On the Semantic Development of Old English turnian/tyrnan

It is well known that the paradigm of go-went-gone was made up as a result of suppletion, that is, the past tense form of Old English wendan ‘to turn’ came to be used as the past tense of go. This explanation, however, leads us to the question of what became of the original sense of wendan ‘turning.’ In Old English vocabulary, verbs denoting ‘turning,’ namely turnian and tyrnan, also existed. Although the frequency of such verbs is less than that of wendan in the Old English period, later development of turnian and tyrnan offers the key to understanding why wendan > wend lost its original position to mean ‘to turn.’