ABSTRACT
The vast majority of verbs are regular. That is, they follow the pattern of I love, I loved, I have loved, or I wash, I washed, I have washed. Note that in this pattern the past tense form and the past participle form are identical. There is quite a lot of variation in the past tense and past participle forms of verbs. The past tense and past participle forms of regular verbs and the commonest irregular verbs are required from the earliest stages of learning English, and omission of these forms has the potential to cause misunderstanding. A number of verbs that are monosyllabic and end in <t> or <d> have only a single form, with the base being the same as the past tense and the past participle. Some high frequency verbs have idiosyncratic patterns which are either unique or have very few members.
