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3 - Naturalness and the English past tense system

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 July 2009

Lieselotte Anderwald
Affiliation:
Christian-Albrechts Universität zu Kiel, Germany
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Summary

The verbs that do not conform to the ‘regular’ pattern of adding — (e)d in past and participle are so divergent that it is hardly worth trying to classify them.

(Strang 1970: 147)

General features of the English verb system

To recapitulate, we have seen that Wurzel characterizes inflectional systems with the help of the following properties:

  1. (a) category structures and categories

  2. (b) base vs. stem inflection

  3. (c) separate or combined symbolization of categories

  4. (d) formal distinctions in the paradigm

  5. (e) types of markers

  6. (f) existence of inflectional classes.

If we apply Wurzel's features to the system of English verb forms, we derive the following picture:

(a) Inventory of category structures and categories: for the super-category TENSE we find the following categories in English: PRESENT (or, more precisely, NON-PAST) vs. PAST; this contrast is the only one expressed synthetically (e.g. want — wanted; ride — rode). In addition, we have a compositional future form (will ride) which has grammaticalized to a considerable degree from its volitional origin and can thus properly be called a tense of English (e.g. Tomorrow will be sunny). We also find the PERFECT, as in all languages a category of unclear status, perhaps best situated between tense and aspect. The perfect is compositional and can combine with all three basic tenses, resulting in the PRESENT PERFECT, the PAST PERFECT and the FUTURE PERFECT (have wanted, had wanted, will have wanted).

Type
Chapter
Information
The Morphology of English Dialects
Verb-Formation in Non-standard English
, pp. 49 - 65
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009

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