, issue, preterite, and so forth. It is also found in the Slavic languages as and similar forms.

Development of a new preterite

In Middle English, evolved into and . By the 15th century in southern England, (wend) had become synonymous with go, but its infinitive and present tense forms had ceased to be in frequent use. This was also true of the various -derived preterites of go, thus a variant preterite of wend absorbed the function. After went became established as the preterite of go, wend took on a new preterite, wended. In Northern English and Scots, was , regularly formed by suffixing -ed to a variant of go. Due to the influence of the region, southern English forms constitute the standard language of England, and so went is the standard English preterite. Spencer used yede to mean go with yode as its preterite form but as dialect.

Origin of went

Went, the modern past tense of go, was originally the preterite form of Middle English 'to turn, direct; depart' (modern English wend), from Old English (past ), itself from Proto-Germanic 'to turn' (transitive). Cognates include West Frisian , Dutch, Low German, German , Yiddish (), Swedish , Danish, Norwegian , and Gothic Template:Tlit. The original forms of the ME past tense were (our modern form), and past participle , but variant developed from about 1200. By ca. 1500, wended had prevailed in the transitive senses, whereas wente, restricted to intransitive senses, rivalled and replaced go's older past tense, yede/yode.

Proto-Germanic is a causative derivative of 'to wind, wrap', from which the modern English verb wind developed. Cognates include West Frisian , Dutch, Low German, German , Swedish , Danish and Norwegian , and Gothic -Template:Tlit (in Template:Tlit 'to wind around, wrap'). PGmc comes from Proto-Indo-European 'to wind, twist', which also gave Umbrian Template:Tlit 'turn!' (imperative), Tocharian A/B Template:Tlit 'covers, envelops', Greek (Hesychius) Template:Tlit 'wagon', Armenian Template:Tlit 'ring', and Sanskrit Template:Tlit 'carriage framework'.

Summary of the main Proto-Indo-European roots

Go is historically derived from at least three Proto-Indo-European roots: , the source of go and gone (← ME ← OE ); , the source of ; and , the source of went as well as wend and wind. Only two roots are continually used in their modern English reflexes go/gone and went.

Suppletion in other Germanic languages

The Dutch, Low German, German, and Scandinavian verbs cognate to go, e.g. Dutch , Low German , German , and Danish/Norwegian/Swedish , also have suppletive past forms, namely the preterite of Dutch and German, of Low German, (from the same source) of Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, and the past participle of German. These forms are relics from earlier, more widespread words that meant 'to walk, go' and which survive sporadically in Scots , East Frisian , and Icelandic . Some obsolete cognates include Middle Low German, Middle High German , early modern Swedish , and Gothic Template:Tlit. These are reflexes of Proto-Germanic , from Proto-Indo-European 'to step', which also gave Lithuanian 'to stride', Greek Template:Tlit 'perineum', Avestan Template:Tlit 'ankle', and Sanskrit Template:Tlit 'step', Template:Tlit 'shank'.

Therefore, the case of English go is not unique among the Germanic languages, and it would appear that most have in a like manner reproduced equivalent suppletive conjugations for their words for 'to go', suggesting a cyclical change patterned after the state of affairs in Proto-Germanic.

Phrasal forms

The verb may be combined with various prepositions to form phrasal verbs such as "go around" and "go off".

The verb go is used to form the going to future, in sentences like "I'm going to finish my work today."

Perfect forms

In perfect forms of the verb (have gone, had gone, etc.) the past participle gone is often replaced by that of be, namely been. For example:

• He's been to the shops. (He went and came back.)
• He's gone to the shops. (He went to many shops not c.)

For details of this usage, see have been.