Irregular verbs in English - why do so many end in D?
This might just be availability bias on my part, but it seems to me that if a verb ends is a "d" sound then it's a lot more likely to have an irregular past tense than an average verb picked out at random. Examples include "feed/fed", "stand/stood", "rend/rent", "tread/trod", "betide/betid".
So, is this an actual pattern, or am I just imagining it?
And if it is a real pattern, what's the explanation?
Preserved from comments to the question:
It's related to the rule that we cannot have geminate consonants in English - so we cannot add the past tense morpheme /d/ onto a base that already ends with a /d/ (or /t/). So for example we cannot make the word /endd/ as a past form of the verb END. Usually, for most verbs we add an epenthetic vowel (so for the past form of END we get ended, /endɪd/). However, a different strategy is to reduce the final consonant, so for example instead of /bɪdd/ for the past of bid we can have either /bɪd/ with the double /dd/ reduced or /bɪdɪd/. – Araucaria
A different strategy is to use devoicing as well as consonant reduction 'build' --> 'built'. There are 34 possible endings for a verb in English, but verbs whose base ends in /d/ or /t/ make up between 35-42% of all irregular verbs. – Araucaria
There is one class of irregular verbs that have only one verb form in the present, past, and past participle: they are monosyllabic verbs ending in d or t, and they do stack the deck somewhat.
But only somewhat.
Here's a list of English irregular verbs. As you can see, they don't all end in d or t.
And here's a list of the monosyllabic t/d-final zero-inflected verbs on that list:
-
beat,
bet,
bid,
burst,
cast,
cost,
cut,
fit,
hit,
hurt,
knit,
let,
put,
quit,
rid, set, shed, shut, slit, spit, split, spread, thrust, upset, wed.
This is one class of irregular verb; there are many such, but this one is unique.
Each of these verbs
- ends in t or d
- has only one syllable
- has only one verb form: shit, shit, shit; shed, shed, shed; cut, cut, cut, etc.
Note that there are other irregular verbs in the list that have the first two characteristics above, but not the third. Read, read, read, for instance, does not have identical forms in sound, only spelling, which doesn't count; and lead, led, led and breed, bred, bred work the same way, but with better spelling. And then there's eat, ate, eaten. But read, breed, lead, and eat aren't in this verb class.