Re: Suppletory forms
| From: | Lars Henrik Mathiesen <thorinn@...> |
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| Date: | Wednesday, February 17, 1999, 16:03 |
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Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 18:37:04 -0500
From: John Cowan <cowan@...>
The close relatives of English have a perfectly good preterit for
"go" (e.g. German "ging"), but it dropped out of English.
Actually, both German and Scandinavian have suppletive forms here as
well. The preterites are from a strong verb "gangan" with an extended
stem (the infinitive/present infix -n-), which existed as a separate
verb as well. (In Danish it is obsolete, but known). I don't know
about Dutch and Frisian, though.
Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn@...> (Humour NOT marked)