An observation - standard grammar was originally developed as a teaching aid in Alexandria at some point in the last few centuries BCE because lots of people were learning Greek as adults. It was designed (in accordance with a popular idea of education) as a collection of rules because rules could be taught and enforced in a fairly simple-minded way. (Language-learning nowadays is much more sophisticated.) It was, and remains, a codification of the habits of first-language speakers, who learn in completely different way. There are exceptions - Chomsky's transformation grammar was developed for the very different purpose of explaining why language is how it is. Logic and the philosophical sense of grammar are completely different enterprises.

The consequence is that what are rules for language learners are habits for first-language speakers, and that use and practice determine what the rules are. (The same applies, nowadays, to dictionaries, as I'm sure you are aware.)

Grammatical irregularities (which don't occur only in verbs) are a serious nuisance to learners. Sadly, use and practice pay little attention to their problems.

My first stab at an explanation of grammatical irregular verbs would suggest that where a general rule (like adding -ed to form a past tense) is applied, the verbs in most common use are likely to develop specific variants, whether from difficulties in pronunciation (of which your iced cream is an excellent example) or local and dialect variation or from the history of the word (adopted from another language - criterion and criteria and bacterium and bacteria are examples that I have noticed.)

Good examples are always hard to find on the spot, but the contraction of I will (and I shall) to I'll (and you'll, etc.) is one that comes to mind. The difference between it's (it is) and its (of it) is another annoying example. That one comes from the traditional genitive form which consisted of adding -es to a noun, which duly contracted to -s, but the standard contraction ('s) (the leg of the table or the table's leg), itself developed an irregularity for "it". Irregularity upon irregularity. The same rule and contraction produces his for he-es. There'll be a whole variety of explanations.

I don't think that Orwell was wrong to celebrate grammatical irregularities as the result of the resistance of human beings to regimentation. There have been many attempts to regularize language with different motivations and, let us say, mixed results.

Thank you Ludwig for your answer.

The consequence is that what are rules for language learners are habits for first-language speakers, and that use and practice determine what the rules are. (The same applies, nowadays, to dictionaries, as I'm sure you are aware.) — Ludwig V

I agree in this point. You even have read my mind because I was about to post some lines related to how these rules work when you are not a not a native speaker but a learner.
When I learned English in both school and college, my teachers never explained to me why regular verbs with "-ed" and irregular have exceptions. Yet, when I failed more than one English grammar text, those teachers simply said: "please study harder the English grammar"
But according to Steven Pinker, it is not something to be ashamed of. I didn't have the rules in my mind, so I simply put  "-ed" in the verbs, whose irregular form I hadn't learned yet.

Grammatical irregularities (which don't occur only in verbs) are a serious nuisance to learners. Sadly, use and practice pay little attention to their problems — Ludwig V

All children (and myself included) make error in the speech like this: "My teacher holded the baby rabbits and we patted them"
Berko Gleason analyzed this pattern in an experiment with 4 and 7 years old kids.
Gleason stated that children are not parrots who just play back what they hear. Children therefore are not like pigeons in a Skinner box, who increase or decrease the frequency of responses in reaction to contingencies of reinforcement.

You mentioned Chomsky and yes, he and Eric Lenneberg are pioneers in this field and they both stated that children's ability to generalize constructions such as the regular past tense is actively acquired by a special rule-forming mechanism in the mind of the child.

All languages force to their speakers to memorize thousands of arbitrary words. Languages differ in their division of labor between simple words and grammatical combinations, and some, such as Native American languages, have fewer words and more rules. But even in these languages speakers cannot deduce the meaning of most words from their sound, and must commit whole words to memory.

Steven Pinker's Words and Rules: The ingredients of Language, — javi2541997

I read this when it was released, don't remember much about it now. I read another book or something that tried to explain some of the points he raised, but I don't remember that either.

What I do remember is that a lot of imported words were corrupted over time by early localized pronunciation and as the art of writing became more popular words tend to stabilize in the way they were written and spoken.

If I remember correctly, the explanation for words like think, thank came from the same Germanic roots and were mispronounced to hell in England until they got where they are today. Thank could not be used as the past tense of think because it was already in use, the same with thunk.
As Ludwig notes

whether from difficulties in pronunciation — Ludwig V

many words were not used because of the way they rolled off the tongue, "thinked" is not easy to say.

But what puts the brakes on theories like that is that

That's how we ended up with ice cream (originally iced cream). — javi2541997

we still say "iced tea".

I learned Spanish as an adult nearly 50 years ago, and believe me irregular verbs still give me problems.

At the first glance irregular verbs would seem to have no reason to live. Why should language have forms that are just cussed exceptions to a rule? What do you think? — javi2541997

Some of the verb endings are irregular because they originated in other langauges and then were brought into English.

There are languges with no regular verbs and there are languages that have far more designators than English.

At the first glance irregular verbs would seem to have no reason to live. Why should language have forms that are just cussed exceptions to a rule? What do you think? — javi2541997

Irregularities may have been regularities in earlier languages, or in other languages. Many irregular verbs would likely have been regular had their rules survived or made it into English. People who know more about etymology than I could probably tell you more about this than I, but I'm fairly sure many irregular verbs are really old and preserved older forms. And many are also really common (say, to be, or to go).

Pinker is talking about how people today learn their language. Irregular verbs may seem chaotic today, but there's a history behind them, and if you know them they lose some of their unpredictability. I have an example not from irregular verbs, but from plurals.

Normally, you tack on an -s, and that's it. There are exceptions, though. For example, nouns that end in -us take -i as their plural, but only if they come from Latin. Words such as octopus and platipus also end in -us, and you often hear the question "What's the plural of octopus?" Native speakers sense that "Octopi" doesn't sound right, but often aren't confident enough to just add "-es", even though "octopusses" is correct: "-us" is not a Latin suffix; -pus is a variant of pous which is Greek for foot. There is a minority plural ("octopodes") which you sometimes can read.

These irregularities sort of follow rules (you just have to know a lot about a language's history), and sort of don't (there's no rule governing which exceptions survive, at least none that I know of). It's really like anything that grows: it carries traces of its history with it.

Sometimes, people are wrong about applying exceptions from a historical perspective, but wrong often enough that it becomes part of the language. For example, as a native speaker of German I've always been confused about "adder" for that particular snake. What is it "adding"? Where does this come from? Well, it turns out "a nadder" got reinterpreted into "an adder", and "nadder" is pretty similar to the German word "Natter". So now it makes sense.

Basically, when languages grow rules change, but some traces of older rules may remain. Languages may absorb parts of other languages, and sometimes keep "foreign" rules as exceptions and sometimes not. And sometimes mistaken theories accumulate. There's usually no institution that guards the "correctness" of a language.

Often there's also dispute about what's correct. There are "zombie rules" that aren't really rules when you look at the actual usage, but you still hear them a lot. There are dialect variants that are incorrect in most versions of the language, but not in that one dialect. And all those things might flow into each other: none of those things are fixed and invariant. For example, one person's dispute might be another person's zombie rule ("five items or less", correct or not?).

As for "banning irregular verbs to crush the human spirit," that's just silly. Irregular verbs aren't a sign of spirit. They're just part of the language. Banning them isn't going to get you rebels. Anyone's going to slip up, and if there's punishment for using them, the likely result isn't avoidence of irregular verbs but people talking less and less in public, and creating more and more secret spaces. I mean, in the end, if successful, you *will* crush the human spirit, but it'll have little to do with irregular verbs, and more to do with making and brutally enforcing an arbitrary, hard-to-follow rule about something really common (regulating the length of your stride, for example, might have a similar effect).

many words were not used because of the way they rolled off the tongue, "thinked" is not easy to say.

But what puts the brakes on theories like that is that — Sir2u

This point is interesting because Steven Pinker also provides some lines about it.
Pinker states that the very obliviousness to the details of the verb that makes a rule so powerful can let it blindly jam a suffix onto the end of an inhospitable sound. The result can be uneuphonious tongue-twister such as edited ir sithxs. Examples like these are never found among the irregulars, which all have standard Anglo-Saxon word sounds such as "grew", which please the ear and roll off the tongue.

It is clear to me where irregular verbs in English come from. What is twisted (in my honest opinion) is the conjugation. As Pinker noticed in his book, irregular verbs are idiosyncratic, so we do not have any chance other than to memorise why the past-tense of think is tought and not thinked. It is just the exception to the rule.  When some modern words came into common parlance, such as fax, no one had its past tense form, but obviously everyone adopted the regular form: "faxed". It's less chaotic.

First of all, it is important to highlight the fact that I am not taking part in the critique of Pinker on the usefulness or uselessness of irregular verbs. Yet, I guess he is raising very good points regarding learning. As I perceived this morning, we just learned that the past of think is thought and not "thinked.". But rather than having a "logic" in its conjugation, it is just a mix of etymology and pleasure to the tongue.

On the other hand, he raised another point to consider of. Regular verbs are predictable, while irregular are chaotic for a child or learner. Meanwhile regular verbs just need an "-ed" in the ending, irregular verbs have different conjugation. the past tense of ring is "rang" but the the past tense of buy is "bought" and some verbs such as "cut" doesn't mutate. It keeps the same form, "cutted" doesn't exist.

Well, I am interested in understand why this happens in all languages apart from its etymology, and why people keep the irregular verbs when they are so chaotic.
What is proven with some cases and experiments, is the fact that children tend to use logic when they do not recognise a verb. For example: they mistakenly say "patted a dog" instead of "pet a dog", etc... because when they do not know a specific verb they just conjugated in the regular form... as it should be, right?

My point is not absolutely remove irregular verbs, but to state that they are learned just because memory.

When some modern words came into common parlance, such as fax, no one had its past tense form, but obviously everyone adopted the regular form: "faxed". It's less chaotic. — javi2541997

But we have computer mouses because of the general rule that we accept the more modern forms over the older forms when we create new words, but maybe it would make more sense to say I have computer mice if I have two mouses.

I do see why you'd say the Childs are coming for dinner as opposed to the Children are coming for dinner if Mr. and Mrs. Child were coming over. I always liked that joke.

One thing you see in languages spoken by people from many different backgrounds is a reduction in word designators because they are largely unneeded. For example, in modern English (unlike older forms), we say I walk, he walks, they walk, we walk, you walk. Note that the word only changes form once, but then compare the various ways you'd have to say that in your native tongue.

One thing that grates on my ears is the common misuse of the past participles in the past perfect, as in, "I have come home" versus the incorrect "I have came home." I used to hear that only among the uneducated, but it's everywhere now. A point could be made that these identifiers are irrelevant.

Regular verbs are predictable, while irregular are chaotic for a child or learner. — javi2541997

I'd just point out that irregular verbs are difficult for adult, non-native speakers, but not for children. They may make errors at first, but it's generally not difficult to distinguish a non-native speaker who learned as an adult versus a non-native speaker who learned as a child.

In terms of what makes languages hard to learn, it's not just having to learn exceptions to general rules, but all sorts of things go into language difficulty: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/learning-the-lingo-the-5_b_997685

One thing you see in languages spoken by people from many different backgrounds is a reduction in word designators because they are largely unneeded. For example, in modern English (unlike older forms), we say I walk, he walks, they walk, we walk, you walk. Note that the word only changes form once, but then compare the various ways you'd have to say that in your native tongue. — Hanover

I agree.

One thing that grates on my ears is the common misuse of the past participles in the past perfect, as in, "I have come home" versus the incorrect "I have came home." I used to hear that only among the uneducated, but it's everywhere now. A point could be made that these identifiers are irrelevant. — Hanover

OK, this exploded my mind. I always used the past participle in the past perfect. So yes, when I want to say in English "he venido a casa" (I have came home), even Google translates it as it is. Now I am very worried because I guess that maybe I am committing the same mistake with other verbs in English...  But what I do not understand is if it is used anyway or if we should correct it despite the fact that most people use the conjugation wrongly.

My mind is twisted in this point... so the correct form is: I have come home and not "I have came home"

I'd just point out that irregular verbs are difficult for adult, non-native speakers, but not for children. — Hanover

Well, it is difficult for kids anyway, because irregular verbs are less predictable, and this is my point. While they are learning, they just add "-ed" to a verb that they do not have in their knowledge.  So, I think this is why Pinker raised a good point regarding irregular verbs: are they logic, or do we just memorise them because they have been part of our vocabulary for centuries?

My mind is twisted in this point... so the correct form is: I have come home and not "I have came home" — javi2541997

"I have come home" is correct. If someone said, "I had came home, " I'd think either they are non-native, not as formally educated, or millennial.

He had seen (not saw). He had done (not did). He had gone (not went). He had run (not ran). Perfect tense takes the past participle.

are they logic, or do we just memorise them because they have been part of our vocabulary for centuries? — javi2541997

Both. Those languages with more irregularities pose more serious problems for non-native adults than anything else, but that might be an evolutionary stranger danger attribute. Knowing who isn't from your tribe can matter, especially historically.

But I speculate.

Perfect tense takes the past participle. — Hanover

OK, thanks a lot. I get it now.

Knowing who isn't from your tribe can matter, especially historically. — Hanover

To be honest, for me, it is the main cause of irregular forms. Otherwise, they just complicate the process of learning and understanding. I don't want to remove it, and I am aware that it is not impossible to learn, but it surprises me how some words or verbs are just there because of etymology rather than rules. Interesting indeed... After years of studying and reading English, I am conscious that the past tense of come is "came" not "comed". Pinker says that there are 180 of these exceptions from regular forms, and he states that we have to do the effort to allocate them in our memory, despite the fact that the lexicon and syntax are not regular...

Our collective knowledge has put together an impressive (I don't suppose it is exhaustive) array of explanations. It reveals that language is just as messy as life. Who knew? Certainly not philosophers. It should be compulsory reading on all introductory courses.

A partisan remark. This illustrates why I prefer to talk about specific bits of language, rather than language as such. Language games, with many structures, not Language, with a single structure.

I hope I didn't give the impression that I was dismissive of or unsympathetic to the problems of people learning a second (third...) language. I learnt Latin, Greek and (modern) French and have since picked up some German and Swedish. What I admire most is those rare people who seem able to acquire at least a basic knowledge of a language very quickly. People who are fluent in five languages, or who learn Hungarian for fun. (Now, that's a really difficult language, or so I'm told.)

There is a history of attempts to reform and regularize language. France and Sweden have had government regulation for more than 100 years. When Greece acquired independence from the Ottoman Empire, there was an move to revert to pure Greek, divested of all those pesky bits of Turkisn that had crept in. The result was two dialects, "purified" for use on formal, official occasions and "popular" for everyday life.

There's also a developing story of the break-up of English, which I confess I don't know much about. It will probably be rather like what happened to Latin in Western Europe.

As for "banning irregular verbs to crush the human spirit," that's just silly — Dawnstorm

On reflection, you're right. Sadly, they have plenty of other ways.

One thing that grates on my ears is the common misuse of the past participles in the past perfect, as in, "I have come home" versus the incorrect "I have came home." I used to hear that only among the uneducated, but it's everywhere now. A point could be made that these identifiers are irrelevant. — Hanover

I haven't come across that one.

There are things that bother me, also. Misuse of the apostrophe is one of current ones; it the apostrophe seems to be disappearing from the vernacular. I think that people get confused about it and so leave it out.

What it shows is how deeply the rules are ingrained and how disorienting it can be when they are broken. It's like walking down stairs and hitting the ground instead of another step (or conversely).

An observation. It seems that it is the most everyday, and most ancient parts, of language that acquire the most irregularities. New forms seem to conform much better to the rules.

Pinker says that there are 180 of these exceptions from regular forms, — javi2541997

Only 180? You surprise me.

There is a history of attempts to reform and regularize language. France and Sweden have had government regulation for more than 100 years. When Greece acquired independence from the Ottoman Empire, there was an move to revert to pure Greek, divested of all those pesky bits of Turkisn that had crept in. The result was two dialects, "purified" for use on formal, official occasions and "popular" for everyday life. — Ludwig V

This point is interesting, and yes, some governments have ruled on linguistics. France is indeed a good example. But, if I am not mistaken, the competent authority to rule on this matter is the Académie française. This public (or private?) institute has the simple goal of keeping well written and spoken French. Nonetheless, it has received a lot of criticism, for being "classic" and "euro- centralised" and not taking into account other kinds of French, such as the one that comes from Africa.

Well, this also happens in Spain. We have the so called "Real Academia Española" and it receives the same criticism as above.  Speak and write accurately in whatever language is important. Yet, I think this issue is not part of politics but philosophy of language and linguistics.

Only 180? You surprise me. — Ludwig V

It surprised me too!

There are things that bother me, also. Misuse of the apostrophe is one of current ones; it the apostrophe seems to be disappearing from the vernacular. I think that people get confused about it and so leave it out. — Ludwig V

They are attempting to remove the apostrophes from street names in England, which is upsetting to some: https://www.shropshirestar.com/news/2014/01/22/grammar-is-off-the-mark-for-apostrophes-on-shropshire-road-signs/

In the US, I don't know that I've seen the apostrophe in street names, like if it were Baker's Street, I would expect it to be Bakers Street. I'm not as concerned about that sort of thing because it's an arbitrary street name and they can name it whatever they want.

But what I do not understand is if it is used anyway or if we should correct it despite the fact that most people use the conjugation wrongly. — javi2541997

According to most of the theories of language development that I have read, this is what causes the changes. If enough people use a certain way of expressing something and it stays around for long enough it will become acceptable.
It might stay regional as in a lot of villages and small towns have different ways of talking or national like the US or India English. Rarely I think nowadays would you see a major change in any of the major languages except in the use of new additions (text as a verb, mouses) or trend words(groovy) that usually die off after a while.

I think that there are nearly 2 billion English speakers in the world, it would be difficult for them all to change to one way of speaking, and I don't just mean accents.

I remember long ago when I worked in England. We were doing some landscaping in a maternity hospital when a little dark women came charging at us shouting and screaming. We stopped what we were doing so we could hear her and got the shock of our lives.
"You must all stop making bang bang noises and away from here you need to go. I cannot hear the babies ticking in the mummy belly"

We ran.

Soon after that I left England and I am glad I did. If you listen to the way some of the kids speak in their utube videos you can hardly understand what they are saying.

I understand. Yet, this is where I disagree or at least I am against it. We can’t allow changes in a language if they are “back-peddling” and destroys the real sense/nature of the vocabulary, syntax or lexicon.

I think the core of the of decreasing culture and art is in these examples. There is a time where it seems that people don’t care about speaking and writing correctly. For example: if the past-tense of think is thought, we can’t allow people to keep saying “thinked”. Doesn’t matter if a big group use the second form.

I think that there are nearly 2 billion English speakers in the world, it would be difficult for them all to change to one way of speaking, and I don't just mean accents. — Sir2u

I agree. It is a difficult task. Nonetheless, I guess those 2 billion English speakers maintain the basic structure of grammar. Otherwise, They would be destroying the language.

This position is not necessarily from a traditionalist or conservative.

Speak and write accurately in whatever language is important. Yet, I think this issue is not part of politics but philosophy of language and linguistics. — javi2541997

I didn't know about Spain.


This is indeed a dilemma. But the real point is not quite what it seems.

One side will say that what matters is successful communication. So if an utterance serves its purpose, it's OK. So that, for example,

"You must all stop making bang bang noises and away from here you need to go. I cannot hear the babies ticking in the mummy belly" — Sir2u

worked perfectly well. No problem.

But if you want to communicate effectively across

nearly 2 billion English speakers in the world — Sir2u

, it's a different story. That was what underlaid the emergence of RP (Received Pronunciation) in the BBC when it started. RP was never more than a dialect, but it was quite effective for its purpose. Nowadays RP is out, for social reasons. But the BBC and its various audiences seem to be managing with quite wide dialect variations. No doubt it is easier in this world of instant communication, which presumably has some effect in preventing, or slowing down, the variation of dialects.

An anecdote - long ago, I was visiting Sweden and, miraculously, bumped into someone who was also seriously learning Latin. (I spoke about six words of Swedish and he had no English.) We tried swopping quotations, and I realized, to my (naive) astonishment that Swedish people pronounce(d) Latin quite differently from English people. We could probably have sorted things out if we had had more time and writing things down, though limited, provided an alternative channel.

Wittgenstein has a quotation (which I'm too lazy to look up - sorry) about language being like a huge city, with the well-regulated but still individual suburbs and the confused maze of the inner, ancient, city. I think that works quite well.