The English verb ending
-ed is a curious construction.
The suffix
-ed is the sign of the past tense. That is, most
English verbs form their past tenses by adding
-ed. For
example,
walk/walked, love/loved, sneeze/sneezed. The same
ending marks the simple past tense and the perfect:
Yesterday I walked. I
have walked for hours.
In earlier periods, English verbs presented more variety in the way they
formed the simple past and the past participle. A few of the older forms
survive in what the grammar books call “irregular” verbs. These verbs do not
form their past tenses by adding
-ed:
sing sang (have)
sung
give gave (have)
given
write wrote (have)
written
These “irregular” verbs are sometimes called “strong” verbs. Once very
numerous in English, only a few survive–fewer than 70. Many of them, like
help,
became -
ed verbs long ago so we no longer say
holp
or
holpen. Some of the survivors, like
wake
and
dive, are in the process of changing and the old and new
forms are both in use:
He woke the baby. or
He waked
the baby.
He dove from the top board. or
He
dived into the pool.
You may have noticed
that in English, past tense
verbs with an -ed ending are pronounced in three
different ways:
For example, if I say
the past tense verb “walked“, as in, “I walked away,” what is the last
sound that you hear in the verb?
1) The -ed verb ending
sounds like a [t], “Walked” [wakt], even though it ends in the letter
“d”.
What do you hear when I
say:
- “smelled“,
as in, “it smelled bad.”
2) The -ed verb ending
sounds like a [d]: “smelled” [smeld]
And when I say,
“visited”, as in “I visited New York City”, how did I pronounce that
“-ed” ending?
3) The -ed verb ending
sounds like [ɪd], [vizitid].
So, Here I give the three
rules that explain the differences in past tense verb ‘-ed’ pronunciation.
But don’t be surprised if most Americans can’t explain these rules to you! The
truth is, Americans make these changes in sound without even noticing. Rules
presented here are only for non native speakers, as they learn english as a
second language. To clarify this point, ask yourself How
many rules have you learnt to be proficient in your mothertongue ? The
answer is obvious , No rule. Why ?
because, you are surrounded by the speakers of your own language. But being
physically present in an area where you are not getting the environment, in
which you can surround yourself with native speakers, you must know the key
rules to be efficient speaker. So, Here
we go .
Intro | Why the Sound Changes
Place your fingertips on
the front of your neck, and pronounce the following words. What do you
feel on your fingers when you say the underlined sound?
- vow | fake
(vvv | fff)
- zebra | snake (zzz
| sss)
– When we pronounce voiced
sounds, our vocal chords vibrate when we say those sounds. [v] [z]. Did
you feel the vibration?
– When we pronounce voiceless
sounds, our vocal chords do not vibrate. [f] [s]. No
vibration.
This vibration or lack
of vibration then carries forward to the following sound in the word.
Therefore, this vibration or lack of vibration explains why we pronounce the
past tense of verbs in three voiced or voiceless
ways: [t], [d] or [Id].
1) [t] final sound
Verbs ending in voiceless
sounds [p, k, θ, f, s, ʃ, tʃ] cause the “-ed” ending to be pronounced as
the voiceless [t] (with no vocal chord vibration).
- [p] “He popped a balloon.” [papt]
- [k] “They talked
a lot” [takt]
- [θ] “th”: “She
frothed a cup of milk” [frawθt]
- [f] “I laughed
at the movie.” [læft]
- [s] “She kissed
a frog.” [kIst]
- [ʃ] “sh”: “We brushed
it off.” [bruʃt]
- [tʃ] “ch”: “I reached
around for it.” [riytʃt]
2) [d] final sound
Verbs ending in the voiced
sounds [b, g, ð, v, z, ʒ, dʒ, m, n, ŋ, r, l] cause
the “-ed” ending to be pronounced as a voiced [d].
- [b] “It bobbed up and down.” [babd]
- [g] “He begged
her to stay.” [bɛgd]
- [ð] “She breathed
loudly.” [briyðd]
- [v] “They loved
it.” [luvd]
- [z] “We raised
her expectations.” [reyzd]
- [dʒ] “They bridged
the gap.” [brIdʒd]
- [m] “I claimed
it was mine.” [kleymd]
- [n] “They banned
new members.” [bænd]
- [ŋ] “She banged
into the chair.” [bæŋd]
- [r] “He cleared
it up.” [kliyrd]
- [l] “I rolled
up the paper.” [rowld]
3) [əd] or [ɪd] final sound
Verbs ending in the
sounds [t] or [d] will cause the “-ed” ending of a verb to
be pronounced as the syllable [əd] or [ɪd].
- [t] “I visited the Empire State
Building.” [vɪzɪtəd]
- [t] “She edited
the research paper.” [ɛdɪtɪd]
- [d] “We ended
the game early.” [ɛndɪd]
- [d] “He breaded
the chicken.” [brɛdɪd]
Why are these rules important?
Connected Speech [c+v]
These “-ed”
pronunciation rules are particularly important, because in English we connect [ see more about word connection] our
speech when we have a word that:
- ends in a consonant;
and
- is followed by a
word that begins with a vowel.
In this case, the way
you say the verb’s “-ed” ending will be heard loudly and clearly.
Example
- “He walked away”
[walkt] –> “He walk taway” [hiy
WAWK təWEY]
Did you hear that [t] in
“walked” clearly?
H-Deletion
The same rule of
connected speech [c+v] occurs when h-deletion causes us to delete the “h”
sound at the beginning of a word.
Example
- “We raised
her expectations” [reyzd] –> ”We raizd
her expectations” –> “We raizdər
expectations”
We deleted the “h” in
“her”, then connected the speech from “raised” and “her”,
which became “raisder”.