Date:  Mon, 13 Mar 1995 12:39:54 -0800

From:  Arnold Zwicky <zwicky[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>

Subject: Re: Has Went Down



surely the coincidence of the past participle and past

tense in many nonstandard varieties of english is well known?

the identity of these forms is the default in standard

varieties (it applies for all regular verbs, as in JUMPED,

and in a fair number of irregular verbs as well, as in

THOUGHT) and has been extended to more verbs in nonstandard

varieties, including some for which only BE distinguishes

the forms.



the extension is usually by spreading the past form - I'VE

RODE THAT HORSE, THE LETTER WAS ALREADY WROTE, THEY HAVE

WENT ALREADY - but for a few verbs by spreading the

past participle form - I DONE IT YESTERDAY, WE SEEN

THEM TOO.



in central ohio, at least, it is easy to find people,

including young people, with the regularization extended

to all verbs but BE. in one of the more entertaining

faculty meetings the ohio state linguistics department

has had in recent years, the college director of computer

services (a man of about 30, in his business suit) explained

the college's plans in his area. he was probably puzzled

at the way we all suddenly evinced interest at odd moments,

and took brief notes then. we were all fascinated by his

past participles!



the teenaged son of one of my osu colleagues used the

regularized forms in conversation, apparently without

exception, but used the standard forms in writing, also

apparently without exception. when questioned, he

explained that it would be just as wrong to *say*

I'VE GONE THERE ALREADY as it would be to *write* I'VE

WENT THERE ALREADY. he didn't understand why everybody

didn't understand that.



arnold zwicky (zwicky[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ling.ohio-state.edu)