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As Steven Pinker points out in this very interesting article, the category of irregular verbs in English will surely shrink over time, as old, little used verbs

As Steven Pinker points out in this very interesting article, the category of irregular verbs in English will surely shrink over time, as old, little used verbs become regularized over time, but new verbs formed in English are never formed as irregular verbs. For all that, though, "many of the irregulars can sleep securely, for they have two things on their side. One is their sheer frequency in the language. The ten commonest verbs in English (be, have, do, say, make, go, take, come, see, and get) are all irregular, and about 70% of the time we use a verb, it is an irregular verb. And children have a wondrous capacity for memorizing words; they pick up a new one every two hours, accumulating 60,000 by high school. Eighty irregulars are common enough that children use them before they learn to read, and I predict they will stay in the language indefinitely." Cool.

Cushman 12y ago
> As Steven Pinker points out in this very interesting article, the category of irregular verbs in English will surely shrink over time, as old, little used verbs become regularized over time, but new verbs formed in English are never formed as irregular verbs. At least, until we start pronouncing "plated", "played", and "placed" so differently that kids wonder why they're all spelled the same :)
ketralnis 12y ago
> the category of irregular verbs in English will surely shrink over time I just don't think that's true. English, like all other languages, is in an unbroken line of continuous speech from the first group of humans to use speech at all. (Or if you don't follow the theory of a single origin of language, an origin set of language users.) Where you place the borders between what you call "English" or "Middle English" or "unnamed branch of Old High Saxon spoken by a particularly small group of villages" is fuzzy, but nobody ever decided "What I was speaking 10 minutes ago was Language A but starting now this is called Language B and they're totally different in every way". So we've been developing English for a very long time. If "little used verbs become regularized over time, but new verbs formed [are] never formed as irregular verbs", then why do we have still have irregular verbs at all? Why wouldn't they have been wiped out thousands of years ago? In the most obvious cases, English hasn't changed at a uniform rate. It's experienced gradual splits, mergings, conquerings, being alternatingly a vulgar and prestige dialect, immigration, emmigration, wars, trade explosions, and regular old influence of other languages nearby. The claim you're quoting seems to be that if a language is left to its own devices that it will gradually approach regularity. I definitely disagree that point, and there are somewhat well-understood methods for these changes it occur even in an isolated language (for instance, vowel shifts that affect some words more than others, after which words that used to follow the same rule no longer do). But let's set that aside. Even if we ignore the normal linguistic processes that can increase irregularity in an isolated language, what makes us think that the "artificial" events like wars or interactions with other languages will decrease? Why would those things stop?
- bdr 12y ago
  Presumably, new irregular verbs used to appear, but no longer do. Groups of speakers are less isolated, we have a standardized written language, and demarcations between languages are clearer.
  - ketralnis 12y ago
    > Presumably, new irregular verbs used to appear, but no longer do Why not? Have now we invented all of the words we need, but hadn't yet invented "seen" or "got" in 1200 AD? Then why would it stop now, instead of in 1200 AD? > we have a standardized written language But we've had written language for much longer than English has been around
    - dllthomas 12y ago
      Written language has become more prominent, recorded language has been introduced, and more of us experience some formal instruction in what the rules are. Those seem all like reasons new words are more likely to conform to the rules.
    - lkbm 12y ago
      > But we've had written language for much longer than English has been around We didn't have standardized spelling, a majority of speakers who could also read and write, or formal grammar education.
    - taejo 12y ago
      At one time, the "irregular" verbs were regular: English (or rather Proto-Germanic, the common ancestor language of English, German, Swedish, etc.) had two classes of regular verbs, strong and weak, and newly invented verbs could be added to either class. However, the strong class over time became somewhat obsolete and irregular, and is now relatively closed to adding new members (though not completely: sneak/snuck, dive/dove and shit/shat are relatively new additions -- certainly long post-dating the irregularization).
  - Cushman 12y ago
lkbm 12y ago
> but new verbs formed in English are never formed as irregular verbs http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/twote#English http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/twote#English Granted, it's definitely not winning out over "tweeted".

Cushman 12y ago

> As Steven Pinker points out in this very interesting article, the category of irregular verbs in English will surely shrink over time, as old, little used verbs become regularized over time, but new verbs formed in English are never formed as irregular verbs. At least, until we start pronouncing "plated", "played", and "placed" so differently that kids wonder why they're all spelled the same :)

ketralnis 12y ago

> the category of irregular verbs in English will surely shrink over time I just don't think that's true. English, like all other languages, is in an unbroken line of continuous speech from the first group of humans to use speech at all. (Or if you don't follow the theory of a single origin of language, an origin set of language users.) Where you place the borders between what you call "English" or "Middle English" or "unnamed branch of Old High Saxon spoken by a particularly small group of villages" is fuzzy, but nobody ever decided "What I was speaking 10 minutes ago was Language A but starting now this is called Language B and they're totally different in every way". So we've been developing English for a very long time. If "little used verbs become regularized over time, but new verbs formed [are] never formed as irregular verbs", then why do we have still have irregular verbs at all? Why wouldn't they have been wiped out thousands of years ago? In the most obvious cases, English hasn't changed at a uniform rate. It's experienced gradual splits, mergings, conquerings, being alternatingly a vulgar and prestige dialect, immigration, emmigration, wars, trade explosions, and regular old influence of other languages nearby. The claim you're quoting seems to be that if a language is left to its own devices that it will gradually approach regularity. I definitely disagree that point, and there are somewhat well-understood methods for these changes it occur even in an isolated language (for instance, vowel shifts that affect some words more than others, after which words that used to follow the same rule no longer do). But let's set that aside. Even if we ignore the normal linguistic processes that can increase irregularity in an isolated language, what makes us think that the "artificial" events like wars or interactions with other languages will decrease? Why would those things stop?

bdr 12y ago
Presumably, new irregular verbs used to appear, but no longer do. Groups of speakers are less isolated, we have a standardized written language, and demarcations between languages are clearer.
- ketralnis 12y ago
  > Presumably, new irregular verbs used to appear, but no longer do Why not? Have now we invented all of the words we need, but hadn't yet invented "seen" or "got" in 1200 AD? Then why would it stop now, instead of in 1200 AD? > we have a standardized written language But we've had written language for much longer than English has been around
  - dllthomas 12y ago
    Written language has become more prominent, recorded language has been introduced, and more of us experience some formal instruction in what the rules are. Those seem all like reasons new words are more likely to conform to the rules.
  - lkbm 12y ago
    > But we've had written language for much longer than English has been around We didn't have standardized spelling, a majority of speakers who could also read and write, or formal grammar education.
  - taejo 12y ago
    At one time, the "irregular" verbs were regular: English (or rather Proto-Germanic, the common ancestor language of English, German, Swedish, etc.) had two classes of regular verbs, strong and weak, and newly invented verbs could be added to either class. However, the strong class over time became somewhat obsolete and irregular, and is now relatively closed to adding new members (though not completely: sneak/snuck, dive/dove and shit/shat are relatively new additions -- certainly long post-dating the irregularization).
- Cushman 12y ago

lkbm 12y ago

> but new verbs formed in English are never formed as irregular verbs http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/twote#English http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/twote#English Granted, it's definitely not winning out over "tweeted".