1028: Strong Verbs (phonology) Oct 2, 2017

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In English, there are far more strong verbs than there are strong nouns, all of which change to indicate tense, so it can be easy to assume that this is the only reason that strong verbs are used grammatically. Nevertheless, in addition to ablaut reduplication and reduplication for the purpose of emphasis, sometimes—though not so much in English—strong forms can feel fairly arbitrary and change for phonological reason. For instance, the German infinitive form for the word meaning 'to catch', 'fangen' becomes 'du fängen' in the second person singular informal. This process of modifying a German '-a-' into a '-ä-' is fairly common, as is '-e-' to '-i-' and '-u-' to '-ü-, even though they may remain in the same tense in the case of verbs.

This post was inspired by a fan-question; queries and comments are always welcomed.

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