Linguistics: Determing Past Tense of Words in Phonological Forms

They Hissed, Banged, and Faded

Determine the past-tense form of each of the following words. remember to think phonemically here—ignore spelling. For example, the past tense of dance is /dænst/.

crush, turn, weed, wish, kick, plow, hate, tuck, hiss, play, demand, botch, heap, climb, pit, possess, cinch singe, tote, winch, pass, kill, pat, face, thrive, sift, bag, bait, nab, import, breathe, relate, bang, sand, faze, fade

What are the three phonological forms of the regular english past tense? What natural classes of sounds determine the past-tense form used? What natural class of sounds does /t/ follow? What natural class of sounds does /d/ follow? What natural class of sounds does /ɪd/ (or /əd/) follow?

Notice that some of this assimilation has come into the spelling system. con- sider crept, slept, wept, leapt. can you think of others? Some words, such as dreamed and dreamt, have two distinct standard spellings and pronunciations in the past tense. can you think of any others?

Source: Denham, Kristin, and Anne Lobeck. Linguistics for everyone: An introduction. Cengage Learning, 2012.