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Why did English lost the infinitive ending -en, which is still present in Dutch and German? For example, why there are verbs such as be, have, go, do, open, help, walk, like, catch, begin, eat and not been, haven, goen, doen, openen, helpen, walken, liken, catchen, beginnen, eaten? Why this happened? -- 40bus ( talk) 10:21, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
40bus -- Modern English has semi-minimal inflection, but still manages to distinguish infinitives from finite verb forms in many cases. The infinitive is different from finite past tense verb forms in all verbs except for a handful of defective "three-form" verbs: hit, cut, hurt etc. And the infinitive is different from finite present tense verb forms where it counts most, in the third person singular indicative (this ends in -s in all verbs except the modal auxiliaries, which don't have infinitives anyway). AnonMoos ( talk) 23:14, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
Imagine I have a photo of several people left to right in the order A,B,C,D,E etc. Obviously "A" is "on the left". Who is "two from the left", is it "B" or "C"? -- SGBailey ( talk) 12:13, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
Thx -- SGBailey ( talk) 13:42, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
Language desk | ||
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< November 15 | << Oct | November | Dec >> | November 17 > |
Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives |
---|
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages. |
Why did English lost the infinitive ending -en, which is still present in Dutch and German? For example, why there are verbs such as be, have, go, do, open, help, walk, like, catch, begin, eat and not been, haven, goen, doen, openen, helpen, walken, liken, catchen, beginnen, eaten? Why this happened? -- 40bus ( talk) 10:21, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
40bus -- Modern English has semi-minimal inflection, but still manages to distinguish infinitives from finite verb forms in many cases. The infinitive is different from finite past tense verb forms in all verbs except for a handful of defective "three-form" verbs: hit, cut, hurt etc. And the infinitive is different from finite present tense verb forms where it counts most, in the third person singular indicative (this ends in -s in all verbs except the modal auxiliaries, which don't have infinitives anyway). AnonMoos ( talk) 23:14, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
Imagine I have a photo of several people left to right in the order A,B,C,D,E etc. Obviously "A" is "on the left". Who is "two from the left", is it "B" or "C"? -- SGBailey ( talk) 12:13, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
Thx -- SGBailey ( talk) 13:42, 16 November 2022 (UTC)