It’s a discussion at our school that we’re still not over. One says “I’ve been haunted”, the other “I’ve been haunted”.
Similar to speeding
Answer
Dear Winke,
Your confusion is understandable.
1. On the one hand, there are compound verbs of the type running and flying around in Dutch. The base verb of those words (walk, fly) is irregular and so is the compound verb.
> walk – walked – walked AND running – ran – ran
> fly – flew – flown AND fly around – flew around – flown around
If you conjugate the word wrong-way driving according to this model, you get:
> drive – drove – drove AND ghost driving – drove ghost – ghost drove
2. On the other hand, there is a limited series of compound verbs in Dutch whose base verb has an irregular conjugation but which are themselves conjugated regularly. Perhaps the best-known examples are and gliding:
> suck – sucked – sucked BUT – vacuumed – vacuumed
> fly – flew – flown BUT gliding – gliding – gliding
If you conjugate the word wrong-way driving according to this model, you get:
> driving – drove – driven BUT wrong-way driving – wrong-way driving – haunted driving
See the following link for more examples of such verbs:
http://taaladvies.net/taal/advies/tekst/35
(particularly section 2.2.2.)
3. However, there are also so-called incomplete verbs. These verbs occur almost exclusively in the infinitive and as a derivation. Conjugated forms, such as past tense and past participle, occur rarely or not at all with those verbs; they are discouraged in any case. The verb wrong-way driving belongs to this series of verbs.
Instead of using a past tense or past participle for such verbs, it is better to formulate a sentence that contains the infinitive or the derivation of the verb. For example, it is better to avoid sentence (a) and use sentence (b) or (c):
(a) Yesterday a drunk driver made a ghost drive on the highway.
(b) Yesterday a drunk driver was wrong driving on the highway. (infinitive)
(c) Yesterday there was a ghost driver on the highway. The driver appeared to be drunk. (diversion)
For a list of such incomplete verbs, see the following link:
question 703 />
Exactly the same question was asked to the Taaltelefoon. According to them, the ghost-driven form does indeed sometimes occur, but they also advise against its use. See link below for the detail answer:
http://www.vlaanderen.be/servlet/Satellite?pagename=taaltelefoon/Page/ArticlePMIN&cid=1127188838000&c=Page
Finally, to my knowledge there is no means of determining whether a verb is incomplete. Consulting the lists via the links provided above can help you a lot further. Incidentally, the website http://taalunieversum.org/ , more specifically the section on Language, is a very useful resource for people who want to find the answer to a language question. The website of the Taaltelefoon can often be of help as well: http://www.vlaanderen.be/servlet/Satellite?c=Page&cid=1120536021990&pagename=taaltelefoon%2FPage%2FHomePageMIN
Hopefully this has resolved your discussion at school!
Answered by
Prof. dr. Dr Dominiek Sandra
Psycholinguistics Language Psychology General Linguistics
Prinsstraat 13 2000 Antwerp
http://www.uantwerpen.be
.