Re: "There can be"

On Sat, Apr 12, 2008 at 2:21 PM, Douglas Koller <laokou@...> wrote:
> From: Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>
>
>  > Welcome to the world of preterite-presents.
>
>  Well, that's the first time I've heard them called that.
I don't remember where I picked up that term, but Wikipedia knows of
it ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preterite-present_verb ).

> Kinda sorta makes sense, though what *we* learned as "modal auxiliaries" plus
> "wissen" change their vowel in the present as you move from sing. to pl.,
> whereas strong verbs in the preterite do not.
True. Though apparently more accurate wording is "...whereas strong
verbs in the preterite no longer do"; at least, if I understand this
bit from the WP article correctly: "In the older stages of the
Germanic languages (Old English, Middle High German) the past tense of
strong verbs also showed different ablaut grades in singular and
plural."

Cheers,
Philip
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>

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