Abstract

This paper reports the results of an experiment which demonstrates free variation at the grammatical level for the class of English verbs with both a regular and an irregular preterit form . The variables tested were: the internal vowel of the verb; its ablaut pattern; its final consonant; the person and number of the preceding NP; the transitivity function of the verb; the age and sex of the subject; the degree of formality of the testing context. None of these variables correlated with the past tense forms used. Thus, none of the formalizations in the literature, such as squishes or variable rules, apply to these data. Even if they could, the co-existence of multiple forms within the head of a single speaker must still be accounted for. Such a theoretical construct is developed: muzziness. Muzziness is a continuation, in the adult life of the speaker, of hypotheses formed and eventually rejected when he first acquired his language. The relative frequency with which a given speaker employs variant forms, such as LEAPED and LEAPT, can be correlated with the sequence and time span in which he originally acquired the relevant rules.