Re: (In)transitive verbs

On Thu, Feb 12, 2004 at 04:53:03PM +0000, Joe wrote:
> Tristan McLeay 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.
>
> I disagree.  If there is a rule(which applies to multiple verbs), it is
> regular(hence the term).
You don't get to redefine the terms, though, however well-justified your
interpretation may be according to the terms' etymology. :)

In English, the "regular" verbs are precisely those which form their
past and past participle in -ed.  Period.  Not only is this the
definition used by English grammarians, it is also the way
English-speakers'  brains work, as evidenced by the fact that the -ed
rule is applied to neologisms, even when those neologisms phonetically
resemble verbs which don't follow the pattern.

There are many patterns among the irregular verbs, but since they don't
follow the -ed rule - and whatever other "rules" they may follow are clearly
not general; they don't apply nearly universally or as a default - they
are still irregular.

-Mark

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