Defective verb
In linguistics, a defective verb is a verb with an incomplete conjugation, or one that cannot be used in some other way as normal verbs can. Defective verbs cannot be conjugated in certain tenses, aspects, or moods.
English
Common defectives
The most commonly recognized defective verbs in English are auxiliary verbs—the class of preterite-present verbs—can/could, may/might, shall/should, must, ought to, and will/would. Though these verbs were not originally defective, in most varieties of English today, they occur only in a modal auxiliary sense. However, unlike normal auxiliary verbs, they are not regularly conjugated in the infinitive mood. Therefore, these defective auxiliaries do not accept each other as objects. Additionally, they do not regularly appear as participles.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 write and I was able to write have the same meaning, I could has two meanings depending on use, which are I was able to or I would be able to. One cannot say *I will can, which is instead expressed as I will be able to. Similarly, must has no true past tense form, this instead being supplied by had, 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 have been lightning."
Some verbs are becoming more defective as time goes on; for example, although might is etymologically the past tense of may, it is no longer generally used as such. Similarly, should is no longer used as the past of shall, but with a separate meaning indicating possibility or moral obligation. The defective verb ought was etymologically the past tense of owe, but it has since split off, leaving owe as a non-defective verb with its original sense and a regular past tense.
Beyond the modal auxiliaries, beware is a fully-fledged defective verb of English: it is used as an imperative and an infinitive, but very rarely or never as a finite verb, especially with inflectional endings. The word begone is similar: any usage other than as an imperative is highly marked. Another defective verb is the archaic quoth, a past tense which is the only surviving form of the verb quethe, "to say".
Impersonal verbs
s such as to rain and to snow share some characteristics with the defective verbs in that forms such as I rain or they snow are not often found; however, the crucial distinction is that impersonal verbs are "missing" certain forms for semantic reasons—in other words, the forms themselves exist and the verb is capable of being fully conjugated with all its forms but some forms are unlikely to be found because they appear meaningless or nonsensical.Nevertheless, native speakers can typically use and understand metaphorical or even literal sentences where the "meaningless" forms exist, such as I rained on his parade.
Contrast the impersonal verb rain with the defective verb can. In most cases, a synonym for the defective verb must be used instead.
Arabic
In Arabic, defective verbs are called translit=ʾafʿāl jāmidah. These verbs do not change tense, nor do they form related nouns. A famous example is the verb laysa, which translates as it is not, though it is not the only auxiliary verb that exhibits this property. Some Arabic grammarians argue that is also completely defective; those who refute this claim still consider it partially defective. Some other partially defective verbs are "" and , which have neither an imperative form nor an infinitive form when used as auxiliary verbs.Finnish
At least one Finnish verb lacks the first infinitive form. In Finnish, "kutian helposti" can be said, but for the verb "kutian" there is no non-conjugated form. Hypothetically, the first infinitive could be "kudita", but this form is not actually used. Additionally, the negative verb has neither an infinitive form nor a 1st person singular imperative form.French
Falloir, braire, frire, clore, gésir. Impersonal verbs, such as weather verbs, function as they do in English.German
In contemporary German, the verb erkiesen, which means "to choose/elect", is only used in the past participle and, more rarely, the past tense. All other forms, including the infinitive, have long become obsolete and are now unknown and unintelligible to modern speakers. It remains commonplace in the closely related Dutch language as verkiezen, e.g. :nl:Verkiezingen in Nederland|Verkiezingen in Nederland.Classical Greek
"No single Greek verb shows all the tenses", and "most verbs have only six of" the nine classes of tense-systems, and "carcely any verb shows all nine systems".The verb χρή, only exists in the third-person-singular present and imperfect ἐχρῆν / χρῆν.
There are also verbs like οἶδα, which use the perfect form for the present and the pluperfect for the imperfect.
Additionally, the verb εἰμί only has a present, a future and an imperfect – it lacks an aorist, a perfect, a pluperfect and a future perfect.
Hindi
In their non-aspectual conjugations, all verbs of Hindi except the copula lacks the conjugations for the present idicative, imperfect past and the presumptive mood. Also, there is no distinction between the present and future subjunctive forms for all verbs except the copula.Some Hindi verbs which have monosyllabic verb roots ending in the vowels इ, ई or ए have 2nd person formal imperative conjugations which are uncommon to native speakers of Hindi and are never used. Only for a fw very commonlt used verbs the 2nd person formal imperative exists. The * mark before some intimate imperative forms shows those forms are uncommonly used.
There is no 2nd person plural intimate pronoun and conjugation in Hindi.
Hungarian
Some Hungarian verbs have either no subjunctive forms or forms which sound uncommon to native speakers, e.g. csuklik. See also :wikt:template:U:hu-disputed-defective-verb|a short summary about them in the English-language Wiktionary.Irish
Arsa can only be used in past or present tenses. The copula is lacks a future tense, an imperative mood, and a verbal noun. It has no distinct conditional tense forms either, but conditional expressions are possible, expressed using 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 bí. Future tense forms, however, are impossible and can only be expressed periphrastically.There is also dar, a temporally independent verb that always appears in combination with the preposition le.
Korean
Korean has several defective verbs. 말다 may only be used in the imperative form or in the hortative form, after an 'action verb + 지 ' construction. Within this scope it can still conjugate for different levels of politeness, such as "하지 마!" in contrast with "하지 마십시오". Also, 데리다 is only used as 데리고, 데리러, or 데려 in some compound forms.Latin
has defective verbs that possess forms only in the perfect tense; such verbs have no present tense forms whatsoever. These verbs are still present in meaning. For example, the first-person form odi and infinitive odisse appear to be the perfect of a hypothetical verb *odo/odio, but in fact have a present-tense meaning. Similarly, the verb memini, meminisse is conjugated in the perfect, yet has a present meaning:Instead of the past-tense "I remembered", "you remembered", etc., these forms signify the present-tense "I remember", "you remember", etc. Latin defective verbs also possess regularly formed pluperfect forms with simple past tense meanings and future perfect forms with simple future tense meanings. Compare deponent verbs, which are passive in form but active in meaning.
The verb coepī, coepisse, which means "to have begun" or "began", is another verb that lacks a present tense system. However, it is not present in meaning. The verb incipiō, incipere is used in the present tense instead. This is not a case of suppletion, however, because the verb incipere can also be used in the perfect.
The verbs inquit and ait, both meaning "said", cannot be conjugated through all forms. Both verbs lack numerous inflected forms, with entire tenses and voices missing altogether.
Polish
widać and słychać are both highly defective in Polish. The only forms of these verbs that exist are the infinitives.Portuguese
A large number of Portuguese verbs are defective in person, i.e., they lack the proper form for one of the pronouns in some tense. The verb colorir has no first-person singular in the present, thus requiring a paraphrase, like estou colorindo or the use of another verb of a similar meaning, like pintar.Russian
Some Russian verbs are defective, in that they lack a first person singular non-past form: for example, победить, убедить, дудеть. These are all verbs whose stem ends in a palatalized alveolar consonant; they are not a closed class, but include in their number neologisms and loanwords such as френдить. Where such a verb form would be required, speakers typically substitute a synonymous verb, or use a periphrastic construction involving nominalization and an additional verb. Also the word "смогу " is used: " смогу победить", ".Many experiential verbs describe processes that humans cannot generally undergo, such as пригореть, куститься, and протекать —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. 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.
Spanish
Spanish defective verbs generally use forms with stem endings that begin with -i.- Abolir
- agredir
- aguerrir
- arrecirse
- aterirse
- balbucir found in forms ending in -i, but mostly replaced by balbucear.
- blandir
- despavorir
- empedernir
- garantir
- soler Always used as helping verb, so many forms, although possible, won't make sense.
- usucapir only in the infinitive in legal texts.
Swedish