Re: (In)transitive verbs

On Fri, Feb 13, 2004 at 07:13:20AM +0000, Joe wrote:
> I'd say the formation of words such as 'thunk' shows that we actually
> know the rules, to some degree.  It shows we can apply the rules(albeit
> to the wrong classes, but ones that look right).
Oh, yes.  And that sometimes happens enough to cause a formerly-regular
verb to become irregular, such as dive/dived/dived -> dive/dove/dived et
sim.  But that's a conscious process, applied either because one isn't
familiar with the word in question but has a feeling it should be
irregular, or completely consciously out of a sense of whimsy (as is
usually the case with "thunk").  In any case, it's a conscious,
relatively slow process.  In normal speech, with words we know and use
regularly, we apply the -ed via a completely unconscious rule, and look up
(similarly unconsciously) the forms of every other type of verb,
be it strong, weak, or just plain weird.

Applying the rule takes longer than the lookup, so some
very-frequently-used regular verbs have their -ed forms cached with the
-ed already in place; but the reverse is not true.  Non-ed verbs are
never formed by rule in real time.

-Mark

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