Regular and irregular verbs

A regular verb is any verb whose conjugation follows the typical pattern, or one of the typical patterns, of the language to which it belongs. A verb whose conjugation follows a different pattern is called an irregular verb. (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.)

Most natural languages, to different extents, have a number of irregular verbs. Artificial auxiliary languages usually have a single regular pattern for all verbs (as well as other parts of speech) as a matter of design, although other constructed languages need not show such regularity, especially if they are designed to look similar to natural ones.

Types of regularity

The most simple form of regularity involves a single class of verbs, a single principal part (the root or a conjugated form in a given person, number, tense, aspect, mood, etc.), and a set of exact rules to produce each form in the verb paradigm. More complex regular patterns may involve several verb classes (e.g. distinguished by their infinitive ending), more than one principal part (e.g. the infinitive and the first person singular, present tense, indicative mood), and more than one type of rule (e.g. rules that add suffixes and other rules that change the vowel in the root).

Sometimes it is highly subjective to state whether a verb is regular or not. For example, if a language has ten different conjugation patterns and two of them only comprise five or six verbs each while the rest are much more populated, it is a matter of choice whether to call the verbs in the smaller groups "irregular".

Irregularity

In contrast to regular verbs, irregular verbs are those verbs that fall outside the standard patterns of conjugation in the languages in which they occur. The idea of an irregular verb is important in second-language acquisition, where the verb paradigms of a foreign language are learned systematically, and exceptions listed and carefully noted. Thus for example a school French textbook may have a section at the back listing the French irregular verbs in tables. Irregular verbs are often the most commonly used verbs in the language.

In linguistic analysis, the concept of an irregular verb is most likely to be used in psycholinguistics, and in first-language acquisition studies, where the aim is to establish how the human brain processes its native language. One debate among 20th-century linguists revolved around the question of whether small children learn all verb forms as separate pieces of vocabulary or whether they deduce forms by the application of rules.^[1] Since a child can hear a regular verb for the first time and immediately reuse it correctly in a different tense which he or she has never heard, it is clear that the brain does work with rules, but irregular verbs must be processed differently.

Historical linguists rarely use the category irregular verb. Since most irregularities can be explained historically, these verbs are only irregular when viewed synchronically, not when seen in their historical context.

When languages are being compared informally, one of the few quantitative statistics which are sometimes cited is the number of irregular verbs. These counts are not particularly accurate for a wide variety of reasons, and academic linguists are reluctant to cite them. But it does seem that some languages have a greater tolerance for paradigm irregularity than others.

Irregular in spelling only

The English verb "pay" sounds regular: "I pay", "I paid", and "I have paid" are all pronounced as expected. But the spelling is irregular and that cannot be perfectly predicted; for example, "pay" and "lay" turn into "paid" and "laid", but "sway" and "stay" turn into "swayed" and "stayed".

In language acquisition

The concept of regular and irregular verbs is significant in the context of language acquisition, particularly second language acquisition, where the defining of rules and listing of exceptions is an important part of foreign language learning. The concepts can also be useful in psycholinguistics, where the ways in which the human mind processes irregularities may be of interest. However, most other branches of linguistics do not use these categories so frequently; historical/comparative linguistics is more interested in categories such as strong and weak.

Although the causes of irregular verbs are almost exclusively historical, the way we process them is a matter for synchronic analysis and especially psycholinguistics.

A common error for small children is to conjugate irregular verbs as though they were regular. This is regarded as evidence that we learn and process our native language partly by the application of rules, rather than, as some earlier scholarship had postulated, solely by learning the forms. In fact, children often use the most common irregular verbs correctly in their earliest utterances but then switch to incorrect regular forms for a time when they begin to operate systematically. That allows a fairly precise analysis of the phases of this aspect of first language acquisition.

Regular verbs in English

English inflections include third person, past tense and past participle, among others.

For irregular verbs, see English irregular verbs (for a more complete list: List of English irregular verbs).

Regular third person

Verbs ending in /p/, /t/, /k/, or /f/ add /s/.

Examples:

hop → hops

halt → halts

pack → packs; peak → peaks

bluff → bluffs; laugh → laughs

Verbs ending in /b/, /d/, /g/, /v/, /ð/, /m/, /n/, /ŋ/, /l/, /r/ or a vowel add /z/.

Examples:

rob → robs /[invalid input: 'icon']rɒbz/

lend → lends

beg → begs

love → loves

bathe → bathes

sum → sums; climb --> climbs

sin → sins

sing → sings

call → calls

hear → hears

pay → pays

thaw → thaws

sigh → sighs; fly /[invalid input: 'icon']flaɪ/ → flies /[invalid input: 'icon']flaɪz/

show → shows; go /[invalid input: 'icon']ɡoʊ/ → goes /[invalid input: 'icon']ɡoʊz/

Verbs ending in /s/, /z/, /ʃ/, /tʃ/, and /dʒ/ add /ɨz/.

Examples

pass → passes; box → boxes; pace /[invalid input: 'icon']peɪs/ → paces /[invalid input: 'icon']peɪs[invalid input: 'ɨ']z/

buzz → buzzes; cause /[invalid input: 'icon']kɔːz/ → causes /[invalid input: 'icon']kɔːz[invalid input: 'ɨ']z/

push → pushes

march → marches; match → matches

judge /[invalid input: 'icon']dʒʌdʒ/ → judges /[invalid input: 'icon']dʒʌdʒ[invalid input: 'ɨ']z/

Examples of irregular third person: have → has; say /[invalid input: 'icon']seɪ/ → says /[invalid input: 'icon']sɛz/ ^[2]

Regular past tense and past participle

See: English verbs#Past tense

Other languages

For regular and irregular verbs in other languages, see the articles on the grammars of those languages (some grammatical information can also be found in Wiktionary). Particular articles include: