Re: Irregularity in human languages (was Re: irregular conlangs)

Quoth John Cowan:
> Don Blaheta scripsit:
>
> > "dive", etc.
>
> Terminological note: the verbs ending in -ed are called "weak", the
> ones with internal vowel alternation "strong".  Weak verbs can be
> regular or irregular.
>
> "Dive" along with "shit" and "twig" (comprehend) are oddball in that
> they have recently become strong, probably because of analogies.
> So the strong conjugation is not *utterly* non-productive,
> just *mostly* non-productive.  Children do say "goed", but also
> "brang" for the preterite of "bring".
I _knew_ someone would bring this up.  I'm not convinced that
dive/dove/dove and e.g. sneak/snuck/snuck are recent-reanalyses, though
a few people on this list have said so; I rather suspect they've just
stayed around, because their use is fairly widespread but mostly obeys
dialect boundaries, afaict.

--
-=-Don Blaheta-=-=-dpb@cs.brown.edu-=-=-<http://www.cs.brown.edu/~dpb/>-=-
"I went vegetarian for a year and a half, but it just got too dull
living without barbecue."                       --John Flansburgh