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Re: irregularities

From:Douglas Koller, Latin & French <latinfrench@...>
Date:Wednesday, June 13, 2001, 20:07
>Andreas Johansson wrote: > > > Now, what about "burnt"/"burned"? Both spellings are considered correct, >> right? For some reason, /b@(r)nd/ sounds wrong to my (non-native) ears - I >> say /b@(r)nt/. What about you natives? > >To me, some of these irregular forms sound best as adjectival participles. >Thus I have contrasts like the following: > > I burned/*burnt the cake. > The cake is burned/burnt.
I agree with Matt here: "burnt toast" (I wouldn't classify "burned toast" as ungrammatical, but I don't think I'd say it either) but, "I burned the toast." ("I burnt the toast" sounds dreadful to my ear)
>Similarly, "dreamed" is fine only as a past tense verb ("I dreamed that I was >rich"), whereas "dreamt" works either as a past tense verb or as an adjectival >participle ("I dreamt that I was rich", "He has undreamt-of wealth").
"Dreamed" and "dreamt" are in free variation for me as a verb (though "dreamed" probably wins out statistically, don't know what factors are involved). As an adjectival participle, "dreamt" is where it's at. Kou

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O'Connell James <jamestomas2@...>