A NEW VIEW OF IRREGULAR VERBS [not Pinker]

A NEW VIEW OF IRREGULAR VERBS

Application of the motor theory of language

The existence of regular and irregular forms in the past tense in English and many related languages has been a subject of enquiry and speculation over a long period. Why should there be irregular verbs? Why do not all verbs in English and the other languages form the past tense by a single, simple, rule, add -ed to the stem? It is also puzzling that irregular verbs are not wholly irregular; they can be formed into small groups which share a similar pattern of past tense formation.

In a recent book Steven Pinker has discussed at length what he sees as the problem of irregular verbs in English. The account he favours is that regular forms of the past tense are constructed by following a simple rule: add -ed but irregular forms have to be learnt individually and recalled from memory each time they are used.. He suggests that brain scanning studies lend support to the idea that different areas of the brain process regular and irregular past forms separately. However, his dual theory is controversial and not well supported by the research. The following extracts give some idea of his line of argument:

Pinker, Steven. 2001. Words and Rules: The Ingredients of Language. London: Phoenix Orion Books

This book tries to illuminate the nature of language and mind by choosing a single phenomenon and examining it from every angle imaginable. That phenomenon is regular and irregular verbs, the bane of every language student. For the past dozen years my research has concentrated on regular and irregular verbs. What is the trick behind our ability to fill one another's heads with so many different ideas?

The premise of this book is that there are two tricks, words and rules. The first trick, the word, is based on a memorized arbitrary pairing between a sound and a meaning. Ferdinand de Saussure called such arbitrary pairing the arbitrary sign and made it a cornerstone of the study of language. [The second trick] Inside everyone's head there must be a code or protocol or set of rules which prescribes how words may be arranged into meaningful combinations. Regular past-tense forms are predictable in sound and generated freely because they are products of a rule that that lives in the minds of children and adults: 'The past tense of a verb may be formed from the verb followed by the suffix -ed'

People recognise words swiftly. The meaning of a spoken word is accessed by a listener's brain in about a fifth of a second, before the speaker has finished pronouncing it. The meaning of a printed word is registered even more quickly, in about an eighth of a second. People produce words almost as rapidly: it takes the brain about a quarter of a second to find a word to name an object, and about another quarter of a second to program the mouth and tongue to pronounce it. ... in the mental dictionary. The entry for a word is simply its address in one's memory ... r-o-s-e is just a mnemonic tag that allows us to remember which word the entry corresponds to; any symbol, such as 42759, would do just as well.

Irregular verbs, in contrast [to the formation of the past tense by the rule of adding -ed], are unpredictable in form and restricted to a list because they are memorized and retrieved as individual words. The irregulars all have standard Anglo-Saxon word sounds such as grew strode clung, which please the ear and roll off the tongue. Children's past-tense errors appear, sometimes suddenly, after long stretches in which the children use the past tense correctly.

In standard American or standard British English ... we end up with 164 modern irregular verbs; 81 weak (ending in t or d), 83 strong. Compare this to Old English, with 325 strong verbs alone. The ten most common verbs in English: be have do say make go take come see get are all irregular. Irregular verbs are the most common verbs and vice-versa, in English and most other languages. Among the thousand most common German verbs ... the irregulars are used an average of 640 times in every million words, and the regulars are used an average of 77 times. [comparable figures for English are 684 and 73)].

How well does the words-and-rules theory hold up? In some ways quite well; in other ways not so well. I don't mean to suggest that all languages work just like English or that they can all be explained in a simple way by the words-and-rules theory.Our ability to tie the steps of language processing to circuits of the brain is still rudimentary. All four [brain scanning experiments] found that regular and irregular forms are computed in different parts of the brain. The bad news is that they disagree on which parts handle the regulars and which parts handle the irregulars.

The irregular patterns refuse to die. But where did they come from? They certainly were not designed by a committee, and presumably did not arise from divine revelation. No one knows the answer. Despite the contortions of centuries of language scholars, no one has been able to craft a set of rules that properly pick out the different kinds of irregular verbs.

The nature of the problem can be seen with an analysis of the set of irregular verbs:

OKE PAST TENSE	D PAST TENSE	T PAST TENSE

awake awoke awoken	bet bid bid	bend bent bent
break broke broken	do did done	dream dreamt dreamed
speak spoke spoken	hide hid hidden	lend lent lent
wake woke woken	slide slid slidden	mean meant meant
	rid rid rid	send sent sent
OUN PAST TENSE	bid bade bidden	spend spent spent
	lay laid laid
bind bound bound	pay paid paid	deal dealt dealt
find found found	read read read	feel felt felt
grind ground ground		kneel knelt knelt
wind wound wound	ED PAST TENSE	spell spelt spelt
		build built built
OOK PAST TENSE	bleed bled bled	spill spilt spilt
	breed bred bred
forsake forsook forsaken	feed fed fed	lose lost lost
shake shook shaken	flee fled fled	leave left left
take took taken	lead led led	meet met met
		sit sat sat
UNG ANG PAST TENSE	OLD ELD PAST TENSE	spit spat spat

cling clung clung	hold held held	burn burnt burnt
fling flung flung	uphold upheld upheld	learn learnt learnt
hang hung hung	withhold withheld withheld	light lit lighted
sling slung slung	sell sold sold
sting stung stung	tell told told	creep crept crept
string strung strung		keep kept kept
swing swung swung	ORE PAST TENSE	leap leapt leapt
wring wrung wrung		sleep slept slept
ring rang rung	bear bore born	sweep swept swept
sing sang sung	swear swore sworn	weep wept wept
spring sprang sprung	tear tore torn
dig dug dug	wear wore worn	OT OTE PAST TENSE

ANK PAST	OVE PAST TENSE	get got got
		shoot shot shot
drink drank drunk	dive dove dived	smite smote smitten
sink sank sunk	drive drove driven	write wrote written
stink stank stunk	strive strove striven
	thrive throve thrived	MISC
EW PAST TENSE	weave wove woven
		be was been
blow blew blown	AUGH OUGH PAST TENSE	come came come
draw drew drawn		dig dug dug
fly flew flown	buy bought bought	give gave given
grow grew grown	bring brought brought	go went gone
know knew known	catch caught caught	have had had
throw threw thrown	fight fought fought	lie lay lain
slay slew slain	seek sought sought	run ran run
	teach taught taught	shine shone shone
UCK PAST TENSE	think thought thought	stand stood stood
		steal stole stolen
stick stuck stuck		spin span spun
strike struck struck		swim swam swum

It can be seen that some verbs retain the same form for both present and past tenses; others change the central vowel (occasionally also for the past participle). Compound words (of which there are a few examples in the list) have irregular past tenses if the root word has an irregular past. Past tenses ending in -d or -t can be considered as regular formations, except where there are other changes in the stem. For a number of verbs with irregular past tenses there are alternative regular pasts. American English in some instances has irregular forms of the past where English English is regular e.g. dive dove got gotten sneak snuck (Pinker's favourite example).

Relevance of the motor theory of language? The theory is that the sound structures of words are related to their meanings via motor equivalence, that is, the motor articulation of the word can be demonstrated in the form of gesturally equivalent motor patterning. For examples of equivalent gestural patterning for the present tense of some simple verbs, click on come cut give go hit pat put take tap touch.

The past tense is formed regularly for pat tap touch, is unchanged for cut hit put and is irregular for go come take give. It is for examination what changes result in the gestural patterning when there is regular or irregular formation of the past tense. The effect of the addition of -edto form the regular past tense can be shown for the verbs touch and pat. A frontal view of the gestural equivalent for the present tense is set beside a similar view for the past tense form:

If the pictures are examined closely, it will be seen that the addition of -ed produces a shift in the direction of execution of the gesture, a short distance away from the body. Apart from this, the general shape of the gesture is unchanged.

The same examination can be made for the listed irregular verbs, that is a view from the front of the present and past tense gestural equivalents:

The results are similar to those for the verbs of regular formation. The pattern of the gesture is shifted to the side of the body. What appears to happen is that through the irregular change in the past tense, the basic form of the gestural equivalent is preserved, apart from the small shift away from the centre. The significance of this can be demonstrated by artificially forming a regular form for what is otherwise an irregular verb e.g. com -ed giv -ed go -ed. The effect is that the basic shape of the gestural equivalent is lost or distorted and the link between the sound, the meaning and the gesture is disrupted.

The approach can be extended to a wider selection of irregular verbs. In the table above, irregular verbs were divided into following subgroups based on similarity of form: OKE OUN OOK UNG ANK OLD/ELD EW ORE OVE OT/OTE AUGH/OUGH D(without E) ED(not as suffix) T(NT MT LT PT) MISC [verbs with no obvious similarities to others]. The following verbs are selected as examples from the subgroups:

The general conclusion from these comparisons is that for both regular and irregular verbs the effect is the same. Applying the motor theory of speech-sound/movement equivalence, the effect of the change in the sound structure of a verb from the present to the past tense is to produce a small redirection of the equivalent gesture, away from the central line, away from the side of the body. There is reason to hypothesise that the position change associated with the past tense is part of a larger system extending to the full set of tenses.

A comparative comment: these results are limited to the formation of the past tense in English. Other related languages - German Norwegian Danish Dutch - have similar patterns of regular and irregular verbs. It remains for study how the past or perfective tenses are formed in other languages and how the methods of formation can be related to the theory of the sound/movement equivalence of language. For many languages the past tense is formed from an auxiliary and a past participle; often there is a complicated interaction between the formation of the past stem and full conjugation of the verb, and it becomes necessary to consider how past participles are formed in other languages, particularly non-IndoEuropean ones. Finnish and Hungarian form the past participle by adding -t to the stem. In Turkish the past is formed by adding -di (which as in English may change to -ti) so ver give verdi gave bak look bakti looked). Sanskrit adds -ta or -na to the stem.

APPENDIX: IRREGULAR PARTICIPLES


D PARTICIPLE	T PARTICIPLE	N PARTICIPLE	EN PARTICIPLE

bind bound bound	bend bent bent	bear bore born	awake awoke awoken
find found found	lend lent lent	shear sheared shorn	break broke broken
grind ground ground	mean meant meant	swear swore sworn	speak spoke spoken
wind wound wound	spend spent spent	tear tore torn	wake woke woken
		wear wore worn
bleed bled bled	build built built		be was, were been
breed bred bred	deal dealt dealt	blow blew blown	beat beat beaten
feed fed fed	feel felt felt	grow grew grown	bid bid bidden
flee fled fled	kneel knelt knelt	know knew known	draw drew drawn
lead led led	spill spilt spilt	fly flew flown	eat ate eaten
read read read		mow mowed mown	fall fell fallen
say said said	creep crept crept	sew sewed sewn	forbid forbade forbidden
shed shed shed	keep kept kept	show showed shown	forgive forgave forgiven
speed sped sped	leap leapt leapt	sow sowed sown	forsake forsook forsaken
spread spread spread	sleep slept slept	throw threw thrown	give gave given
	sweep swept swept		mistake mistook mistaken
lay laid laid	weep wept wept	begin began begun	shake shook shaken
pay paid paid		run ran run	shave shaved shaven
	buy bought bought	spin spun spun	take took taken
rid rid rid	bring brought brought	win won won
slide slid slid	catch caught caught	saw sawed sawn	bite bit bitten
	fight fought fought	see saw seen	drive drove driven
sell sold sold	seek sought sought	go went gone	hide hid hidden
tell told told	teach taught taught	lie lay lain	ride rode ridden
	think thought thought		rise rose risen
stand stood stood			strive strove striven
withstand withstood withstood	burn burnt burnt
	burst burst burst		forget forgot forgotten
have had had	curse cursed curst		get got gotten
hear heard heard
hold held held	rend rend rent		choose chose chosen
die died dead	send sent sent		prove proved proven
shoe shoed shod			freeze froze frozen
	lose lost lost		steal stole stolen
COME	leave left left		swell swelled swollen
	meet met met
become became become	sit sat sat
come came come	spit spat spat

G PARTICIPLE
	bet bet bet
cling clung clung	cast cast cast
fling flung flung	cost cost cost
hang hung hung	cut cut cut
sling slung slung	fit fit fit
string strung strung	hit hit hit
swing swung swung	hurt hurt hurt
wring wrung wrung	knit knit knit
	let let let
ring rang rung	put put put
sing sang sung	quit quit quit
spring sprang sprung	set set set
	slit slit slit
dig dug dug	split split split
	shut shut shut