Re: # of possible verb declensions

* Christopher B Wright said on 2002-06-26 19:17:54 +0200
> taliesin sekalge:
> >As a non-native speaker, let me assure you: English verbs are just about
> >the worst bit.
>
> Oh, no, my friend. It is you who are mistaken. The worst bit is
> memorizing pronunciations. The first rule for pronouncing English words
> is that the symbols don't matter.
The human brain is better at recall (remembering stuff) than computation,
which is probably why there are irregular forms (written or otherwise)
in the first place. Learning stuff is quicker if there's patterns of
course, whether the patterns are real or imagined.

Personally, I don't spell a word wrong if I've seen it used (correctly),
though I might not know how it is pronounced... As I read and write a lot
more than I speak, and that goes for *any* language, that's fine by me.

My problem with english verb-syntax is that it is hard to find/make up a
pattern *to compute by*, that is: meaning -> syntax, ergo why I like that
the least.

As for phrasal verbs and similar fixed multi-word constructs: again, it's
a question of recall. Store 'em as you would store words and that's that.


t.