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Having developed a functional suffix -ed with respect to that subtle property of stimuli which we speak of as action-in-the-past, the suffix may be added for the first time to a word which has hitherto described action only in the present. The process is conspicuous when the speaker composes a form which is not established by the practices of a particular community. He singed is obviously composed from separate elements, because the community reinforces the form He sang. He walked may also have been composed, but since the form is also separately reinforced, the evidence is not so clear. (p. 121)