LL-L "Grammar" 2008.03.29 (02) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L  - 29 March 2008 - Volume 02
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From: Mike Morgan <mwmosaka at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2008.03.28 (03) [E]

Paul Finlow-Bates <wolf_thunder51 at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> A fairly common past tense construction among less educated people has
> emerged in both Australia and England


Actually I suspect it is more likely that the past tense construction, which
has been supressed among educated people by their fancy book-learnin', is
still fairly commonly used among the honest, hard-workin' folk of Australia
and England. ;-)

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From: Theo Homan <theohoman at yahoo.com>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2008.03.28 (03) [E]

> From: KarlRein at aol.com
> Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2008.03.27 (05)
> [E]
>
> This doesn't sound peculiar to me at all.  Though
> since the present perfect
> is not used that much, [...]

Hi,

It is my [humble] impression that the present perfect,
which traditionally was used and preferred a lot in
the narrative style, is being replaced by the simple
past. Not only in US-English, but in the other
Lowlands-varieties as well.

Now this topic is too broad for my head and
competence, but I know there will be Lowlands-friends
who will give it a thought.

vr.gr.
Theo Homan

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From: jonny <jonny.meibohm at arcor.de>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2008.03.28 (03) [E]

Dear Heather,

you wrote:

> Reinhard/Ron wrote:
 >> I have been "armed" with the challenge "Would you say 'I have went'?"

> Can we be entirely sure that this doesn't represent a really really old
version of the verb  "to wend" from which the past tense 'went' was

> purloined and used instead of 'gang'  as in  go gang gone

An interesting thought! And now I begin to see that this is *not* comparable
with the same grammatical construction in German, where you would have to
say: 'Ich bin ging' (correctly it is: 'Ich bin gegangen';
'go-went-gone'="gehen-ging-gegangen')- that would be really awful and
unimaginable. No one ever would use it.

> I wend  I went    I have went my way home  ???????????

> ... used mostly of *cows *and drunks admittedly
*Cows*? Have you got drunken, speaking cattle over there in Worcestershire
;-)?

Friendly regards

Jonny Meibohm

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From: Diederik Masure <didimasure at hotmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2008.03.28 (03) [E]

This whole "I have went"-discussion reminded me of some other
'ungrammaticality' that I observe quite a lot among foreign students here,
even those who have quite a decent level of English. (for example Germans
seem to make this mistake quite a lot, French as well but to a lesser
extent?)
I didn't had this or that, he didn't went there, we didn't saw eachother for
a long time! (or even more 'German' of course "we didn't saw *"us"* for such
a long time!":))

What would this be based on? and, are there also genuine English varieties
that use did + past tense instead of did + infinitive?

Diederik, foreign student with currently English as his "first language":)

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Grammar

Hey, Diederik!

I'm glad you pointed that out. I've come across the same thing, also among
speakers of Spanish and Portuguese. Since, as Jonny points out indirectly
with regard to German, it doesn't make sense considering their native
languages, I have always just written (or wrote) it down to them not having
studied their conjugation tables properly. Could it be as simple as that?

Could the said, possibly long-standing phenomenon among native speakers
"below the radar" (of learned varieties) simply be indicative of a tendency
toward grammatical simplification?

Many "strong" (irregular) verbs have been simplified to become "weak"
(regular). This has resulted in choices, such as *lit* ~ *lighted*. New ones
seem to pop up once in a while, and perhaps they will become official
choices also.

Furthermore, I suspect that internationalization will bring about
streamlined generalization of grammatical choices. However, considering the
power of American media so far, this makes me wonder about cases where
American English has irregular verbs and other Englishes do not, such as *
dove* versus *dived*, and, *de facto*, *snuck* versus *sneaked*.*

*(Apparently, "snuck" began being used in the US in a jocular manner and has
become the *de facto* correct form. Less informed Americans tend to believe
my use of "sneaked" is a mistake.)

I hope you keep having fun while studying diligently, Diederik. I sure can
tell you are acquiring knowledge in leaps and bounds. Good for you!

Moin, Jonny!

My theory is that German, and also Dutch, can't go through such a change
because of the use of mandatory *ge-* in the perfective participial forms,
which English discarded a long time ago. But then again, many Northern Low
Saxon varieties of Germany have discarded it as well (e.g. *ik ga - ik güng
- ik bün~hev gaan*). In this case it may be mental reference to German that
prevents such a shift.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
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