The Category of Aspect in the System of Verbs in Old English.

[Rezia]

The question is about this category of aspect. Was it present in the language or not? What was the function of the prefix ge-?

[RawonaM]

What was the function of the prefix ge-?

ge+stem+d formed the past participle of the weak verbs, just as in German until the present.

[Rezia]

So this element ge-, should it be considered the instrument to denote the meaning of the aspect or it had other functions besides?

[RawonaM]

So this element ge-, should it be considered the instrument to denote the meaning of the aspect or it had other functions besides?

Why aspect? Past participle is more like an adjective.

[GayleSaver]

So this element ge-, should it be considered the instrument to denote the meaning of the aspect or it had other functions besides?

Old English had no verbal aspects.  What's even stranger, Old English (at least as it's attested) had no aspectual constructions in consistent use (I saw vs. I was seeing; I will see vs I will be seeing,, etc.)  So context was the primary carrier of aspect.

The prefix ge- was added to infinitives.  According to my textbook, ge did not carry any real meaning, unlike, for example. be- or fore-.

[Peamur]

Is this ge- similar to Russian по-?

[GayleSaver]

po- is frequentative.  ge- was facultative.  I think it's a leftover from one of the antecedent languages...West Germanic, for instance.

[GayleSaver]

I'm lying.  po isn't frequentative, it's distributive.