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In:English Historical Linguistics: Change in structure and meaning
Edited by Bettelou Los, Claire Cowie, Patrick Honeybone and Graeme Trousdale
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 358] 2022
► pp. 91–112

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Chapter 4
The threshold of productivity and the ‘irregularization’ of verbs in Early Modern English

 | University of Pennsylvania
 | University of Pennsylvania
Published online: 2 February 2022
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https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.358.04rin
Abstract
This paper tests whether Yang’s Tolerance Principle (TP) is useful in explaining one type of morphological change in the history of English. We suggest that some, but not all, innovative non-default past tenses that appear in the written record between 1500 and 1700 can be explained by the TP and thus could be the results of innovation in native language acquisition (NLA).
Article outline
  • 1.The Tolerance Principle, its range and limits
  • 2.English verbs in -ing
  • 3.The 16th and 17th centuries
  • 4.New past tense forms in Early Modern English
  • 5.The productivity of /ʌ/ in Early Modern English: The case of strung
  • 6.Stuck
  • 7.Strike / strick, past stroke / strake / struck
  • 8.Dug
  • 9.Looking forward
  • 10.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (28)
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Adamczyk, Elżbieta
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Clarke, Sam
2025. Number nativism1. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 110:1 ► pp. 226 ff. DOI logo
Yang, Charles
2023. A User’s Defense of the Tolerance Principle: Reply to Enger (2022). Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur 145:4 ► pp. 563 ff. DOI logo
Yang, Charles
2024. Phonological Regularity and Breakdown. An Account of Vowel Length Leveling in Middle English. In The Method Works, ► pp. 237 ff. DOI logo

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