The Segholate Verbs of English

Weak verbs in Modern English are sometimes mistakenly identifi ed with regular verbs. Although most weak verbs are indeed regular, there remain some which belong to the irregular group, for example spend, put, make, burn. Apart from drawing a clearer distinction between strong and weak verbs in relation to the regular and irregular division, the aim of this paper is to explain where the irregularity of these irregular weak verbs comes from and to gather possible relicts still present in Modern English. The paper discusses 56 such irregular weak verbs without vowel alternations and 9 archaisms preserving traces of such infl ection. The 56 irregular weak verbs are divided into groups according to the patterns they display and they are additionally marked depending on whether: (1) they have less common irregular preterite and past participle forms, which can be labelled as "literary" or "poetic," (2) they are literary themselves, (3) they have irregular preterite and past participle forms chiefl y in North American English, (4) they have regular variants. The initial plan included all irregular verbs but the extent of the problem coupled with the editorial limitations as to the size of the paper led to the following decisions: fi rst, to exclude the irregular strong verbs and save them for later analyses, and then, in the remaining irregular weak ones, to remove all those with vowel alternations (like keep, seek, lose, say) and to concentrate on the verbs without vowel alternations (investigated in the present paper). It is hoped that the aims of this paper as well as their realization can serve to make the content of the historical grammar course more meaningful to students by linking it to the problems present in Modern English and to the why-questions related to the subject of their studies.

Langues et littératures du monde arabe, 2016

NOWELE, 1992

2013

Title: Non-Standard –ed Forms of Selected Irregular Verbs: A Corpus-based Study of Presentday American English Author: Eric Wikstrom Supervisor: Larisa Oldireva Gustafsson

NOWELE, 1990

Studia Neophilologica, 2015

The traditional English verb classifi cation based upon their grammatical meaning is a certain matrix according to which new units are grouped. The present investigation is aimed at integral describing the verbs of the ‘give’ type in the model “to give a smile”. The analysis of its constituents does not give any new information, however, its analysis as an integral unit in the sentence and discourse can reveal it as a structural-semantic unity, wherein a redistribution of the lexical meaning takes place. Since Otto Jespersen defi ned them as “light verbs" they have been in the focus of research of grammarians, semanticists, discourse experts, and cognitologists. In the framework of our research the referred verbs in the given model are presented as the result of grammaticalization and lexicalization — major factors of the English language development.

2003

Reply to David Lightfoot: The base component as a locus of syntactic change. In Current progress in historical linguistics, ed. William Christie, 32-34. Amsterdam: North-Holland. Williams, Edwin. 1975. Small clauses in English. In Syntax and semantics, vol. 4, ed. John Kimball, 249-273. New York: Academic Press.

De Gruyter eBooks, 2019

The goal of this chapter is to identify the morpho-syntactic rules which govern the formation of-sco verbs in Latin in a Constructivist framework. We assume a coherent syntactic structure for all productive-sco verbs, in which a stative sub-component and an inchoative one are both active. Then we concentrate on the vocalic element which is required between the root and the suffix-sco itself. In particular, we claim that the choice of either-ē-or-ā-or-īcan be predicted according to the status of the underlying lexical element. A list of roots which can only compare in stative configuration typically select-ē-('Caland' type, e.g. rubesco), which is also related to stativity for diachronic reasons. Non-stative roots, nouns, adjectives instead select-ā-and-ī-either on the model of corresponding-āre and-īre verbs or as proper thematic elements, which are inserted in order to allow the insertion of-sco.