Re[3]: [tied] Re: PS Emphatics

At 6:58:58 AM on Sunday, February 3, 2008, 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.

On the contrary, it's obviously right both to any native
speaker and to anyone who looks seriously at the English
verbal system and its history.

> Vocalic alternation in one-syllable verbs is
> **productive**.

But not as productive as the <-ed> suffix.

> It creates new items.

Occasionally, yes. But they are greatly outnumbered by
transfers in the other direction and by new creations with
<-ed>.

> 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.

It's not inherited from OE, because the word is borrowed
from OFr. However, according to the OED the strong
conjugation is found somewhat earlier than the weak -- the
analogical pull of such old Class I verbs as <drive>,
<ride>, <rise>, <write>, and <bite> (with past tense
<bo(o)t> in ME) -- was apparently pretty strong -- so it's
fair to say that in the modern language the strong
conjugation is inherited.

Brian