4. No new word is ever, upon its importation, inflected according to the strong conjugation. It is always weak. As early as A.D. 1085, the French word adouber = to dub, was introduced into English. Its præterite was dubbade.
5. All derived words are inflected weak. The intransitive forms drink and lie, are strong; the transitive forms drench and lay, are weak.
This shows that the division of verbs into weak and strong is a truly natural one.
CHAPTER XXVI.
DEFECTIVENESS AND IRREGULARITY.
[§ 323]. The distinction between irregularity and defectiveness has been foreshadowed. It is now more urgently insisted on.
The words that have hitherto served as illustrations are the personal pronouns I or me, the adjectives good, better, and best.
The view of these words was as follows; viz., that none of them were irregular, but that they were all defective. Me wanted the nominative, I the oblique cases. Good was without a comparative, better and best had no positive degree.