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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 3rd person singular -s or -es, and present participle -ing — may still be formed regularly.
Among the exceptions are the verb to be and certain defective verbs which cannot be conjugated into certain 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 discusses how mistakes made by children in learning irregular verbs throw light on the mental processes involved in language acquisition.
All loanwords from foreign languages are regular, as are verbs that have been recently coined and all nouns used as verbs use standard suffixes. Almost all of the least commonly used words are also regular, even though some of them may have been irregular in the past.
List of English irregular verbs Common patterns of irregularity in the past tense include:
-
- bring → brought
- buy → bought
- catch → caught
- seek → sought
- teach → taught
- think → thought
-
- bear → bore (borne or rarely born with the instance Jaqueline was born)
- break → broke
- choose → chose
- freeze → froze
- speak → spoke
- steal → stole
To form past participle, add nasal suffix -en, e.g., broke → broken.
- No change, e.g.,
- beat→ beat
- bet → 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
- read → read
- rid → rid
- set → set
- shed → shed
- shit → shit or shat (Mostly British)
- shut → shut
- slit → slit
- spit → spit
- split → split
- spread → spread
- sweat → sweat
- thrust → thrust
- upset → upset
- wed → wed
- wet → wet
See also
- Regular verb
- Wiktionary appendix: Irregular English verbs
- Irregular Verb Search
- Verbs in English Grammar, wikibook
- English Irregular Verb List A comprehensive list of English irregular verbs, including their base form, past simple, past participle, 3rd person singular, and the present participle / gerund.
- TheIrregularVerbs All the irregular verbs of the English language. Conjugation, pronunciation, translation and examples.
- Irregular Verbs Interactive Exercises
Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 6 January 2009, at 14:32.
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