HIT PAST TENSE SERIES

Sometimes the result of multiple conditional and selective historical sound changes is to leave certain words following a practically unpredictable pattern. Irregularities in verb conjugation (and other inflectional irregularities) may arise in various ways. An example of the latter is provided by the strong and weak verbs of the Germanic languages the strong verbs inherited their method of making past forms (vowel ablaut) from Proto-Indo-European, while for the weak verbs a different method (addition of dental suffixes) developed. The language may develop a number of different regular patterns, either as a result of conditional sound changes which cause differentiation within a single pattern, or through patterns with different derivations coming to be used for the same purpose. When a language develops some type of inflection, such as verb conjugation, it normally produces certain typical (regular) patterns by which words in the given class come to make their inflected forms.

HIT PAST TENSE SERIES

Most inflectional irregularities arise as a result of series of fairly uniform historical changes so forms that appear to be irregular from a synchronic (contemporary) point of view may be seen as following more regular patterns when the verbs are analyzed from a diachronic ( historical linguistic) viewpoint. If some conjugational paradigm in a language is followed by a limited number of verbs, or it requires the specification of more than one principal part (as with the German strong verbs), views may differ as to whether the verbs in question should be considered irregular.

The classification of verbs as regular or irregular is to some extent a subjective matter.

On the other hand, verbs such as drink, hit and have are irregular since some of their parts are not made according to the typical pattern: drank and drunk (not 'drinked') hit (as past tense and past participle, not 'hitted') and has and had (not 'haves' and 'haved'). In English, for example, verbs such as play, enter, and like are regular since they form their inflected parts by adding the typical endings -s, -ing and -ed to give forms such as plays, entering, and liked.

This is one instance of the distinction between regular and irregular inflection, which can also apply to other word classes, such as nouns and adjectives. A verb whose conjugation follows a different pattern is called an irregular verb. For specially constructed 'irregular verbs' that satirize uncharitably towards others, see Emotive conjugation.Ī regular verb is any verb whose conjugation follows the typical pattern, or one of the typical patterns, of the language to which it belongs.

Hit past tense