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Regular and Irregular Verbs

This document provides a lecture on regular and irregular verbs from the Canadian University of Modern Technology. [1] It defines regular verbs as those that form their past and past participle tenses by adding "d", "ed", or "ied" to the root verb. [2] Irregular verbs are defined as those that do not follow this pattern and instead completely change their form or have identical present/past/participle forms. [3] The document concludes by contrasting that regular verbs follow standard inflection rules while irregular verbs have varying rules for forming their past and past participle tenses.

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Saeed Kabba
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34 views

Regular and Irregular Verbs

This document provides a lecture on regular and irregular verbs from the Canadian University of Modern Technology. [1] It defines regular verbs as those that form their past and past participle tenses by adding "d", "ed", or "ied" to the root verb. [2] Irregular verbs are defined as those that do not follow this pattern and instead completely change their form or have identical present/past/participle forms. [3] The document concludes by contrasting that regular verbs follow standard inflection rules while irregular verbs have varying rules for forming their past and past participle tenses.

Uploaded by

Saeed Kabba
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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CANADIAN UNIVERSITY OF MODERN TECHNOLOGY (CCMT)

LECTURE MATERIALS

MODULE Communication Skills

DEPARTMENT(S) BAM, BIT, COMPT.SCI. ,MASS COMM.,


ACC.& FIN., AGRIC.,……………
YEAR 1
SEMESTER 1
LECTURER Khalil Ibrahim Abdul-Rahman Fofanah

TOPIC.1 Regular and Irregular verbs

What are regular verbs?

Regular Verbs are those verbs that form both their past and past participle tenses
by inflecting the root word (infinitive form of the verb) with either, ‘d’, ‘ed’ or
‘ied’. Such inflection is said to be a suffix.
Examples:
i. Move (root word) moved (past tense) Moved (past participle)
ii. Walk (root word) walked (past tense) walked (past participle)
iii. Carry (root word) carried (past tense) carried (past participle)

This consistency in the formation of both the past and past participle tenses gives
the name, ‘ regular’ verbs.
Note that when the infinitive ends with the vowel, ‘e’, we add only, ‘d’; when it
ends with a consonant, we add, ‘ed’ but when it ends with ,’y’, we add, ‘ied’.

Question Is the letter, ‘y’ a consonant or a vowel?


Also note that, in the British way of spelling words, when a word ends with the
letters, ‘b’ ‘l’, ‘m’, ‘n’, ‘p’, ‘r’ , ‘t’; you double such consonant before adding the,
‘ed’.
This British English rule is also applicable before the addition of the, ‘ing’ to such
words. However, the American maintain the single consonant.

Question: Give examples of such words. ( 1 minute)

What are irregular verbs

Irregular verbs are those verbs have some special ways forming their past tense
and past participle forms. They do not end with, ‘d’, ‘ed’, or ‘ied’; rather, they
change their forms completely, in a sense that the irregular verbs are transformed
into an entirely different words. They are sub-divided into four basic ways. They
include,

i. Those that have all three (present, past and past participle) having
different words or forms.

Eg. Eat (present) ate ( past tense) eaten (past participle)


rise (present) rose ( past tense) risen (past participle)

ii. Those that have both past and past participle the same but not with the
addition of the ‘d’, ‘ed’, or ‘ied’.

Eg. build (present) built ( past tense) built (past participle)


fight (present) fought ( past tense) fought (past participle)

iii. Those that have the same form for both present and past participle

Eg. come (present) came ( past tense) come (past participle)

iv. Those that have the same forms for all the three tenses, present, past and
past participle.

Eg. hit (present) hit ( past tense) hit (past participle)

bust (present) bust ( past tense) bust (past participle

rise (present) rose ( past tense) risen (past participle


It should be noted that the fourth category has a verb that maintains the
infinitive by changes occur in the past and past participle by a change in the
sound of the word.
Eg.
Read (root word) read (past tense) read (past participle)

CONCLUSION

The differences between regular and irregular verbs

Regular verbs can be described as those verbs that follow the standard rule in
forming their past and past participle forms. On the other hand, Irregular verbs are
verbs having different set of rules in forming their past and past participle tenses.

Regular verbs follow a pattern of inflection, Irregular verbs end in different ways;
this is to say, their past and past participle forms are either purely different from
their infinitive form or they are similar or the same.

THANK YOU.

ANY QUESTION?

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