Re: PS Emphatics

From: fournet.arnaud
Message: 52225
Date: 2008-02-03

> I am not surprised that English-language native speakers make strange
> and innovative apophonic alternations in verbs. It's a genetic
> built-in feature of English that vocalic alternations should be used
> as the easiest and most obvious means to express tenses.

The easiest and most obvious way of forming the preterite in English is
the productive one: the -ed suffix.
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This statement is obviously wrong.
Vocalic alternation in one-syllable verbs is **productive**.
It creates new items.
CF. dive dove
dig dug.

And this is a problem
for the fetishists who believe in grammatical irregularities
as the only way to prove cognacy.

English creates irregular verbs !!

Strive strove striven is **NOT** inherited.

Arnaud
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