suffect

Suffect is a rare and complex grammatical construction in the English language. It is a verb form that is used to indicate a continued or repeated action, often with a sense of completion or finality. In a suffect clause, the verb is put in the simple past tense, whereas the main clause is in the present perfect or past perfect tense.

Suffect clauses are formed by using the verb in the simple past tense and combining it with a phrase or clause that indicates the time of the action. For example, "She has gone" could become "She has suffected gone". However, this construction is not widely accepted and is generally considered to be an error.

In some cases, suffect clauses can be found in informal or spoken language, but they are not commonly used in written discourse. The term "suffect" was first coined by the English grammarians Robert Lowth and Lindley Murray in the 18th century. Since then, the construction has been acknowledged as a variant verb form, though it remains a relatively rare and uncommon usage.

Despite its limited use, suffect has been noted by linguists for its potential to create ambiguity in sentence meaning. Consider the example: "He has closed the store yesterday". Without the suffect construction, this sentence would be read as "he closed the store yesterday", which means the store will remain closed until today. However with the suffect construction, the sentence could also imply that the store is currently closed.