MORPHOPHONEMIC BEHAVIOUR OF THE PAST TENSE AND PAST PARTICIPLE MORPHEMES OF ENGLISH

It can be observed that in the teaching of English grammar verbs are always in focus. The
English pedagogue, while dealing with verbs, usually concentrates on the tenses and the verb forms.
Subsequently the morphology of verbs is highlighted. The pedagogue is concerned mostly with verbs
that undergo irregular morphological changes. The phonological part of the verb inflection, it seems, is
not highlighted as intensely as the morphological is done. And hence, the morphophonemic behaviour
of the verb inflections, it can be observed, has not been enough or duly emphasized in the teaching of
English verb forms. This paper intends to bring the morphophonemic behaviour of the past tense and
past participle forms of English verbs under focus.
It would be but natural to explain what morphophonemics is. Morphophonemics is the
American terms for which the British use the term Morphonology and the Europeans refer to it as
Morphophonology. According to H.A. Gleason, “morphophonemics is one of the most vexed technical
terms in linguistics. In no two systems of linguistic theory, it is used in the same way.”1 Hence it is
necessary to adduce the observations of some of the eminent linguists on
morphophonemics/morphophonology, which from one or the other way, rest on Panini’s notions of
sandhi, ablaut root and morphemes.