There is a way you pronounce many regular verbs that is not correct. Of course, many people do not realise this because only few teachers establish the right pattern in our schools.
For instance, did you know that ‘crossed’ is supposed to be pronounced like ‘crossT’ and not ‘crossD’? The same thing applies to ‘kissed’, which should be ‘kissT when uttered and not ‘kissD. In other words, the ‘d’ that ends the words, marking the past tense, is not supposed to sound as D but T.
You can now imagine how many of such regular verbs you have mispronounced since you started speaking English!
Regular verbs are those that we add ‘d’ or ‘-ed’ to when they change from the present to the past tense (or to present and past participle forms). There are many of them, including wed (wedded), harm (harmed), fart (farted), shine (shined) and hope (hoped). On the other hand, irregular verbs reject the addition of ‘d’ and ‘-ed’. Instead, they exhibit irregular or unpredictable characteristics when they change to the past tense. Examples are sit (sat), shoot (shot), run (ran), hurt (hurt), hit (hit), beat (beat), fly (flew) and lose (lost).
The fact is that the past tense pronunciation of regular verbs can be tricky. It is easy to deal with them at the level of grammar, when show becomes showed and kill simply becomes killed – unlike irregular verbs when man becomes men and hurt remains the same even as past tense. When it comes to pronunciation, however, regular verbs exhibit some ‘funny’ traits.
Consider how ‘d’ is pronounced in ‘masked’ too: maskT, not maskD. However, it is not in all regular verbs that ‘d’ becomes ‘t’ when the past tense is articulated. Indeed, there are three patterns. The first is when the past tense marker ‘d’ is pronounced as D; the second, when pronounced as T; and the third, when pronounced as ID.
D as D
When the ‘d’ is preceded by a voiced consonant, it should be pronounced as it is – D. A voiced consonant is the one that, when pronounced, there is vibration in the vocal cord. They are b, v, g, j, l, m, n, r and z. Just pronounce each of them and place your palm on the upper part of your neck as you do so. You then feel the vibration. Now, you have to pronounce the d as D when the words the voiced consonants end are in the past tense or present/past participle forms:
Robbed – robD (not robT)
Hang – hangD (not hangT)
Installed – instalD (not instalT)
D as T
As I earlier noted, when the ‘d’ comes after a voiceless consonant sound, it has to be pronounced as T. The voiceless consonant does not provoke any vibration in the vocal cord when pronounced. They are ch, f, k, p, s and th:
Stopped: stoppT (not stoppd)
Baked: bakT (not bakD)
Leafed: leafT (not leafD)
Harassed: harasT (not harasD)
T, D as -ID
The third category is about regular verbs that naturally end with ‘d’ or ‘t’ sounds. When -ed is added to any of such words, it is pronounced as ‘id’. Unfortunately, many of us pronounce the past tense marker here as ‘ed’. Such words include rounded, mended, surrounded, hounded, market, wetted, melted and halted:
rounded: roundID, (not roundED),
mended: mendID (not mendED)
marketed: marketID (not marketED)
melted: meltID (not meltED)
Let’s take the lesson to a more concrete realm. Assuming candidates are asked to identify the word with /e/ (as in bed, met etc.) in the following words, say in the West African Senior School Certificate Examination, which option should they go for?
- handed
- tilted
- smelling
- here
So, welcome to the WASSCE hall. What is your answer?
The interesting thing (not necessarily interesting to real candidates, though!) is that each of the options has letter ‘e’ in its spelling, with options b and d having two each. But, are you now conscious of the fact that any candidate who picks ‘handed’ or ‘tilted’ has missed it? Yes, because the ‘e’ in them is to be pronounced as /i/, not /e/. As a matter of fact, it is only in smelling (smElling) that you have the required sound. In other words, option C is the correct answer.
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