LL-L: "Verbs" [E/S] LOWLANDS-L, 11.JUN.1999 (03)

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From: "Sandy Fleming" <sandy at fleimin.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Verbs

Ian wrote:

> I rather think the "bade" form is a form of false analogy from
> "forbid"-"forbade", but have no evidence to hand to back this up.

The SND lists it as being from Old English "bad", past tense of "bidan", "to
stay".

Sandy Fleming
http:\\www.fleimin.demon.co.uk

----------

From: "Urban Lindqvist" <urban.lindqvist at telia.com>
Subject: Verbs

> From: Edwin Michael Alexander <edsells at wwwebcity.com>
> Subject: Verbs
>
> What you call the "dental suffix marker" is the also the mark of the oft
> encountered past passive participle in Sanskrit, commonly known to
students
> as the "ta" participle, and undoubtedly shares the same IE origin.
> [---] In the case of the "ta" participle,
> this form was often used somewhat the way it is used in the Germanic
> languagues, e.g. tenedam uttam [tena idam uttam]- "this was said by him"
> literally "by him this [was] said".

This suffix corresponds to the suffix of the *past participles* of weak
verbs in Germanic, but the dental suffix of the preterites has (or might
have) a completely different history. Although there are explanations of the
dental preterite involving the past participle, it's difficult to see how
the past participle itself could be the explanation.

> The Sanskrit present participle marker "mana" survives in the
> Romance languages, such as in French "-ment".

I'm afraid not. Since the Indo-European middle participle did not survive in
Latin (with the possible exception of a few well-hidden traces), it's rather
unlikely that a reflex of it would turn up in the Romance languages. I'm not
sure which "-ment" you have in mind, but the two I can think of have
different histories.
One of them is a double suffix, i.e. the suffix -men- enlarged with the
suffix -tu-. Cf. the Latin doublets augmen/augmentum, fragmen/fragmentum.
This also happens to other nasal stems, e.g. unguen/unguentum (French
onguent).
The other one is the adverbial "-ment", the origin of which is phrases (in
the ablative case) like "devota mente" ('with a devout mind'), "clara mente"
('with a clear mind'). The construction came to be reinterpreted as
describing the way in which something is done rather than just the state of
mind of the person doing something, whereby constructions like "lenta mente"
became possible (> French "lentement"). Spanish is interesting in this
context: the historically unjustified repetition of "ment(e)" which we find
in French ("lentement et sûrement") does not occur here: "lenta y
seguramente".

Urban

PS. Although my post is clearly off-topic, I thought I should reply to this.
Since I'm pretty new on the list, I'm not sure where you draw the line. If
I've crossed it -- I apologize.

----------

From: "John M. Tait" <jmtait at jmt.prestel.co.uk>
Subject: Verbs

Sandy wrote:

>"Slade", as you realise, was written by an East Lothian writer at the turn
>of the century - I'm from East Lothian, but my brother and I use the weak
>from "slydit" ['slE at dI?]. We also use the weak form of "bide" ['bE at dI?]. It
>might interest you to hear that our mother (originally from a town only 7
>miles from our village) was always trying to correct us on this - she
>insisted there was no such word as "bydit" and we should say either "bade"
>or "bid" (note analogy, slid : bid). There is also no support in any Scots
>dictionaries or literature that I can find for the weak forms of "slide" or
>"bide". I would conclude that this form has "weakened" only in my own
>generation, somewhere around the 1950's or 60's. I do also quite naturally
>use the form "bid" sometimes, though.

I tak it ye dinna coont SSD as a dictionar? :) CSD haes _bided_ asweel, tho.

Another weak form I find strange is _makkit_ (at Andy uises a lot) rather
than _made_ that I would use. This is in CSD, though, but just for the pt.
not the pp.

I feel that, in the absence of an accepted standard, these variant verb
forms - both weak/strong variants and convergent preterites and past
participles - cause a certain amount of difficulty in Scots writing. Native
speakers, of course, can choose between using whatever they say themselves
and other, more traditional forms; but some writers, perhaps especially
those who don't themselves speak Scots, appear to dither between forms like
wan/wun for the pt. of win, etc; or choose, apparently arbitrarily, to use
traditional past tenses for some verbs but not for others. This can lead to
a sort of mixed register which gives the impression of being neither
literary nor colloquial, but a sort of half-way house between the two. When
I commented on this to one writer, he simply said that all the people who
gave him advice contradicted each other and you couldn't please everybody
all the time, which is no doubt true. I still find convergent tenses odd in
a piece of classical translation, though.

Is _bade_ a past participle in some places? I recently read a piece of
writing where phrases like 'I hae bade thaim come' were frequent. To me
this is very odd - it should be 'I hae bidden thaim come.'

In Shetlandic there is the following distinction:

bide [b at id] - bed [beid] - bidden [bIdn] - to live, stay
bid [bId] - bad [b{d] - bidden [bIdn] - to command, invite

Purves gives the same forms, but with _bade_ instead of _bed_.

In Shetlandic there are quite a lot of verbs with variable past tenses. I
make a definite distinction between:

flit - flit - flit - to move house, etc.
flite, flet, flitten - to scold

But a friend from Yell tells me that he uses _flitten_ as the pp. of _flit_
- unfortunately, Grammar and Usage of the Shetland Dialect doesn't have
_flit_ in its list of strong and irregular verbs - perhaps assuming the
weak version _flit-it_, which certainly exists. A few other variable ones are:

tell - taald - taald
        telt - telt
        telled - telled (I use this one)
        towld - towld

(Although <aald> is often prononounced as 'owld' - eg: caald/cowld;
aald/owld, etc.)

jimp - jamp - jumpen [tSopm] - to jump (I use the strong forms)
        jimpit - jimpit

laach - leuch - laachen - to laugh (I use the weak forms)
        laacht - laacht

A particularly odd one is:

misfare - misfoer [m at sf2r] - misforne - to come to grief
misfoar - misfoered - misfoered

Others apparently have variants only in the preterite:

shaest - shaestit - shaestit - to chase (I use the weak form)
        shuist

had - held - hadden - to hold (I use either _held_ or _huild_)
        huild
(Though there is also a form of the present, _haald_ or _howld_, always as
far as I know pronounced [hould])

traa - traad - traan - to twist
        trew

Sandy wrote elsewhere:

"If A dinna translate throu English A can juist see it as meanin (like A
says) "somebody that's haed their heid brak." =:(  Or mibbie somebody that
gaes aboot brekkin fowk's heids? It's no gittin ony better!"

Is this ye uisin 'brak' for a pp. whaur I wad uise 'broken'?

John M. Tait.

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