Anomalisms in the Conjugation of the Verbs.
The effect of analogy is obvious in the following examples.
I suggests (T. T. T. 159).
I answers ( » 170).
They sits ( » 125).
I comes ( » 126).
You comes ( » 125).
I says ( » 133).
I asks ( » 143).
I likes (Sketches 194).
I thinks ( » 201).
I does (Sketches 194).
She don’t ( » 194).
’E don’t ( » 199).
Things as gets lost (T. T. T. 195).
They wasn’t ( » 136).
There’s no wages ( » 228).
It don’t ( » 251).
One don’t ( » 218).
It aren’t (Novel Notes 163).
_Past._
I see = I saw (T. T. T. 197).
» » (Three Men In A Boat 81).
(The common anomalous form _I seed_ is not to be found in Jerome.)
I give = I gave (Sketches 201).
I gived = » (Novel Notes 155).
I win = I won (Tommy And Co. 99).
I comed = I came (Woodb. Farm 56).
_Perfect Participle._
Took = taken (T. T. T. 197 + 201 + 140).
writ = written ( » 158).
_Present Participle._
The Present Participles preceded by a pleonastic _-a_ are very numerous.
a-coming (T. T. T. 133).
a-pecking ( » 141).
a-siffing ( » » ).
a-going (Sketches 196).
a-collecting ( » 200).
a-blowing (Three Men On The Bummel 18). Etc., etc.
_To Be._
_It wur_ instead of _it was_ is _dialectic_ or _vulgar_. The samples I
have found in Jerome (Three Men in a Boat 221, Woodb. Farm 8 + 10 + 56)
are obviously all dialectic.
The uncommon form _warn’t_ instead of _wasn’t_ occurs in Woodb. Farm (p.
8, 1), but is evidently also dialectic.
Of the common anomalous form _they’s_ instead of _they are_ there is no
example in Jerome.
_To Have._
_Have not_ and _has not_ are regularly transformed into _ain’t_.