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Introduction
Language observers may have noticed the existence of two past tense forms for the verb to sneak in American English, sneaked and snuck. Interestingly, both forms have not always coexisted; the original form is sneaked, and snuck has only recently become a real competitor for sneaked (Hogg, 1988: 31-32). The verb to drag seems to be somewhat in the same situation with the original past tense form dragged as well as the new form drug (Bybee & Moder, 1983: 252). However, drug is much less frequent than snuck. Murray's (1998) study on the attitudes towards snuck and drug suggests some difference in the usage of these forms across registers.
This study investigates the historical development of the neologisms snuck and drug in American English as well as their current distribution across registers in British and American English and relates the register distribution to Murray's (1998) attitude data.
Strong and weak verb patterns
Historically, drag and sneak were weak verbs with the past tense and past participle forms dragged and sneaked (Simpson & Weiner, 2010). The distinction between weak and strong verbs is somewhat related to the distinction between regular and irregular verbs, yet this relation is not uncomplicated. While regular English verbs form their past tense and past participle by adding -ed to the stem, there are a number of ways in which English verbs can be irregular. Quirk et al. (1985: 104-105) distinguishes seven classes of irregular verbs (see Table 1), some of which are strong verb classes (classes 4, 6 and 7). In the strong verb pattern, past tense and past participle forms are formed by changing the stem vowel (Strang, 1970: 196). Comparatively, in the weak verb pattern, the past tense and past participle are formed by adding a /t/ or /d/ suffix. The weak verb pattern thus consists of all the regular verbs and those irregulars that have /t/ or /d/ inflection (classes 1, 2 and 3). Note that the /t/ or /d/ inflection may substitute a final /d/ in the root as in build/built and bleed/bled, and that some irregular weak verbs have vowel change stemming from sound changes (Strang, 1970: 147, 196). While weak verbs use the...