Re: (In)transitive verbs

On Thu, 12 Feb 2004, Costentin Cornomorus wrote:

> Yes. As I've said. And of course, we can choose
> which approach to take. Personally, I do not
> follow the "Irregular/Regular" scheme; I use the
> "Strong/Weak/Irregular" Germanic scheme. I think
> it fits the data better. [Keep in mind that in
> scientific endeavour, the theory should fit the
> data, not the other way around!] And it also has
> more room for important subdivisions of that
> data. The other scheme is arbitrary and forces
> the data to fit the theory.
Note that my original post that started this discussion was about
-et > -et verbs. Do you deny that these are irregular?

And secondly, what advantage is there to make a three-way distinction
strong/weak/irregular with a few subdivisions in strong and irregular over
regular/irregular with the strong subdivisions in irregular, bearing in
mind that technically, most* irregular verbs are weak (ones like
think/thought, set/set, do/did (at least, I think it's weak. It forms its
past with an oral dental stop but it's pp. with an n...) etc.).

Also, ask your average (naïve) English speaker to classify a bunch of
random verbs. All the ablauting verbs they'll put with to think and to be
in the irregular pile...

* most != all

> There are also psychological factors at work in
> the other scheme that can present blocks to
> learners. When the word "irregular" is seen, it
> connotes oddity, wrongness, deviance; teachers
> often use a negative, downward tone and an almost
> fearful intonation when they talk about these
> verbs. [Doesn't matter what language - we were
> subject to this almost subliminal message in
> Spanish.] Such teacher incited trepidation could
> lead to poorer learning - the students figure
> "sheesh, the teacher is so down on these, they
> must be impossible! I'll never get it!"
And given the connotations of 'strong', I really think it's inappropriate
to call English irregular verbs formed by ablaut 'strong'. But that's just
me...

--
Tristan

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