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Re: (In)transitive verbs

From:Costentin Cornomorus <elemtilas@...>
Date:Thursday, February 12, 2004, 18:12
--- Tristan McLeay <zsau@...> wrote:

> No. They're all irregular. If a verb doesn't > form its past/past participle > in -ed, it's irregular. It doesn't matter what > the justification of it is.
It's not a matter of "justification". It's a matter of terminology set. Strong and weak tends to be used of Germanic languages, while regular and irregular tends to be used of Latin and Romance. English grammar originally got its terms from Latin grammarians, not historical philologists. If you look at grammars of English written by the latter (Wright, etc) you won't find the terms "regular" and "irregular" used to describe verbs like these. On the other hand, if you look at a grammar written by an English Lit. type, chances are pretty good you'll see verbs unaccountably sorted into regular and irregular. The regular/irregular argument is based on perception and subjective understanding, and makes the mistake of throwing together all sorts of verbs that do not share any characteristics except that they do not form their preterite in -ed. Poor scholarship. The above simply describes the system as it is from the observed facts. Padraic. ===== kâsu ñomklyu tsrasi&#347;&#347;i &#347;äk kälymentwam! -- Punyavantajâtaka -- Ill Bethisad -- <http://www.geocities.com/elemtilas/ill_bethisad> Come visit The World! -- <http://www.geocities.com/hawessos/> .

Replies

Andreas Johansson <andjo@...>
<jcowan@...>