5.1 Aspect

In 1970 the linguist Randolph Quirk argued that the regular –ed is more frequent in preterite verb forms which have an implication of duration while –t was used more often when the verb referred to a punctual event. He proved his point by conducting an elicitation experiment which showed that especially native British speakers of English tended to complete sentences like “the whole forest ____ fiercely for weeks” with the verb burned rather than with burnt. On the other hand, the sentence “the paper flared up and ____ before he could grab it” was likely to elicit a preference for the irregular form, because the action of the paper being burnt is rather fast and abrupt. By conducting a synchronic corpus-analysis, Magnus Levin demonstrated only recently that the verb burn is among those which show a significant correlation between preterite –t forms and punctual aspect (cf. 2009: 66). Therefore the question arises how the impact on the distribution of burned and burnt can be depicted historically. After all, Levin ascribes the survival of the two variants explicitly to the specialized meanings they have (cf. 2009: 67), which thus implies historical origins of these specifications.

In addition to that, Quirk states that –t and -ed are “more solidly associated with past participle and preterite respectively than with effective and durative” (cf. 1970: 310). Thus he claims the aspectual distinction in the preterite to be extrapolated from the past participle, “where the –t forms took firmer root than in the preterite.” To prove this he mentions evidence from Middle English which suggested the conclusion that the voiceless inflection had its beginnings in the past participle rather than in the preterite. Therefore, the first aim of this example study is to divide the distribution of burned and burnt into past participle and preterite forms and to subsequently show whether the suggested convergence can be pinned down.

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