English Irregular Verbs - Origin

Origin

Most irregular verbs exist as remnants of historical conjugation systems. What is today an exception actually followed a set, normal rule long ago. When that rule fell into disuse, some verbs kept the old conjugation. An example of this is the word kept, which before the Great Vowel Shift fell into a class of words in which the vowel in keep (then pronounced kehp) was shortened in the past tense. Similar words, such as peep, that arose after the Vowel Shift, use the regular -ed suffix. Groups of irregular verbs include:

• The remaining strong verbs, which display the vowel shift called ablaut, and which sometimes have their past participles end in -en or -n: e.g., ride/rode/ridden.This verb group was inherited from the parent Proto-Germanic language, and before that from the Proto-Indo-European language. This was originally a system of regular verbs. In Old English, and still in modern German, this system is more or less regular, but in Modern English the system of strong verb classes has nearly vanished. For the history of these verbs, see the article Germanic strong verb.
• Weak verbs that have been subjected to sound changes over the course of the history of English that have rendered them irregular. Many of these acquired a long vowel in their present-tense stems, but they kept the short vowel in the preterite and the past participle - for example, in hear/heard/heard.
• Weak verbs that show the vowel shift are sometimes called "Rückumlaut" in the present tense e.g. think/thought. For these, see the articles Germanic umlaut and Germanic weak verb.
• Weak verbs that end in a final -t or -d that made the addition of the weak suffix -ed seem redundant - for example, in cost/cost/cost and burst/burst/burst.
• A handful of surviving preterite-present verbs. These can be distinguished from the rest because their third person simple present singular (the he, she, or it form) does not take a final -s. These are the remnants of what was once a large Indo-European class of verbs that were conjugated in the preterite or perfect forms with present tense meaning. All of the surviving verbs of this class are modal verbs. These are a class of auxiliary verbs or quasi-auxiliaries; e.g., can/could/-.
• Verbs that contain suppletive forms, which form one or more of their tenses from an entirely different root. Be is one of these, as is go/went/gone (where went is originally from the verb to wend). For the history of their paradigms, see: go (verb) and Indo-European copula.

Other verbs have been changed due to ease of pronunciation so that it is shorter or more closely corresponds to how it is spelled.

• A number of verbs whose irregularity is chiefly due to the peculiarities of English spelling; e.g., lay/laid/laid.
• Past tense ending -ed written phonetically when devoiced to -t; e.g., burn/burnt/burnt (which also has a regular conjugation with a pronunciation - "burned").
• Weak verbs that have been the subject of contractions, for example - have/had/had.

There are fewer strong verbs and irregular verbs in Modern English than there were in Old English. Slowly the number of irregular verbs is decreasing. The force of analogy tends to reduce the number of irregular verbs over time. This fact explains the reason that irregular verbs tend to be the most commonly used ones. Verbs that are more rarely heard are more likely to switch to being regular verbs. For instance, the verb chide was once irregular (chid), but today chided is the standard usage. Today irregular and standard forms often coexist, a sign that the irregular form might be on the wane. For instance, seeing spelled instead of spelt or strived instead of strove is very common.

On the other hand, contraction and sound changes can increase the number of irregular verbs. Most of the strong verbs were regular, in that they fell into a conventional plan of conjugation in Old English. There are so few of these left in Modern English that they can seem to be irregular.

In common with most Indo-European languages, the most common English verbs such as to be, to go, to do, and to have are quite irregular. Many of these also have pronunciations that are not predictable from their spelling.

• be (pronounced /biː/)
  • Present: 1sg am (/æm/), 3sg is (/ɪz/), others are (/ɑr/)
  • Past: 1sg, 3sg was (/wʌz/), others were (/wɜr/)
  • Past participle: been (/bɪn/)

• go (/ɡoʊ/)
  • Present: 3sg goes
  • Past: went
  • Past participle: gone (/ɡɒn/)

• do (/duː/)
  • Present: 3sg does (/dʌz/)
  • Past: did (/dɪd/)
  • Past participle: done (/dʌn/)

• have (/hæv/)
  • Present: 3sg has (/hæz/)
  • Past: had (/hæd/)
  • Past participle: had (/hæd/)

• say (/seɪ/)
  • Present: 3sg says (/sɛz/)
  • Past: said (/sɛd/)
  • Past participle: said

Common patterns of irregularity in the past tense include:

• Change the vowel to ɔː (the vowel), orthographically represented by ough or augh, e.g.,
  • Present bring → Past, past participle brought
  • buy → bought
  • catch → caught
  • seek → sought
  • teach → taught
  • think → thought

• Change the vowel to oʊ (the vowel or "long O"), orthographically represented by o with a word-final e, e.g.,
  • Present break → Past broke, Past participle broken
  • choose → chose, chosen
  • freeze → froze, frozen
  • speak → spoke, spoken
  • steal → stole, stolen

• No change, e.g.,
  • Present bet → Past, past participle bet
  • bid → bid
  • broadcast → broadcast
  • burst → burst
  • cast → cast
  • cost → cost
  • cut → cut
  • fit → fit (esp. U.S.)
  • hit → hit
  • hurt → hurt
  • knit → knit
  • let → let
  • put → put
  • quit → quit / quited → quited
  • rid → rid
  • set → set
  • shed → shed
  • shut → shut
  • slit → slit
  • split → split
  • spread → spread
  • thrust → thrust
  • wet → wet

Note that broadcasted is also acceptable as the past participle and past simple of the verb broadcast, especially in the technical meanings.