Defective verbs

[bingley]

Quoting klewlis:<br /><br />Quote from: Blasius on Today at 12:30:34am <br />permulti = very many; but you must always check it on your lexicon to see whether the verb/noun to which you have added the prefix "per" was used or not by classical authors.<br /> <br />why? can't i use it anyway even if they didn't? (or maybe they did and we just don't have record of it <br /><br /> I was wondering the same thing myself, when the defective verb aio came up recently. We are told the present is aio, ais, ait, --, --, aiunt. How do we know that it does not just so happen that no examples of aimus or aitis have survived? Have any ancient authors commented that there are no such words as aimus or aitis?

[Milito]

"Defective Verbs"! Thank you! I was trying to remember that term last night and couldn't.<br /><br />It's my understanding - which could easily be incorrect! - that they are labelled "defective" by us, because we have no record of the "missing" parts. They may well have existed, but none of them show up in the literature we have left.<br /><br />I suppose that, theoretically, that means that, assuming they did exist at one time, future discoveries could correct their defects, but I also suspect that the chances aren't great....<br /><br />Kilmeny

[Keesa]

If you don't ask, you'll never know, which is why I'm asking an incredibly dumb question...what is a "defective" verb? I've never heard of them before. Is this something that applies only to Latin, so that I'll get to it as I advance, or did I fall asleep in English class one day? :-[ <br /><br />Keesa

[Episcopus]

That really sucks! We should use forms for which even we have no record. We just should. We should not depend so much on records and classic latin authors etc. <br /><br />I agree bingley!

[Milito]

[quote author=Keesa link=board=3;threadid=539;start=0#4814 date=1061724944]<br />If you don't ask, you'll never know, which is why I'm asking an incredibly dumb question...what is a "defective" verb? I've never heard of them before. Is this something that applies only to Latin, so that I'll get to it as I advance, or did I fall asleep in English class one day? :-[ <br /><br />Keesa<br />[/quote]<br /><br />Not to worry! They are not an English grammar thing!<br /><br />A "defective" verb is just one that "isn't all there". Some of its parts are missing. <br /><br />If you look at the example that bingley quoted, aio, you'll see that in the list of forms he cites, the first and second person plural are missing. So far as we know, they just don't exist. I **believe** that this is because the forms haven't appeared in the literature that we have left; I'm not sure if there's evidence that the Romans themselves didn't use those forms.<br /><br />Whether or not using the "nonexistent" forms in casual conversation is acceptable, I couldn't say - very few people seem to use Latin for casual conversation..... But if you do happen to be reading some Latin text, you won't find the missing forms.<br /><br />In any event, there are very few defective verbs. Very, very few.<br /><br />Kilmeny

[Episcopus]

And who says that there isn't a perfect passive participle of esse >:( heh

[bingley]

[quote author=Episcopus link=board=3;threadid=539;start=0#4825 date=1061747581]<br />And who says that there isn't a perfect passive participle of esse >:( heh<br />[/quote]<br /><br />If there were, what would it mean?

[benissimus]

Observe:<br /><br />"Things already been and about to be..."<br /><br />I would imagine that in Latin it would be something like futus because of the future participle futurus, but that form is, as far as I know, nonexistent.

[bingley]

things already been<br /><br />Surely ellipsis for 'things which have already been', and so an active past participle, not a passive one.

[Episcopus]

[quote author=bingley link=board=3;threadid=539;start=0#4843 date=1061788302]<br />If there were, what would it mean?<br />[/quote]<br /><br />Well that was a sort of joke that backfired. <br /><br />To have been been...well that could relate to existence, something that a mother does to her child. A little more emphatic than to be born or its equivalents. <br /><br />And it would not be futus but foetus! ;D <br /><br />I shall use it in my latin story that I plan to write after I have finished learning the parts of the language. <br /><br />"Is Episcopus non ab sua matre foetus est neque puer equitis erat." <br /><br />Hey I can dream<br /><br />

[Episcopus]

Just complimenting myself...what a line...

[albertde]

Defective verbs exist in English:<br /><br />

• can
• must

<br /><br />These verbs BTW are not defective in Dutch or German.<br /><br />Dutch for can is kunnen [to be able to] and for must is moeten [to have to]:<br /><br />Ik heb het niet kunnen doen. (I have not been able to do that.)<br /><br />Hij had het gemoeten. (He had to have it.)<br /><br />It's possible that verbs that are defective in Latin were not in sister dialects.

[Milito]

A good point about defective verbs in English... I suppose that by learning English while growing up, these little details get missed.... I hadn't really noticed that they "weren't all there"....<br /><br />Kilmeny

[bingley]

From the Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar:<br /><br />Of a verb: incomplete, lacking a complete set of forms.<br /><br />The MODAL verbs are described in older grammar as defective, since they have only one form each (or at most two, if the pairs will and would, can and could, etc. are treated as single paradigms) and lack imperative and non-finite forms. Another defective verb is beware, which is only used as an imperative or a to-infinitive:<br /><br />Beware of the dog.<br /><br />I warned him to beware of the dog.<br /><br />Compare PERIPHRASIS.

[benissimus]

Interesting...<br /><br />Another irregular one is "have" which is "has" in the third person singular when its predicted form would be "haves". I would not mind seeing a complete list of English irregulars

[Keesa]

I am sure there would be exceptions even to irregulars...English is a strange language! I am glad I learned it growing up...I would have hated to have had to learn it "as a subject," i.e., using books and exercises rather than through hearing people speak it. <br /><br />Keesa

[Episcopus]

For me English doesn't count. It's so irregular that :-X<br /><br />And who ever used "do" as an auxiliary

[albertde]

Another thing that can happen is that two verbs "collide" and only parts survive.<br /><br />Example: go, past: went, participle: gone.<br /><br />In Chaucer's time, there were two verbs:<br /><br />

• wenden: past:went;participle: ywent
• goon (I can't find the parts)

[Keesa]

I think old English is lovely. <br /><br />Can you give examples of how each of those would have been used in a sentence, please? I can't quite make that out. <br /><br />Keesa

[Emma_85]

here's an example:<br /><br />an ugly old woman is telling a knight that he must marry her:<br /><br />But al for noght: the ende is this, that he<br />Constreyned was, he nedes moste hire wedde;<br />And taketh his olde wyf, and gooth to bedde.

[Episcopus]

haha emma I love you!<br /><br />It's like a deformed very north german mixed with current english and some viking elements too. <br /><br />Not my idea of a lovely language. Nevertheless, good song!

[Keesa]

Well, I think it's a lovely language. <br /><br />Thank you, Emma. <br /><br />Keesa

[Bert]

[quote author=benissimus link=board=3;threadid=539;start=0#5335 date=1062734786]<br />Interesting...<br /><br />Another irregular one is "have" which is "has" in the third person singular when its predicted form would be "haves". I would not mind seeing a complete list of English irregulars <br />[/quote]<br /><br />When I was still in the Netherlands, I had to memorize lists of English irregular verbs. No fun.

[Lumen_et_umbra]

The linguistic phenomenon to which you have referred, "collision," is also called suppletion. It is quite common, and its more salient archetype in Latin is the verb 'fero'. Fero has the stem fer- in the main sequence tenses, but in the perfect tenses it becomes tul- which used to be a verb of its own. The perfect passive participle of Fero, interestingly, is formed from yet another verb, this ppp is Latum.

[Magistra]

Benissimus:<br />I would not mind seeing a complete list of English irregulars<br /><br /><br />Enjoy!<br /><br />http://www.gsu.edu/~wwwesl/egw/verbs.htm<br /><br />Magistra

[Keesa]

That's a neat page! Thank you, Magistra. <br /><br />Keesa

[benissimus]

Hmm, interesting page Magistra. I disagree with some of their past participles. I prefer saying "I have beaten" to "I have beat" or "I have shaven" to "I have shaved" even if that is less conventional.<br /><br />"Fero, ferre, tuli, latum;" tolero, tolerare, toleravi, toleratum, and tollo, tollere, sustuli, sublatum are a result of some rather large verb collision. The verb do, dare, dedi, datum is also the result of a collision, which explains it's unusual third part which is related to dedico and it's abnormal short "A" in the present stem.

[Keesa]

"Feeling that Peter was on his way back, the Neverland had again woke into life. We ought to use the pluperfect and say wakened, but woke is better and was always used by Peter." <br /><br />~From The Adventures of Peter Pan, by James Matthew Barrie. <br /><br />Something like that? <br /><br />Keesa

[benissimus]

Hehe... some of those old authors were a bit eccentric...<br /><br />It just occurred to me last night that the parts tuli and latum are related, because the old form of the fourth part was tlatum, but Latin was not very fond of hard consonant clusters (as is English), so they dropped the "T".