![]() ![]() A look at nineteenth-century grammars (with the help of the new resource of the Corpus of Nineteenth-Century Grammars (CNG)) in section 4 sheds light on the relatively recent historical process of standardization for these verb forms. There are historical developments that can elucidate this variability diachronically, as section 3 details. It is perhaps not surprising that in my investigation of British non-standard verb paradigms, this fluctuation also constitutes one of the most persistent patterns in the verb morphology of traditional British dialects (Anderwald Reference Anderwald2009). ![]() None of the dictionaries indicate on which basis the regional labels have been ascribed. Collins COBUILD does not cite any variation, which is particularly striking if we compare this to the earlier publication from the same publishing house from 1986. Thus Longman notes ‘AmE’ for three of these verbs (notably not stunk), Cambridge only notes stunk as a ‘US’ form, and Oxford only designates sprung as being ‘also NAmE’, but none of the other three verbs. ![]() Most dictionaries do not comment on this variability and the few regional labels that are used do not coincide. The OED, documenting (written) usage up to the end of the nineteenth century, has seven variable past tense forms Collins English Dictionary, published roughly a century later and aimed at the domestic (British) market, lists four (three of which are identical to the OED), whereas the five large dictionaries specifically targeted at advanced learners ( Cambridge, Collins, Longman, Macmillan, Oxford, all published in the first decade of the new millennium), have between four and no variable verbs (the four are stank/stunk, shrank/shrunk, sank/sunk and sprang/sprung). This might be an argument for a slight preference for stank, since it is explicitly marked as the current form, in contrast to stunk. 6–9 stands for 1600–1900, 8- for 1800 until now (or more precisely, the time of compilation). The information on possible variability of this verb can therefore only be gleaned from the historical overview. * Note: in contrast to all other verbs, the OED does not give the past tense/past participle forms for stink as a paradigm (s.v. However, even in standard English today we can observe some fluctuation between two different past tense forms, as the film title above indicates, and different dictionaries permit this fluctuation in different verbs, as table 1 shows. In standard English these nine verbs have past tense forms in and past participles in, resulting in three-part paradigms like sing – sang – sung or begin – began – begun where past tense and past participle are clearly distinct. It is only in this second group of verbs that we can find interesting variation, and for this reason only this smaller group of verbs will be investigated in detail here. ![]() The second group is slightly smaller and consists of begin, drink, ring, shrink, sing, sink, spring, stink and swim. Bybee Reference Bybee1995 Bybee & Moder Reference Bybee and Moder1983), I have called this group ‘Bybee verbs’ (with Joan Bybee's permission). Since Joan Bybee has worked extensively on the pattern of these verbs (e.g. sling – slung – slung strike – struck – struck). The larger of these groups consists of the verbs cling, dig, fling, hang, sling, slink, spin, stick, sting, strike, string, swing, win and wring they form their past tense and past participle identically by way of vowel change to (i.e. In standard English today, we can observe two groups of verbs that on the one hand are very similar, yet on the other hand form their past tenses in a distinct way. Honey, I shrunk the kids – the title of an American blockbuster film – left at least some speakers of English doubting: shouldn't it be shrank, or is shrunk also quite acceptable? Is shrunk perhaps a typically American form, or is it simply ‘wrong’? This small example raises several interesting questions: who determines what is ‘correct’ in English, have these norms changed over time, and do ‘normal’ speakers adhere to these norms? If they do not, what possible reasons are there? ![]()
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