Regularities and Irregularities of Verbs

Regularities and Irregularities of Verbs

As you know by now, learning verbs means much more than learning their infinitive form and their meaning. You have to be constantly on your toes with them.

You see: the verb rules - it is the government in the sentence. You had better follow its rules, or you may talk nonsense - or say something very different from what you want to say. The same verb may be transitive or intransitive, or be followed by different kinds of objects or complements, and every time the verb changes its 'rules', it may change its meaning!

Before learning some new verb laws, let's review some of the classifications that verbs fit into.

First, to learn a verb you must know its principal parts, from which all the other forms can be derived, mostly by adding endings. We have learned some of these forms. So far we have learned two "principle parts," the infinitive and the past participle.

For a weak verb, you can take the -en ending off the infinitive and have the stem. This stem is used to form the past participle, by adding a prefix (UNLESS the verb ends in -ieren) and an ending. It is also the basis for forming the present and other tenses by adding endings.

The strong verbs also have a stem when you take the -en ending off the infinitive, but they usually have several possible stem forms! Many of them have a stem vowel change in the second and third person singular and a different change in the past participle. They also form the past participle differently from the weak verbs, though according to a regular pattern. This means that you should learn not only the infinitive and the past participle but also the second person singular of the present tense (if there is a vowel change).

Don't forget you have a number of special verbs, special because their stem ending causes troubles with the endings of the 1st, or 3rd person singular, or the second person singular and plural. Do you remember those verbs ending with -t, -d, -s, -l, -r, -[consonant] + m, [consonant] + n? You don't really need to memorize these, just remember the various patterns:

• Arbeitest du morgen?
• Ihr badet immer abends.
• Wie heißt du?
• Ich lächle freundlich.
• Ich rudre jeden Tag.
• Er atmet wieder.
• Du rechnest schnell.

Another important item to remember for each verb you learn is whether it takes 'haben' or 'sein' to form the perfect tense.

These are all qualities of the verb itself that you have to know in order to conjugate it. But there are other things you need to remember about some verbs.

You have to know if any prefix attached to the verb is separable or inseparable.

Separable prefixes are attached to the infinitive and past participle but detach themselves in a conjugated form and move to the end of the sentence.

• Sie sieht blendend aus.
• Sie schenkt Kaffee ein.
• Holt ihr mich ab?
• Macht die Tür auf, bitte!

Being separable or inseparable has also consequences for the formation of the participle. Separable prefixes precede the ge- prefix of the past participle:

• Sie hat blendend ausgesehen.
• Sie hat Kaffe eingeschenkt.

Verbs with inseparable prefixes, though, don't use the ge- prefix at all to form the past participle:

• Wir haben unsere Freunde in Florida besucht.
• Ich habe das gestern erledigt.

Another thing you have to know is if the verb is transitive (requires a direct object in the accusative) or intransitive (taking no direct object), and, if the latter, whether it requires an object in the dative. You remember, we suggested memorizing the "dative verbs" with mir.

Verbs have other quirks in their "government of the sentence." We will learn in this chapter about a few verbs that require a genitive object. Later this year we will learn about a larger class of verbs that requires a reflexive pronoun, and also about verbs that want a dass-clause to follow. Don't worry too much yet about any of these!

In this chapter we will learn one really important trick some verbs play: instead of being satisfied with ruling a direct or an indirect object, they insist on being followed by a specific preposition which links an object to the verb. We call these objects prepositional complements.