The salience of vowel change and regularization

In this section, I explore the salience of vowel change that may have an effect on the retention of regularization processes in a set of doublet verbs whose past and perfect forms allow both IVs and RV like learned/learnt. For the purpose of this investigation, 42 doublet

verbs were selected from a list of 616 English IVs¹³. In table 18, I list the 42 doublet verbs: 21 of them show no vowel change between IVs and RFs and other 21 undergo vowel change. Then, I collect word frequencies of these verbs split by type, form and vowel change in the selected sample to draw comparisons (see table 19). I intuitively assume that regularization processes that involve vowel change from IVs to RVs will meet more resistance than the ones with no vowel change

Table 18: The selected 42 doublet verbs from a list of 616 English IVs Without Vowel Change Vowel Change

1. bend-bent-bent abide-abode-abidden

2. bless-blest-blest alight-alit-alit

3. burn-burnt-burnt beseech-besought-besought

4. bust-bust-bust chide-chid-chid

5. clap-clapt-clapt clothe-clad-clad

6. dwell-dwelt-dwelt creep-crept-crept

7. forecast-forecast-forecast dream-dreamt-dreamt

8. geld-gelt-gelt grind-ground- ground

9. gird-girt-girt hang-hung-hung

10. ken-kent-kent heave-hove-hove

11. learn-learnt-learnt kneel-knelt- knelt

12. pen-pent-pent leap-leapt-leapt

13. rid-rid-rid light-lit-lit

14. smell-smelt-smelt shine-shone- shone

15. spell-spelt-spelt slink-slunk-slunk

16. spill-spilt-spilt sneak-snuck-snuck

17. spoil-spoilt-spoilt speed-sped-sped

18. strip-stript-stript stave-stove-stove

19. sweat-sweat-sweat strive-strove-striven

20. wed-wed-wed tread-trod-trodden

21. wet-wet-wet weave-wove-woven

Table 19: Word frequencies of the 42 doublet verbs split by type, form and vowel change in the selected sample

The doublet verbs with no vowel change The doublet verbs with vowel change

13 This is a comprehensive list of 616 English IVs, including their base form, past simple, perfect and definitions from UsingEnglish.com.

Verbs Past Perfect

Table 20 below presents the total word frequencies and mean frequencies of IVs and RFs of the 42 verbs in the past and perfect forms in the selected sample to show a general overview of the distribution of these doublet verbs. Comparing IVs, the frequencies of the verbs with vowel change (word frequency: 25,826 and mean frequency: 1,230) are higher than those with no vowel change (word frequency: 8,079 and mean frequency: 385). On the contrary, when comparing RFs, the frequencies of RFs with no vowel change (word frequency: 99,107 and mean frequency: 4,719) are higher than those with vowel change (word frequency: 8,751 and mean frequency: 417).

Table 20: Frequency distributions of the 42 doublet verbs split by form, type and vowel change in the selected sample

Type / Form Word frequencies of the verbs

With no vowel change With vowel change

In figure 17, I illustrate frequency distribution of the data by presenting bar charts of relative frequencies of IVs and RFs in vowel change group (in red) and in no vowel change group (in blue), since the number of word frequency depends on the size of the selected sample. The regularization rates with no vowel change in both forms (past: 93% and perfect: 92%) are larger than the ones with vowel change (past: 24% and perfect: 28%).

Figure 17: Bar charts of relative frequencies of IVs and RFs of the 42 verbs in the past and perfect forms

To examine the effect of the salience of vowel change and form on word frequencies of RFs in the selected sample, I conducted a statistical model. I adopted a linear mixed model, where word frequency of RFs was considered as a dependent variable and the variables: the salience of vowel change (with two levels: vowel change and no vowel change) and form (with two levels: past and perfect) were integrated as fixed factors. Due to few data points in the selected sample, the linear mixed model reveals that the main effects of the salience of vowel change (β = -0.31, t =-0.41, p =0.68) and form (β =0.30, t =0.51, p =0.61), in addition to effects of the interaction between them (β =-0.69, t =-0.82, p =0.41) are all not significant. Still, the findings of the descriptive analysis show that the overall regularization rate with no vowel change (92%) is higher than the one with vowel change (8%). This suggests that the salience of vowel change may have an effect on the retention of regularization processes in doublet verbs.

To have a closer look at preferences of the individual verbs for regularization processes in the selected sample, in table 21, I draw comparisons among these verbs in the two groups (with and without vowel change). I list the verbs according to their relative frequencies of RFs (high to low) in the past and perfect forms. The highlighted verbs indicate a preference of more than 50 %; the orange highlighted colour for the verbs with no vowel change and the blue highlighted colour for the verbs with vowel change. In the past form, 11 verbs are highlighted in the no vowel change group, whereas only 8 verbs are found in the vowel change group.

Similarly, in the perfect form, there are 13 highlighted verbs in the no vowel change group, while only 9 verbs are observed in the vowel change group. Hence, in both forms, the regularization rates of the verbs in the vowel change group are lower than the ones in the no vowel change group. As predicted, this tells that the verbs with vowel change will meet with more resistance in regularization processes (and consequently display fewer RFs) than the verbs with no vowel change. Therefore, the findings of this descriptive analysis explain the influence of the salience of change on the retention of regularization processes in both forms: IVs with no vowel change appear to be regularized more often than IVs with vowel change Contemporary English. This is in line with results of the study of De Clerck and Vanopstal (2015) in which a correlation between regularization processes and the inflectional variation is attested.

Table 21: Preferences of the 42 doublet verbs for regularization processes

No vowel change verbs Vowel change verbs

past perfect past perfect

strip pen clothe abide

bend wet chide stave

In conclusion, the data yielded by the synchronic study of regularization in sections 4.3.2 and 4.3.3 provides evidence that regularization processes take place in Contemporary English.

In addition, a relationship between word frequency and regularization is attested: the regularization rate among IVs with low frequency (60%) is higher than the one with high frequency (0.43%). However, the data suggests that there is no clear relationship between word frequency and regularization in the past and perfect forms. These findings are consistent with the predictions of the dual-mechanism approach. This approach hypothesizes that word frequency strengthens the representations of IVs in the associative memory that make them easier to be accessed and therefore more resistant to regularization processes. Hence, from the dual-mechanism perspective, IVs with low frequency are more disposed to regularization processes than IVs with high frequency.

Moreover, I had a deeper look at the data of the selected 42 doublet verbs to check whether there is a link between the salience of vowel change and regularization processes. The results of the descriptive analysis display that vowel change (or absence of it) in these verbs may suggest an effect on the retention of regularization processes: the verbs without vowel change show less resistance to regularization processes and thus be regularized faster than those with vowel change in both forms. These results are consistent with results of the study of De Clerck and Vanopstal (2015) in which a correlation between regularization processes and the inflectional variation is attested.

In the next section, I will investigate the synchronic relationship between word frequency and irregularization processes to provide further evidence either with or against single and dual mechanism approaches.