![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alpharaposaBeen thinking about verbs today.
Do preach and teach come from different language roots? (One Germanic, one Roman?) If so, that would explain why one is a strong verb and one is a weak verb. If not, then were they both strong verbs at one point? Is there an archaic praught to go alongside taught?
We don't rive things these days, but we still write about trees riven by lighting when we're getting poetic.
Similarly, I can't find any definition of wrought except as a past tense of work. But obviously the word is related to wright as in shipwright.
Dived drives me nuts. I grew up with dove. However, the dictionary informs me that dive was originally a weak verb. How weird.
I really do randomly think about these things while driving home from work. I wish English were taught more like a foreign language in schools, because then students would learn more of why things are the way they are, instead of just memorizing what they are.
Do preach and teach come from different language roots? (One Germanic, one Roman?) If so, that would explain why one is a strong verb and one is a weak verb. If not, then were they both strong verbs at one point? Is there an archaic praught to go alongside taught?
We don't rive things these days, but we still write about trees riven by lighting when we're getting poetic.
Similarly, I can't find any definition of wrought except as a past tense of work. But obviously the word is related to wright as in shipwright.
Dived drives me nuts. I grew up with dove. However, the dictionary informs me that dive was originally a weak verb. How weird.
I really do randomly think about these things while driving home from work. I wish English were taught more like a foreign language in schools, because then students would learn more of why things are the way they are, instead of just memorizing what they are.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-09-25 10:36 pm (UTC)I have, in fact, seen rive used, though my reading tends to be wider and more inclusive of the antique than many folks'.
The German for "preach" is predigen, so there's a common root there. German for "teach" is lehren, which I think is related to the English word "lore," OE lar. I think both predigen and lehren are weak verbs in German.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-25 10:42 pm (UTC)OE tæcan meant to point out, as with a finger. It became the usual word after the close of the OE period.
læran was a weak verb and tæcan was a strong verb. So there you are.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-25 11:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-25 11:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-26 02:45 am (UTC)"Verb -- you're so in tense!"
no subject
Date: 2009-09-26 04:07 am (UTC)