Defective Verb

In linguistics, a defective verb is a verb that either lacks a conjugated form or entails incomplete conjugation, and thus cannot be conjugated for certain grammatical tenses, aspects, persons, genders, or moods that the majority of verbs or a "normal" or regular verb in a particular language can be conjugated for. That is to say, a defective verb lacks forms that most verbs in a particular language have.

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'', and ''will/would'' (''would'' being a later historical development). 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'' (the past tense of have), 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 ( preterite) of ''may'', it is no longer generally used as such (*''he might not pass'' for "he was forbidden to pass"). Similarly, ''should'' is no longer used as the past of ''shall'', but with a separate meaning indicating possibility or moral obligation. (However, the use of the preterite form ''should'' as a subjunctive form continues, as in ''If I should go there tomorrow, ...'', which contrasts with the indicative form ''I shall go there tomorrow''.) The defective verb ''ought'' was etymologically the past tense of ''owe'' (''the affection he ought his children''), but it has since split off, leaving ''owe'' as a non-defective verb with its original sense and a regular past tense (''owed'').

Beyond the modal auxiliaries, ''beware'' is a fully-fledged defective verb of English: it is used as an imperative (''beware of the dog'') and an infinitive (''I must beware of the dog''), but very rarely or never as a finite verb, especially with inflectional endings (*''bewared'', *''bewares''). 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" (related to ''bequeath'').

Impersonal verbs

Impersonal verbs 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 (and is therefore not defective) 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'' (all the forms of which exist, even if they sometimes look semantically odd) with the defective verb ''can'' (only ''I can'' and ''I could'' are possible). In most cases, a synonym for the defective verb must be used instead (i.e. "to be able to"). (The forms with an asterisk (*) are impossible, at least with respect to the relevant sense of the verb; these phonemes may by coincidence be attested with respect to a homograph packaging_in_cans".html" ;"title="Canning.html" ;"title="s with "canning" = "the act of preserving and Canning">packaging in cans"">Canning.html" ;"title="s with "canning" = "the act of preserving and Canning">packaging in cans")

Arabic

In Arabic, defective verbs are called (lit., ''solid verbs''). These verbs do not change tense, nor do they form related nouns. A famous example is the verb wikt:ليس, ليس ''laysa'', which translates as ''it is not'', though it is not the only auxiliary verb that exhibits this property. Some Arabic grammarians argue that دام "daama" (as an auxiliary verb) is also completely defective; those who dispute this claim still consider it partially defective. Some other partially defective verbs are " fati'a" and '' zaala'', which have neither an imperative form nor an infinitive form when used as auxiliary verbs.

Catalan

In Catalan, defective verbs are usually defective for semantic reasons. Due to their impersonal nature, haver-hi and caldre are only used in the third person. The implicit repetition intrinsic to the meaning of soler results in it only having forms in the present and imperfect tenses. Verbs pertaining to meteorological phenomena, such as ploure, can only be conjugated in the third person singular, although a third person plural form is also possible when used with a metaphorical sense. Additionally, lleure is used only in the third person, while dar lacks present tense forms, with the exceptions of the first person plural and second person plural. Defective verbs in Catalan can generally also be used in the impersonal forms of the infinitive, gerund, and past participle.

Finnish

At least one Finnish verb lacks the first infinitive (dictionary/lemma) form. In Finnish, "kutian helposti" ("I'm sensitive to tickling") can be said, but for the verb "kutian" (here conjugated in singular first person, present tense) there is no non-conjugated form. Hypothetically, the first infinitive could be "kudita", but this form is not actually used. Additionally, the negative verb (ei, et, en, emme...) has neither an infinitive form nor a 1st person singular imperative form.

French

There are several defective verbs in French.

* ' ("to be necessary"; only the third-person forms with ''il'' exist; the present indicative conjugation, ''il faut'', is very commonly used, impersonal verb)
* ' ("to bray"; only infinitive, present participle, and third-person forms exist)
* ' ("to fry"; lacks non-compound past forms; speakers paraphrase with equivalent forms of ''faire frire'')
* ' ("to conclude"; lacks an imperfect conjugation, as well as first and second person plural present indicative conjugations)
* ' ("to lie horizontally", often used in inscriptions on gravestones; can only be conjugated in the present, imperfect, present imperative, present participle and extremely rarely, the simple future forms)

Impersonal verbs, such as weather verbs, function as they do in English.

German

In contemporary German, the verb ''erkiesen'', which means "to choose/elect" (usually referring to a person chosen for a special task or honour), is only used in the past participle (''erkoren'') and, more rarely, the past tense (''ich erkor'' etc.). 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. Verkiezingen in Nederland ( Elections in the Netherlands).

Classical Greek

"No single Greek verb shows all the tenses", and "most verbs have only six of" the nine classes of tense-systems, and " arcely any verb shows all nine systems".

The verb χρή (''khrē'', 'it is necessary'), only exists in the third-person-singular present and imperfect ἐχρῆν / χρῆν (''ekhrēn / khrēn'', 'it was necessary').

There are also verbs like οἶδα (''oida'', 'I know'), which use the perfect form for the present and the pluperfect (here ᾔδη ''ēidē'', 'I was knowing') for the imperfect.

Additionally, the verb εἰμί (''eimi'', 'I am') only has a present, a future and an imperfect – it lacks an aorist, a perfect, a pluperfect and a future perfect.

Hindustani

In Hindustani (Hindi and Urdu

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