English Irregular Verbs
The English language has a large number of irregular verbs. In the great majority of these, the past participle and/or past tense is not formed according to the usual patterns of English regular verbs. Other parts of the verb, such as the present third person singular -s or -es, and the present participle -ing, can still be formed regularly.
Among the exceptions are the verb to be and certain defective verbs that cannot be conjugated into some tenses.
Most English irregular verbs are native, originating in Old English (an exception being "catch" from Old North French "cachier".) They also tend to be the most commonly used verbs. The ten most commonly used verbs in English are all irregular.
Steven Pinker's book Words and Rules describes how mistakes made by children in learning irregular verbs throw light on the mental processes involved in language acquisition.
Nearly all loan-words from foreign languages are regular, as are verbs that have been recently coined, and all nouns used as verbs have the standard suffixes. Nearly all of the least-commonly used words are also regular, even though some of them may have been irregular in the past.
Read more about English Irregular Verbs: Origin
Famous quotes containing the words irregular verbs, english, irregular and/or verbs:
“There are bills to be paid, machines to keep in repair,
Irregular verbs to learn, the Time Being to redeem
From insignificance.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)
“The French courage proceeds from vanity—the German from phlegm—the Turkish from fanaticism & opium—the Spanish from pride—the English from coolness—the Dutch from obstinacy—the Russian from insensibility—but the Italian from anger.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“My father and I were always on the most distant terms when I was a boy—a sort of armed neutrality, so to speak. At irregular intervals this neutrality was broken, and suffering ensued; but I will be candid enough to say that the breaking and the suffering were always divided up with strict impartiality between us—which is to say, my father did the breaking, and I did the suffering.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“He crafted his writing and loved listening to those tiny explosions when the active brutality of verbs in revolution raced into sweet established nouns to send marching across the page a newly commissioned army of words-on-maneuvers, all decorated in loops, frets, and arrowlike flourishes.”
—Alexander Theroux (b. 1940)