Re: irregularities

----- Original Message -----
From: Dan Seriff <microtonal@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Tuesday, June 05, 2001 1:12 PM
Subject: Re: irregularities


> If I remember my numbers correctly, English has 168 irregular verbs. And
> those are just the ones we use *now*. There are all sorts of archaic
> irregulars that are no longer used but heavily attested.
>
> My favorite irregular series in English:
>
> think-thought
> bring-brought
> buy-bought
> work-wrought (the old usage)
Some of these are actually curious formations of the *weak* verb.
Thencan /thohte are what they call "verbs without middle vowels."
They are Class I weak verbs that show ablaut change in the
preterite and past participle but because of the change of
c/g before d to "ht" they exhibit a modified version of the
dental ending.

You know, "irregular" verbs is a modern concept.  These
verbs, with the exception of the above, were made from
Germanic "strong verbs," the prevalent form then (with
ablaut change to express the preterite and PP).  Weak
verbs, which became our "regular" verbs, were the ones
formed by a dental ending.  By analogy, a lot of our strong
verbs went weak:  "helpan, healp, hulpen, holpen" -- help
helped helped.

> I like them primarily because they are so transparently cognate with
German:
>
> denken-dachte-gedacht
> bringen-brachte-gebracht
> (kaufen and arbeiten are no longer part of the series)
Because of the same formation in proto-Germanic.

> I think that I'll add a web page about irregular verbs in English and
> German when I've got the time.
Hope this information helps you.  It would be best to talk
about strong and weak verbs rather than "regular" and
"irregular."

Sally Caves
scaves@frontiernet.net