Regular and Irregular Verbs

A.   History of Regular and Irregular

Regular and Irregular Verbs are two different verbs that show the different inflection. In this case, Regular verbs are consistent, in which the simple past and past participle commonly end in -ed. Meanwhile, Irregular verbs are the verbs that do not follow the simple system of adding “d” or “ed” to the end of the word as it does in Regular verb in its simple past and past participle. Most English irregular verbs are derived from verbs that existed in Old English. Yet, there are a few exceptions, however, such as the verb ‘catch’ that is derived from Old Northern French cachier, whose irregular forms originated by way of analogy with native verbs such as teach. Irregular verbs, in Modern English, are typically derived from verbs that followed more regular patterns. In particular, many such verbs derive from Germanic strong verbs, which make many of their inflected forms through vowel gradation, as can be observed in Modern English patterns such as sing–sang–sung. For the further explanation, the patterns of Regular and Irregular verbs are going to be described in the next discussion.

B.    Patterns of Regular and Irregular

Regular and Irregular verbs deal with the patterns of the verb transforming from V1 into V2 as well as V3. Commonly, the inflection of the verb is formed by adding suffix –d or –ed into a verb in its past and past participle forms, which is called as Regular Verb. Verb one of the word ‘Kiss’, for instance, has V2 and V3 Kiss-ed. Yet, concerning with Irregular verb, the transformation or inflection of a verb in English relies on the word of the verb itself. Thus, Regular and Irregular verbs have certain patterns depending on the words of the verb themselves. This paper, however, focuses on the inflection of the verb from simple present form to simple past as well as past participle forms. The followings are some patterns regarding Regular and Irregular verbs:

1.   Regular verbs

Regular Verbs form their past and past participle forms by adding –ed, as follows:

Walk – walked – walked

Dance – danced – danced

Work – worked – worked

Referring to the examples given above, Regular Verb concerns with suffix -ed added in past and past participle forms (V2 & V3). However, there are certain rules regarding the transformation of Regular Verb, as follows:

·       ‘d’ is added in the verb if the verb ends with ‘e’.

argue = > argued

disagree => disagreed

enable => enabled

·      ‘ed’ is added in the verb if the verb ends with consonant. To be noted, however, ‘y’ preceded by vowel is the exception in this case.

join => joined

land => landed

last => lasted

·      If the verb ends with ‘vowel + y’, ‘y’ is not omitted.

obey => obeyed

employ => employed

stay => stayed

·      If the verb ends with ‘y’ preceded by consonant, then ‘y’ is omitted and replaced by ‘ied’.

justify => justified

marry => married

notify => notified

·      If the verb only consists of one syllable and ends with ‘vowel + consonant’, then the consonant is written twice. However, this rule does not work if the consonants are w, x, and y.

ban => banned

beg => begged

fit => fitted

·      a. If the verb consists of two syllables or more and the verb ends with ‘vowel + consonant’, and the stressing is in the last syllable, then the consonant is written twice. Yet, this rule does not work if the consonants are w, x, and y.

admit => admitted

occur => occurred

b. If the stressing is not in the last syllable, then the consonant in the verb is not written twice.

cover => covered

deliver => delivered

NB: In British English, the verb which ends with consonant ‘L’ is always written twice, but this rule does not work in American English, such as:

travel => travelled (British English)

travel => traveled (American English)

level => levelled (British English)

level => leveled (American English)

2.   Irregular verb

Irregular Verbs form their past and past participle forms in different ways, which mainly deals with three types, as follows:

·      Verbs in which all the three forms are the same, as follows:

put - put – put

beset - beset - beset

cast - cast - cast

·      Verbs in which two of the three forms are the same, as follows:

sit - sat - sat

beat - beat - beaten

become - became - become

·      Verbs in which all three forms are different, as follows:

drink - drank - drunk

draw - drew - drawn

drive - drove - driven

NB: In some cases, the inflection of V1 into V2 and V3 (past and past participle) can be both regular and irregular, as follows:

·      Burn – burnt – burnt (irregular)

Burn – burned – burned (regular)

·      Dream – dreamt – dreamt (irregular)

Dream – dreamed – dreamed (regular)

·      Lean – lent – lent (irregular)

Lean – leaned – leaned (regular)

·      Learn – learnt – learnt (irregular)

·      Learn – learned – learned (regular)

All in all, based on the examples of Regular and Irregular verbs shown above, it can be inferred that Regular verb focuses on suffix –d or –ed added in the end of the verb as the inflection from the basic form of the verb into past and/or past participle, in which the inflection concerns with some rule depending on the consonant, vowel, and the stressing of the verb. Meanwhile,  Irregular verb showed the inflection of past and past participle that deal with some various letter added in the end of the verb, such as t, n, and so forth.

Monday, May 18, 2020