Inflection means process of the development of word or variation in the form of a word usually in the end and sometime in the middle of a word to describe different grammatical functions like tense, number, gender, case, voice, person. Inflection is also performed on nouns, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns and other word groups along with verbs.
The process of applying inflection on a verb which is also called conjugation, the verbs are given in five different forms like base form or present form, -ing form or present participle form, s or es form or third person singular form, simple past form, past participle form etc. Difference between regular verb forms and irregular verb forms starts when both of them have a different set of rules for their formation or conjugation. Let's discuss the difference between the two.
Regular or Weak verbs are formed by adding suffix d, ed, ied at the end of base form or present infinitive of a verb. Majority of the verbs belong to the regular verbs form group. For Example
| Base Form | Past Form | Past Participle |
|---|---|---|
| Die | Died | Died (d) |
| Play | Played | Played (ed) |
| Fry | Fried | Fried (ied) |
Irregular or strong verbs have special set of rules to form past tense form. They do not take d, ed or ied rather they entirely change their form and transformed into a complete or partial new word. Sometime they change a vowel in the center of the word and sometime they change
some letters at the end of word.
Irregular verbs are less than 200 words in number and commonly used in english. Mostly they are one syllable long. Examples of iregular verbs
| Base Form | Past Form | Past Participle |
|---|---|---|
| Be, Is , Am, Are | Was, Were | Been |
| Eat | Ate | Eaten |
| Spring | Sprang | Sprung |
| Blow | Blew | Blown |
Sometime Irregular or strong verb have same past tense and past participle tense forms. For Example
| Base Form | Past Form | Past Participle |
|---|---|---|
| Dig | Dug | Dug |
| Feed | Fed | Fed |
Sometime Irregular or strong verb have same present tense and past participle tense forms. For Example
| Base Form | Past Form | Past Participle |
|---|---|---|
| Come | Came | Come |
| Become | Became | Become |
Sometime Irregular or strong verb have same present tense, past tense and past participle tense forms. For Example
| Base Form | Past Form | Past Participle |
|---|---|---|
| Put | Put | Put |
| Cut | Cut | Cut |
Some verbs are both regular and irregular means in their conjugation they can take d, ed, ied at their end and they can also adopt special set of rules used in forming irregular verbs. For example
| Base Form | Past Form | Past Participle |
|---|---|---|
| Burn | Burned/Burnt | Burned/Burnt |
| Dream | Dreamed/Dreamt | Dreamed/Dreamt |
| Smell | Smelled/Smelt | Smelled/Smelt |