if the past tense of make is made and take is took Why can't make be mook and take be tade?

Answer 1

Here's at least a partial explanation. (It may sound a bit complicated, but if you read closely I'm hopeful it will make sense.)

The modern forms "make" and "take" are more alike than the original forms of these verbs on which the past tense forms are based.

For one thing the original vowel seems to have been different. It's also possible that the "k" was originally a slightly different sound in each (though I haven't been able to fully check this out).


The pattern of each of these verbs goes WAY back -- in fact, we can see a very similar pattern in other Germanic languages.

TAKE/TOOK/(HAS) TAKEN -- this follows one of the main patterns for "strong verbs" in Germanic languages, specifically "ablaut pattern 6" in German.
http://german.about.com/library/verbs/blverb_ablaut.htm

Note that the "irregular verbs" of modern English are very common words, and that a great many of them are formed by the ancient Germanic system of "ablaut", that is, the changes in forms, esp. tense, are marked by changes in the verb's main vowel rather than by the more recent system of adding a special ending like "-ed".

(Note too that the COMMON words of a language are the very sort that tend to be irregular, to retain ancient patterns and resist being forced into a pattern. Thus the forms of "to be" and the irregular plurals of simple words like man/men, mouse/mice.)

This particular pattern (a/o-u/a) is also seen in shake/shook/shaken and forsake/forsook/forsaken


MAKE/MADE/(HAS)MADE -- this actually is fairly close to the "normal" pattern we use for most verbs (called "weak verbs"). Note that German has an exactly equivalent form and that it follows a very similar pattern: machen/machte/gemacht. If English followed that pattern we would have make/maked/maked (a "regular" pattern, just like bake/baked/(has)baked)

And maybe that's what it originally was. But why did English shift to "MADE" while German forms still follow the regular pattern here?

I think it is because German still has a consonant sound that English lost. If I'm correct, the fact that the German verb has not the K, but the German "CH" sound may be the key, because it is precisely the English equivalent of "ch" (though in English it was "gh") that was lost as Middle English shifted over to Modern English.

So German pronounces all the letters of "Nacht", but in the English equivalent "night" the "gh" is no longer pronounced. The same for light (German "Licht"), eight ("acht") and all those interesting "-ough" words in English (e.g., English through, German durch).

Now "make" was not affected by that particular change. But if my guess is correct, a SIMILAR change took place here -- that is, a soft K sound just before the "'-ed" disappeared, so that, instead of being pronounced "maked" the word ended up as "made", without the K. But since this was an EARLIER shift than the one that gave us "night" etc. the lost K was omitted from the spelling.

(For what it's worth, CH is the "voiceless velar fricative". K is the "voiceless velar stop". With a stop, the air is completely stopped from flowing [t/d, k/g, p/b]; with fricatives, the air is only partly stopped [th, [lost!], f/v])

Answer 2

well if that was going to happen either make would have to be mook and take still be took or take be tade and make stay made otherwise we would just be making the opposite.

Answer 3

Hi Sandra,

Outstanding analogy.

Best answer I can come up with is:

We do not use lig patin in Ahoo Yancers.

Excellent wit and humor on your part Sandra, I hereby award you ten points for your Excalibur question.

Happy Thanksgiving,

Darryl S.

Answer 4

That's the English language for you!

Answer 5

Simple past tense of "take" is "took." I think "was taken" is past perfect. Simple past tense of make is made, so I think was made is past perfect as well.

Answer 6

It wouldn't be the "wonderful, English language" that we know & love, would it?

Imagine how difficult it must be to learn English with all these strange deviations!!