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It's a little more subtle than that. There are usage differences between the perfect and imperfect tenses in both "hung-hanged" and "driven-drove," between acti
by FreakLegion 15y ago
It's a little more subtle than that. There are usage differences between the perfect and imperfect tenses in both "hung-hanged" and "driven-drove," between active and passive constructions[1], etc. Unfortunately, most native speakers aren't any more savvy to this than they are to what remains of the English subjunctive.
1. It will always be "I drove to the store" and "I was driven to the store" and "I am a driven person," never "I driven to the store" or "I was drove to the store" or "I am a drove person."
- RyanMcGreal 15y agoNot only that, but neither "driven" nor "drove" is a regular past-tense form. That would be "drived", a use I haven't heard from anyone over two years of age.
- FreakLegion 15y agoYes and no. Some people call ablaut verbs irregular, but almost all of them are in fact regular. They only seem irregular because there are relatively few of them left to group together [1]. But I'm not aware of any language with a single pattern of conjugation. Many have 10 or more. 1. Ex.: Drive-drove-driven, write-wrote-written, ride-rode-ridden, etc. While they follow a different conjugation pattern, most ablaut verbs are perfectly regular.