Pronunciation of Inflectional Morphemes and Suffixes

Now, let’s take a look at some pronunciation rules of two common “inflectional” morphemes and suffixes:

1. -s that marks the 3rd person singular of the verb: plays
   
   
2. -ed that marks the past tense: played
   

-s

Note the different pronunciations of the –s:
play/z/       act/s/       watch/Iz/

These pronunciations are determined by the sounds that come before the –s ending. We say that the pronunciations are rule-governed. This same rule also applies to the way we pronounce the plurals of regular nouns. Note, the verb examples we chose are also nouns:
plays /z/    acts /s/       watches /Iz/

The pronunciation is the same for the possessive –s:

John’s = /z/      Mark’s = /s/      Rose’s = /Iz/

The rule that determines the different pronunciations of –s is as follows:

1. After these sounds that occur at the end of the following roots, the suffix is pronounced as /Iz/:
   process (vowel + ss)
   rose (vowel + s + e)
   dish (vowel + sh)
   garage (vowel + ge)
   church (ch)
   judge (vowel + dge)
   
   
2. After all other voiced sounds that occur at the end of the roots, the suffix –s is pronounced /z/:
   /g/ dog
   /n/ John or run
   
   
3. After all other voiceless sounds that occur at the end of the roots, the suffix –s is pronounced /s/:
   /t/ as in cat
   /k/ as in Mark

-ed

The pronunciation of the –ed, that marks the regular past tense English, is pronounced in three different ways:

play/d/       want/Id/       walk/t/

The rule that governs which of these final sounds to make is as follows:

1. After the sounds /t/ and /d/ as in “want” and “kid,” the –ed form is pronounced /Id/ -wanted, kidded.
   
   
2. After all other voiced sounds, like /e/ in “play,” the –ed form is pronounced /d/ -played.
   
   
3. After all other voiceless sounds, like /k/ in “walk,” the –ed form is pronounced /t/.