Dear Realspellers!
I have just read a book on English orthography where the author states - just like all the other textbooks - that the productive past tense morpheme is <-d / -ed> just like the verbal and plural ending <-s /-es>. While the latter is true, we all know that the former is not true. As Melvyn has so emphatically stated: the productive past tense morpheme is ALWAYS <ed>.
I have been working on these words with kids and I am wondering why we have <play + ed = played, pray + ed = prayed> but <say - said; pay - paid; lay - laid>; these seem to indicate the word sums as: [say + d = sayd; pay + d = payd; lay + d = layd]. Now the <ay> becoming medial swithes to the correct medial grapheme <ai>. On the surface this seems to be the case but, as we are learning, there has to be an explanation to this orthographic 'violation' considering the fact that a vowel + <y>
Has any of you done anything with these words, who can shed some light on these for me?
Thanks everyone.
Felicia