The Past Tense of Text

What is the correct past tense form of the verb to text?

This question has come up quite a bit recently in conversations I have had with friends. Because I generally prefer to view language descriptively rather than prescriptively, I was thrilled to see David Crystal's response to the question on his DC Blog post titled "On texted vs texed".

Following are some excerpts from his post that provide a condensed answer to the question:


... when text became a verb again in the 1990s, in the modern sense, it followed the normal pattern, and texted is the form given in all the dictionaries. So the interesting question is, why has an alternative form developed. ...

... Pronunciation is probably part of the answer. ...

... adding an -ed ending alters the pronunciation dynamic. We now have two /t/ sounds in a rapid sequence, as we had in broadcasted, and that could motivate people to drop the ending. Speakers generally prefer shorter forms. ...

... Whatever the reasons, we do now find forms such as texed and tex'd being used with increasing frequency. I think it's only a matter of time before we find it being treated like broadcast in dictionaries, and given two forms.


In regards to the above mention of "two /t/ sounds in a rapid sequence", the past tense -ed suffix can be phonetically realized as /t/, /d/ or /Id/depending on the final sound of the root morpheme and depending on the speaker's dialect.

Compare the words walked, buzzed and rested.

For most people walked will end in /t/, buzzed will end in /d/ and rested will end in /Id/.

The only time the -ed suffix is vocalized as /Id/ is when the final sound of the root morpheme is a /t/ or /d/.

Returning to Crystal's mention that "speakers prefer shorter forms", I suppose a case could be made for two different analyses of the phonological shortening of the verb texted.

1. The root-final /t/ is omitted thus the -ed suffix is pronounced as /t/.
2. The -ed suffix, which is more commonly realized as /t/ than /Id/, is deleted.

Quite the phonological conundrum, isn't it?

I still say /tektId/.

This Baby is Missing a Letter

A good friend spotted this sign in a restroom at Disney World and snapped a photo to share with me. He commented that it amazed him how much the deletion of one letter from the beginning of a word can totally change the pronunciation of the word. I think the oddity of this example comes from the fact that when a string of consonants starts a word and one of the consonants is dropped the resulting word usually still rhymes (ex. "bloomed"..."loomed", "crusted"..."rusted", "strap"..."trap"..."rap", and so on).




That is not the case here, and part of the reason is that we are talking about consonant sounds, not letters. The word "changing" may start with two consonants in alphabetical spelling, however, phonetically, the letters "c" and "h" combine to form one sound - /ʧ/(aka /č/).


So, phonetically, we have "hanging" /hæŋəŋ/ compared to "changing" /ʧenʤəŋ/.


By adding the letter "c" to the "h" in the word "hanging", the word initial sound changes from a fricative to an affricate. Because sounds like to hang out with other sounds with whom they share commonalities, it is not surprising to see the affricate /ʤ/ in the word "changing". It also does not surprise me that the /æ/, which is a lax vowel, becomes /e/ (a tense vowel) in "changing" because if consonants were classified by tenseness, I would think that affricates are more tense than fricatives.

Phonetics, Phonological Processes and the Negative Prefixes in-, im-, ir-, il-

Returning to the subject of words and negative prefixes from yesterday - why is it that some words use the negative in- and others use im-? And what about the negative il- and ir-?

When it comes to choosing between the negative prefixes in-, im-, ir-, and il- phonetics and a phonological process are what dictate how the negative prefix is chosen. The phonological process involved is called assimilation. Assimilation is when a particular sound changes to blend with a sound that occurs either before or after the sound. With prefixes, assimilation occurs when the final sound of the prefix matches or comes close to matching the initial sound of the root word in place of articulation.

The "n - sound" from the in- prefix is produced by pushing the tongue against the alveolar ridge, thus it is called an alveolar consonant. This place of articulation is centrally located and can easily adapt to many other sounds and that is why it is the most common of these four negative prefixes (it is also the reason yesterday's list of words contained primarily in- words).

The im- prefix is used with words that start with a "p - sound" or a "b - sound" because the place of articulation of these sounds, the lips, is the same as that of the "m- sound."

The "l - sound" and "r - sound" have variable places of articulation but both are considered liquids. As such, words that start with the "l - sound" will use the il- negative prefix and words that start with an "r - sound" will use the ir- negative prefix.


In sum, while the choice of negative prefix may seem illogical, irregular, inexact and impractical it can all be explained with phonetics and phonology.