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While English has a relatively simple conjugation, other languages such as French and Arabic or Spanish are more complex, with each verb having dozens of conjugated forms. Some languages such as Georgian and Basque (some verbs only) have highly complex conjugation systems with hundreds of possible conjugations for every verb.
For a more complete list, with derivations, see List of English irregular verbs. Further information, including pronunciation, can be found in Wiktionary. The list that follows shows the base, or infinitive form, the past tense and the past participle of the verb. a- : for abide, arise, awake, see bide, rise, wake; be (am, is, are) – was ...
Complete List of 638 English Irregular Verbs with their forms in different tenses. Mind Our English: Strong and weak by Ralph Berry. English Irregular Verb List A comprehensive list of English irregular verbs, including their base form, past simple, past participle, 3rd person singular, and the present participle / gerund. Database of all ...
A language may have more than one regular conjugation pattern. French verbs, for example, follow different patterns depending on whether their infinitive ends in -er, -ir or -re (complicated slightly by certain rules of spelling). A verb which does not follow the expected pattern based on the form of its infinitive is considered irregular.
When language change involves a shift in a language's syntax, this is called syntactic change. An example of this is found in Old English, which at one point had flexible word order, before losing it over the course of its evolution. [30] In Old English, both of the following sentences would be considered grammatically correct:
Tenses that refer specifically to "today" are called hodiernal tenses; these can be either past or future. Apart from Kalaw Lagaw Ya, another language which features such tenses is Mwera, a Bantu language of Tanzania. [citation needed] It is also suggested that in 17th-century French, the passé composé served as a hodiernal past. [15]
Sometimes, English has a lexical distinction where other languages may use the distinction in grammatical aspect. For example, the English verbs "to know" (the state of knowing) and "to find out" (knowing viewed as a "completed action") correspond to the imperfect and perfect forms of the equivalent verbs in French and Spanish, savoir and saber ...
A regular English verb has only one principal part, from which all the forms of the verb can be derived.This is the base form or dictionary form.For example, from the base form exist, all the inflected forms of the verb (exist, exists, existed, existing) can be predictably derived.