--- jcowan@REUTERSHEALTH.COM wrote:
>Costentin Cornomorus scripsit:
>
> > 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.
>That reflects the difference in purpose.
The ultimate "purpose" of both is, hopefully, the
description of English grammar!
>Wright & Co. were doing
>comparative Germanistics, so it was natural for
>them to divide verbs
>into the strong (with the inherited IE ablaut)
>and the weak (with the
>innovated dental suffix), and take little or no
>account of regularity
>or irregularity in any given language.
The other guys take as little account of regularity.
>When talking about a single language
>synchronically, what counts is
>which formations are productive and are
>automatically applied to novel
>verbs (or nouns, or whatever) and which ones
>are not.
Well, we can see from dialect data that the issue is
not so clear cut. I'm familiar with dialects where "it
snew yesterday" is 100% regular and normal.
English is not a clear cut single language monolith.
>What makes an irregular irregular?
Inconsistency would be a good start. I would say that
BE is a pretty good example of "irregularity", as it doesn't
fit a consistent pattern.
>The fact that its application is
>lexical and either entirely unpredictable
>(except on etymological grounds)
>or is only roughly predictable by analogy. The
>creation of new strong
>verbs in English (dove, shat) is purely by
>analogy with existing strong verbs
Doesn't matter how or why they get that way.
All that means is that the pattern is productive -
this says nothing about "regularity".
The pattern could be frozen in time and 100%
unproductive. It could still be "regular".
> > The regular/irregular argument is based on
> > perception and subjective
> > understanding,
>
>By no means.
It absolutely is. Sing-sang-sung is just as "regular" as
turn-turned-turned.
The problem may well be improper application of these
words to the systems at hand. That's precisely why I
choose NOT to call English verbs by the regular/irregular
scheme. It's too simplistic and doesn't fit the language
well.
Padraic.
PS = It would seem that I've discovered the per diem individual
message limit is five. Is there going to be a similar limit set on the
number of accounts an individual can sign on with as well?
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