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Re: (In)transitive verbs

From:Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>
Date:Thursday, February 12, 2004, 17:45
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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Andreas Johansson <andjo@...>