How did the Proto-Indo-European verb system differ from the later Germanic verb system?

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Indo-European languages Approximate locations of Indo-European languages in contemporary Eurasia.

The Proto-Indo-European (PIE) verb system was significantly more complex than the system that evolved in the Germanic languages. Over time, the Germanic branch underwent a substantial reduction and restructuring of these inherited categories.1

Comparison of Verb Systems

Moods and Voices: PIE featured five moods (indicative, imperative, subjunctive, injunctive, and optative) and two voices (active and mediopassive). Germanic reduced these to three moods (indicative, imperative, and subjunctive) and largely lost the mediopassive voice, which is found only in Gothic.1
Number and Person: While PIE utilized three persons and three numbers (singular, dual, and plural), Germanic reduced these to three persons and two numbers (singular and plural), with the dual number surviving only in Gothic.1
Tense and Aspect: The PIE system, which relied on a complex interplay of tense and aspect (present, imperfect, aorist, and perfect), was simplified in Germanic to a binary contrast between present and past.1
Innovation: Germanic introduced two distinct methods for marking the past:
- Strong Verbs: These transformed the PIE ablaut (vowel gradation) into a systematic tense marker.1
- Weak Verbs: Germanic developed an entirely new dental suffix to mark the past tense and past participle.1