Re: PS Emphatics

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "fournet.arnaud" <fournet.arnaud@...>
wrote:

>
>
>
> > 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.
> =========
> 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 !!

No. The strong verbs are mostly regular. There just aren't so many of
them. The newly created ones are made by analogy with one of the old
strong patterns.

> Strive strove striven is **NOT** inherited.
>

Strive strove striven ***IS*** inherited.
As you will have noticed, I have framed the operative verb with an
extra set of asterisks. This is so that everybody will be induced by
the power of the asterisk to realize that I'm right and you're wrong.


Torsten