Sound Change Quickie Thread

[Darren]

(A similar example from English: the verb help used to have past tense holp, but in modern English the suffix -ed has been generalised, such that the standard past tense form is now helped. Similarly for heave, shave and a bunch of other verbs. But English verbs are complicated enough that analogy can work in the opposite direction too: e.g. bring sometimes gets past tense brang or brung, by analogy with verbs like wring and spring.)

I have heard that English verbs reached peak regularity in the Middle Ages and since then the trend of analogy has been more in favour of strong verbs, although I don't know where they got their figures from.

Huh, really? I’m skeptical.

There's a fair few examples like digged → dug, wreaked → wrought (thus making "wreak" one of English's three suppletive verbs)

[Zju]

It's suppletive from a diachronic point of view, but I wonder if it can be synchronically analysed as suppletive, what with 'seak - sought'; or as one of only three, that is

[Emily]

yeah i'm skeptical too, for every "brung" getting formed there's another "throve" turning into "thrived" due to lack of use and reinforce

[Darren]

I think that "irregular" also includes the numerous analogical -en past forms (gotten, putten, slowen) and -t forms (wet, fit, built) both of which are undoubtedly on the rise.