Introducing English Linguistics

Table 5.4. Forms for regular and irregular verbs
Base
-s form
-ed past
-ed participle
-ing participle
Regular Verbs
walk
walks
walked
has walked
am walking
move
moves
moved
has moved
am moving
love
loves
loved
has loved
am loving
Irregular Verbs
drink
drinks
drank
has drunk
am drinking
ring
rings
rang
has rung
am ringing
bet
bets
bet
has bet
am betting
sit
sits
sat
has sat
am sitting
Regular verbs have two characteristics: they will always contain the
same set of verb endings (-s, -ed, etc.), and their stems will never change.
The verb walk, for instance, will have a base form (sometimes called the
infinitive form) that has no verb ending and that is the form that would
be used following the infinitive marker to: to walk. In addition, there are

---

four forms used to mark tense and aspect (semantic notions that will be
discussed in the next chapter). Walk has an -s and an -ed  form used to
mark the present tense (walks) and past tense (walked), respectively. The -s
form, however, only occurs with third person singular subjects: He walks,
She walks, It walks. With first person I or second person you, for instance,
no ending is used: I walk, You walk. The -ed and -ing participle forms are
used with the various forms of the primary auxiliaries have and  be  to
mark  perfective aspect (have/has walked) and progressive aspect
(am/was/were walking).
Irregular verbs do not always have the same endings as regular verbs. In
addition, the stems of irregular verbs do not remain constant but some-
times contain internal vowel changes: fight, for instance, becomes fought
in the past tense. But despite irregularities such as these, irregular verbs
do follow certain patterns. Quirk et al. (1985: 104–14) posit seven different
classes of irregular verbs based on such criteria as the number of different
forms a verb has as well as similarities in the change of vowels that the
verb undergoes. For instance, drink and ring in Table 5.4 have five different
forms. In addition, the vowel changes that the stems undergo are identi-
cal. The verbs bet and sit are similar in that they have only three distinct
forms: the fewest number of forms that a verb can have in English. In con-
trast, the verb be, as Table 5.5 illustrates, has the greatest number of forms –
eight – of any verb in English.
124
INTRODUCING ENGLISH LINGUISTICS