Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2015 January 24

= January 24 =

Does verb conjugation serve any function in modern English?
Does verb conjugation serve any function in modern English? Why is it that modal auxiliaries are not conjugated but other auxiliaries, like verbs in general, are? --108.36.120.196 (talk) 23:12, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Define "function", so we can meaningfully answer... -- Jayron 32 23:25, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Let me clarify by rephrasing my first question: In English, does verb conjugation signal or communicate something that would be lost if we stopped doing it? --108.36.120.196 (talk) 23:33, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, if you had said "In English, did verb conjugation signal or communicate something...", would that mean the same thing? --65.94.50.4 (talk) 00:03, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Certainly, because the English language serves more purposes than mere commands for others to follow. The entire body of anglophone culture, from the way we speak with each other, to our literature and poetry, is intrinsically tied to the way our language is constructed.  A functional language can be constructed with very minimal forms, and be fully able to describe objects and issue commands.  Certain Experimental languages, created more for novel study than as serious attempts to create a new native language, such as progamming languages like Brainfuck or speakable languages like Loglan, do exist and attempt to explore things like semiotics and other esoteric linguistic ideas.  English, however, is more than that.  As a language, it is a medium of art and expression as well, and the specific type of art and expression in inherent in the way the language is built, including verb conjugation.  In many ways, the way English speakers think and view the world at a fundamental level has to to with the way English is put together.  Native French, or Chinese, or Arabic, etc. speakers have distinctly different cultures and societies and art and whatnot, because, in part, their language operates differently than English.  The purpose of any aspect of a language as a functional unit is of marginal importance.  Instead, it's the way the language shapes and forms the culture (and visa-versa, it isn't a one-way relationship.  Culture shapes language as well) that is very important.  When you imply with your question that some aspect of a language is "unimportant" or you question its reason to even exist, you're only focusing on the practical, literal, and functional aspect of the language, and not the importance the language, at the most basic level, provides for those aspects of the human experience that exist outside of the merely functional.  See interrelated subject matters like Sociolinguistics, Linguistic anthropology, Ethnolinguistics, etc. for more studies in this area.  -- Jayron 32 00:07, 25 January 2015 (UTC)


 * 108.36.120.196 -- English hasn't really lost much inflectional distinctiveness since the mid-15th century (EXCEPT the loss of former 2nd. person singular inflections, which was mainly due to complex external sociolinguistic factors), so the current situation has been fairly stable for a long time. The modal auxiliaries go back to old "preterite-present verbs", which were inflected with past tense endings in early Germanic languages even when they had present meanings.  The only inflection in the modern English regular verbs which might be considered more ornamental than functional is third-person singular present "-s", since the other regular endings ("-ed", "-ing") mark real independent differences in meaning or syntax (i.e. which are not merely due to agreement with something else in the sentence)... AnonMoos (talk) 00:12, 25 January 2015 (UTC)


 * The fish has versus the fish have; He fit in the car versus he fits in the car.... Also, redundancy is a feature, not a bug. μηδείς (talk) 01:16, 25 January 2015 (UTC)