Regular and irregular verbs of the English language

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Introduction

Verbs constitute one of the main word classes in the English language. Like other types of words in the language, English verbs are not heavily inflected. Most combinations of tense, aspect, mood and voice are expressed periphrastically, using constructions with auxiliary verbs and modal verbs. Generally, the only inflected forms of an English verb are a third person singular present tense form in -s, a past tense (also called preterite), a past participle (which may be the same as the past tense), and a form in -ing that serves as a present participle and gerund. Most verbs inflect in a simple regular fashion, although there are about 200 irregular verbs; the irregularity in nearly all cases concerns the past tense and past participle forms. The verb be has a larger number of different inflected forms, and is highly irregular. In this work, I`d like to investigate the regular and irregular verbs of the English language.

Part I. Regular Verbs

1.1 Development of the regular verbs

When a language develops some type of inflection, such as verb conjugation, it normally produces certain typical (regular) patterns by which words in the given class come to make their inflected forms. The language may develop a number of different regular patterns, either as a result of conditional sound changes which cause differentiation within a single pattern, or through patterns with different derivations coming to be used for the same purpose. An example of the latter is provided by the strong and weak verbs of the Germanic languages; the strong verbs inherited their method of making past forms (vowel ablaut) from Proto-Indo-European, while for the weak verbs a different method (addition of dental suffixes) developed.

1.2 Formation of the regular verbs

The forms may be built in different ways. We find three basic forms that serve as a foundation for building up all the other forms of the English verb. These forms are: 1) the plain verb stem which is also often referred to as the infinitive without the particle to; 2) the Past Indefinite; 3) the participle.

According to the way of forming Past Indefinite and the participle, all verbs can be divided into two classes: regular and irregular verbs.

With regular verbs, the Past Indefinite and the participle are formed by adding the suffix -ed. Is is pronounced [d] after vowels and voiced consonants (e.g. played, answered, opened, closed), [t] after voiceless consonants (e.g. looked, passed) and [id] after verbs ending in [t] or [d] (e.g. wanted, waisted, ended, landed).

In writing the following spelling rules should be observed:

1) Verbs ending in -y preceded by a consonant change the -y into -ied (e.g. study-studied, envy-envied). But if the -y is preceded by a vowel, it remains unchanged (e.g. play-played, stay-stayed).

2) A final consonant is doubled if it is preceded by a short stressed vowel or if a verb ends in a stressed -er(ur) (e.g. stop-stopped, admit-admitted, occur-occurred, prefer-preferred). But if the preceding vowel is long or unstressed, the final consonant remains single (e.g. limit-limited, perform-performed, conquer-conquered, appear-appeared).

3) A final -l is always doubled in British English (e.g. travel-travelled, quarrel-quarelled).

With the exception of the highly irregular verb be, an English verb can have up to five forms: its plain form (or bare infinitive), a third person singular present tense, a past tense (or preterite), a past participle, and the -ing form that serves as both a present participle and gerund. In summary the rules for the formation of the inflected parts of regular verbs are as follows:

1) The third person singular present tense is formed by adding the ending -s (or -es after certain letters) to the plain form. When the plain form ends with the letter -y following a consonant, this becomes -ies. The ending is pronounced [s] after a voiceless consonant sound (e.g.hops, halts, packs, bluffs, laughs), or [z] after a voiced consonant or vowel sound (as in robs, lends, begs, sings, thaws, flies, sighs), but [?z] after a sibilant (passes, pushes, marches).

2) The past tense and past participle are identical; they are formed with the ending -ed, which as in the previous case has three different pronunciations ([t], [d], [?d]). Certain spelling rules apply, including the doubling of consonants before the ending in forms(e.g. conned, preferred). There is some variation in the application of these spelling rules with some rarer verbs, and particularly with verbs ending -c (panic-panicked, zinc-zinc(k)ed, arc-arced, etc.), meaning that these forms are not fully predictable, but such verbs are not normally listed among the irregular ones. (The verbs lay and pay, however, are commonly listed as irregular, despite being regular in terms of pronunciation - their past forms have the anomalous spellings laid and paid).

3) The present participle/gerund is formed by adding -ing, again with the application of certain spelling rules similar to those that apply with -ed.

Part II.

2.1 Irregular verbs

The other inflected parts of the verb--the third person singular present indicative in -[e]s, and the present participle and gerund form in -ing--are formed regularly in most cases. There are a few exceptions: the verb be has irregular forms throughout the present tense; the verbs have, do and say have irregular -[e]s forms; and certain defective verbs (such as the modal auxiliaries) lack most inflection.

The irregular verbs include many of the most common verbs: the dozen most frequently used English verbs are all irregular. New verbs (including loans from other languages, and nouns employed as verbs, e.g. to facebook) follow the regular inflection, unless they are compound formations from an existing irregular verb (e.g. to housesit, from sit). verb irregular language word

Irregular verbs in Modern English typically derive from verbs that followed more regular patterns at a previous stage in the history of the language. In particular, many such verbs derive from Germanic strong verbs, which make many of their inflected forms through vowel gradation, as can be observed in Modern English patterns (e.g. sing-sang-sung). The regular verbs, on the other hand, with their preterites and past participles ending in -ed, follow the weak conjugation, which originally involved adding a dental consonant (-t or -d). Nonetheless, there are also many irregular verbs that follow or partially follow the weak conjugation.

2.2 Development of the irregular verbs

Most English irregular verbs are native, derived from verbs that existed in Old English. Nearly all verbs that have been borrowed into the language at a later stage have defaulted to the regular conjugation. There are a few exceptions, however, such as the verb catch (derived from Old Northern French cachier), whose irregular forms originated by way of analogy with native verbs such as teach.

Most irregular verbs exist as remnants of historical conjugation systems. When some grammatical rule became changed or disused, some verbs kept to the old pattern. For example, before the Great Vowel Shift, the verb keep (then pronounced "kehp") belonged to a group of verbs whose vowel was shortened in the past tense; this pattern is preserved in the modern past tense kept (similarly crept, wept, leapt, left). Verbs such as peep, which have similar form but arose after the Vowel Shift, take the regular -ed ending.

The force of analogy tends to reduce the number of irregular verbs over time, as irregular verbs switch to regular conjugation patterns (for instance, the verb chide once had the irregular past tense chid, but this has given way to the regular formation chided). This is more likely to occur with less common verbs (where the irregular forms are less familiar); hence it is often the more common verbs (such as be, have, take) that tend to remain irregular. Many verbs today have coexisting irregular and regular forms (as with spelt and spelled, dreamt and dreamed, etc.), a sign that the irregular form might be on the wane.

In a few cases, however, analogy has operated in the other direction (a verb's irregular forms arose by analogy with existing irregular verbs). This is the case with the example of catch given above; others include wear that was originally weak verb, but came to be conjugated like the similar sounding strong verbs bear and swing.

2.3 Anomalous cases

The following verbs do not fit exactly into any of the categories:

1) The modal verbs, which are defective verbs - they have only a present indicative form and (in some cases) a preterite, lacking nonfinite forms (infinitives, participles, gerunds), imperatives, and subjunctives (although some uses of the preterites are sometimes identified as subjunctives). Moreover they do not add -s in the third person singular - this is because they derive either from preterites, or from Germanic preterite-present verbs, which were conjugated using the preterite form with present tense meaning. (Additional "true" preterites with past tense meaning were formed with the addition of dentals). The chief verbs of this class are can-could, may-might, shall-should, will-would, and must and ought (these last two have no preterites. They were originally preterites themselves). There are also dare and need, which follow the same pattern (no -s) in some contexts: "Dare he jump? She needn't worry" (dare derives from a preterite-present verb, but need is from an Old English regular verb).

2) Two verbs (be and go) that contain suppletive forms, i.e. one or more of their parts came from an entirely different root. With go this applies to the past tense went, which is originally from the verb wend. With be it applies to a number of different forms. Derived from be is the defective verb beware, which does not inflect in normal use and which appears only in those forms in which the plain form of be would be used, namely the infinitive, the imperative, and the subjunctive.

3) The verb do, which has the reduplicated form did for its past tense. Its past participle done can be compared to typical strong participles in -[e]n; however both this and the third person present tense does feature a short vowel in modern pronunciation: [d?n], [d?z].

2.4 Verbs with irregular present tenses

Apart from the modal verbs, which are irregular in that they do not take an -s in the third person, the only verbs with irregular present tense forms are be, do, have and say (and prefixed forms of these, such as undo and gainsay, which conjugate in the same way as the basic forms).

The verb be has multiple irregular forms. In the present indicative it has am in the first person singular, is in the third person singular, and are in the plural and second person singular. (Its present subjunctive is be, as in "I suggest that you be extremely careful.") It also has two past tense forms: was for the first and third persons singular, and were for the plural and second person singular (although there are certain subjunctive uses in which were can substitute for was). The past participle is been, and the present participle and gerund forms are regular: being.

As mentioned above, apart from its other irregularities, the verb do has the third person present indicative does pronounced with a short vowel: [d?z].

The verb have has a contracted third person present indicative form: has [hжz] (weak pronunciation [h?z]). This is formed similarly to the verb's past tense had.

The verb say displays vowel shortening in the third person present indicative (although the spelling is regular): says [s?z]. The same shortening occurs in the past form said [s?d].

2.5 Prefixed verbs

Nearly all of the basic irregular verbs are single-syllable words. Their irregular inflected forms are normally single-syllable also, except for the past participles in -en like chosen and risen. However many additional irregular verbs are formed by adding prefixes to the basic ones: understand from stand, become from come, mistake from take, and so on. As a general rule, prefixed verbs are conjugated identically to the corresponding basic verbs; for example, we have understand-understood-understood and become-became-become, following the patterns of stand-stood-stood and come-came-come. However there are occasional differences: in British English, for instance, the past participle of get is got, while that of forget is forgotten.

Only a few irregular verbs of more than one syllable cannot be analyzed as prefixed compounds of monosyllables. The only ones in normal use are begin-began-begun and forsake-forsook-forsaken (these both derive from prefixed verbs whose unprefixed forms have not survived into Modern English). There is also beseech-besought-besought (this is from Old English besзcan "to seek or inquire about", making it equivalent to be- + seek, but it has moved away from seek in both form and meaning); however the form besought is now archaic, the verb normally being conjugated regularly (beseeched).

Conclusion

The English language has a large number of irregular verbs, approaching 200 in normal use--and significantly more if prefixed forms are counted. In most cases, the irregularity concerns the past tense (also called preterite) or the past participle.

They are a miscellaneous group comprising various patterns (e.g. sing-sang-sung, write-wrote-written, send-sent-sent, teach-taught-taught). Some verbs have a regular form by the side of an irregular one (e.g. learn-learnt-learnt and learn-learned-learned). A number of the verbs remain unchanged (e.g. cut-cut-cut, hit-hit-hit).

Two verbs take their forms from different roots and are called suppletive systems. They are the verbs to be and to go.

Literature

1. Крылова И.П., Гордон Е.М. Грамматика современного английского языка: учебник для институтов и факультетов иностранного языка / И.П. Крылова, Е.М. Гордон - 16-е изд. - М.: КДУ, 2011. - 448 с. - На англ. яз.

2. Douglas Biber, Stig Johansson, Grammar of spoken and written English, Pearson Longman.

3. Gilman, E.Ward, Merriam Webster`s Dictionary of English Usage, 1989

4. H.W. Fowler, A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, 1926

5. Martin Hewings, Advanced Grammar in Use: a self-study reference and practice book for advanced learners of English - 3^rd edition. - Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. - 294 p.

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