Defective verb

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In linguistics, a defective verb is a verb with an incomplete conjugation, or one which cannot be used in some other way as normal verbs can. Defective verbs cannot be conjugated in certain tenses, aspects, or moods.


Common defectives[edit]


For example, can lacks an infinitive, future tense, participle, imperative, and gerund. The missing parts of speech are instead supplied by using the appropriate forms of to be plus able to. So, while I could do it and I was able to do it are equivalent, one cannot say *I will can which is instead expressed asI will be able to. Similarly, must has no true past tense form, this instead being supplied by had the past tense of have, and "to have to" in the infinitive, an example of composite conjugation. The past tense expressing the obligatory aspect of must is expressed as "had to," as in He had to go. "Must have", on the other hand, expresses probability or likelihood in modern English, e.g., "If that's thunder, there must be lightning."



Impersonal verbs[edit]







At least one Finnish verb lacks the first infinitive form ("non-conjugated" dictionary form of the word). In Finnish, it can be said "kutian helposti" ("I'm sensitive to tickling") but for the verb "kutian" (here conjugated in singular first person, present tense) there is no non-conjugated form. Hypothetically, the first infinitive could be "kudita", but it does not really exist in the language.




In contemporary German, the verb erkiesen, which means "to choose, to elect" (usually a person for a special task or honour), is only used in the past participle (erkoren) and, quite rarely, the past tense (ich erkor etc.). All other forms, including the infinitive, have long become obsolete and are now unknown and unintelligible to most speakers.


Some verbs have no imperative form, e.g. csuklik (hiccup).


Arsa (says/said), can only be used in past or present tenses. Copula is lacks a future tense, imperative mood, and verbal noun. It has no distinct conditional tense forms, either, but conditional expressions are possible, being expressed with the past tense forms; for example Ba mhaith liom é, which can mean both "I liked it" and "I would like it". The imperative mood is sometimes suppletively created by using the imperative forms of the substantive verb . Future tense forms, however, are impossible and can only be expressed through paraphrasing.






Instead of "I remembered", "you remembered", etc., these forms signify "I remember", "you remember", etc. Latin defective verbs also possess regularly formed pluperfect forms (with a simple past tense meaning) and future perfect forms (with a simple future tense meaning). Compare deponent verbs, which are passive in form and active in meaning.




widać ("it is evident"), słychać ("it is audible"). (The only form of these verbs that exist are the infinitive forms.)




Some Russian verbs are defective, in that their first person singular non-past form is lacking: for example, победить ("to win"), убедить ("to convince"), дудеть ("to play the pipe"). These are all verbs whose stem ends in a palatalized alveolar consonant;[2] they are not a closed class, but include in their number neologisms and loanwords such as френдить ("to friend", as on a social network).[3] Where such a verb form would be required, speakers typically substitute a synonymous verb ("Я выиграю"), or use a periphrastic construction involving nominalization and an additional verb ("Я одержу победу").[citation needed]

Many experiential verbs which describe processes that humans cannot generally undergo, such as пригореть ("to be burnt", as food), куститься ("to grow in clusters"), and протекать ("to seep") are ordinarily nonsensical in the first or second person. As these forms rarely appear, they are often described as "defective" in descriptions of Russian grammar.[4] However, this is a semantic constraint rather than a syntactic one; compare the classic nonsensical-but-grammatical sentence Colorless green ideas sleep furiously, or more directly, the English phrase I am raining. First and second person forms of these verbs do see use in metaphor and poetry.[5]


Abolir (forms such as *abolo, for example);







See also[edit]


  2. ^
  3. ^ Luc Baronian and Elena Kulinich. Paradigm gaps in Whole Word Morphology. Printed in Irregularity in Morphology (and Beyond) (2012). Google Books: [1]
  4. ^ (Russian)
  5. ^