Why do we say the past tense suffix -ed three ways?
13 RepliesYoung children learning to sound out words often write ‘jumped’ as ‘jumpt’ or ‘jumt’. They write the verb ‘filmed’ as ‘filmd’ and ‘landed’ as ‘landud’ or ‘landid’, depending on their accent.
They’re writing what they say/hear, which is great, but English has a special spelling for the regular past tense suffix: -ed. This spelling shows readers that, for example, the intended meaning is ‘packed’ (the bag) not ‘pact’ (between two countries).
But why do we pronounce this suffix three different ways? Why do we also have three pronunciations for regular plural and third person present inflectional suffixes, as in ‘kicks‘ (sounds like /s/), bends‘ (sounds like ‘z’) and ‘wishes‘? (sounds like /es/ or /uz/, depending on your accent). And what’s an inflectional suffix, anyway?
Here’s my third Fun Spelling Facts for Grownups video, in which I try to relate the visible part of our writing system (orthography) to the sounds (phonology) and meanings (morphology) in our spoken language. It’s 7.5 minutes long (yes, I talk too much), but the past tense -ed part is first. Hope it’s useful.
13 responses to “Why do we say the past tense suffix -ed three ways?”
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The Spelfabet shop has affordable, downloadable spelling teaching resources.
It is not possible to see the letters on the blue cards. Perhaps you could do this again with lighter paper so that people can see instead of just listening.
Hi Rebecca, I’m not sure why you can’t see the letters in the video as they are visible on both my computers. Have you got your screen set on a very dark setting, maybe? I don’t know how to fix this problem except by starting all over again at my end, and you’re the only person who has mentioned this issue to me. All the best, Alison
I could see the blue letters perfectly
Hi Tina, I’ll think about this colour/lighting issue before making more videos with the moveable alphabet, thanks for raising it. Alison
Hi Allison,
Fabulous post, thank you. Morphology is so important for students (and teachers) to understand. My colleague and I are currently writing a set of decodable books plus lesson plans and posters for classroom use to teach all of the concepts in your video. The series is called ‘Morphology Made Simple’. Our aim is to make the teaching of morphology engaging, accessible and meaningful for students and teachers!
Many thanks for your amazing work to support schools in this area…
Hi Elaine, thanks for the nice feedback, much appreciated. Good luck with the new resources, I look forward to seeing them, there aren’t a lot of good early morphology resources available at present so there’s a gap in the market. All the very best, Alison
Thankyou for this- as an OT I am finding your content amazingly useful!!
I am retired now but wish this had been taught to me in my own education. Thank you Alison.
This is brilliant! I was never taught this in my training in the late 70s. Every teacher needs this to help student s navigate the morphology minefield. Current teaching degrees should be addressing this. Do you do any online workshops? 41 years teaching and I still find information such as this enlightening having been an upper school teacher in primary schools.
Hi Narelle, thanks for the nice feedback. I’m not currently doing online workshops but I’d like to find time for this. If any are coming up I’ll write a blog about them. All the best, Alison
Thank you very much! It is very useful especially in teaching children with Dyslexia.
Thanks so much for this video. Prior to watching, I would have students try the three different sounds.
I have a consonant sound wall set up in my classroom based on the International Phonetics chart. We happened to learning the three sounds for -ed in our curriculum this week. I was able to show them that
/ed/ follows /t/ or /d/ sound,
/t/ follows a voiceless sound, because the /t/ sound is voiceless,
/d/ follows a voiced sounds, because it is voiced.
It seems that /d/ follows all the other sounds including vowels (played, showed, sighed, keyed, glued) and the American /r/ as in purred.
It was enlightening to me and hopefully to my students as well.
Thanks for the nice feedback, glad the video was useful. Vowels and /r/ are voiced sounds so yes, they are followed by /d/. All the best, Alison