Past Tense Morpheme

In English, The most popular past tense morpheme is indicated by the suffix –ed added to regular verbs. That is why this past tense morpheme is often called morpheme –ed. In reality, this past tense morpheme has three phonetically conditioned variants or allomorphs [t], [d], and [id]. It means that the morpheme {-ed} can be pronounced [t], [d] or [id] depending on the final phone of the base attached by this morpheme. The following are the examples of the irregular verbs  which contain the suffix –ed.

Verb     {-ed}   Inflection Result    Phone 
Cook     -ed      cooked                     [ t ]
Stop      -ed      stopped                   [ t ]
Wash    -ed      washed                    [ d ]
Watch   -ed      watched                  [ d ]
Wait     -ed      waited                    [ id ]
Want    -ed      wanted                   [ id ]
Divide   -ed      divided                  [ id ]

The past tense morpheme ( morpheme –ed) also occurs irregularly. It means that this past tense morpheme (morpheme –ed) is not represented by the suffix –ed. This morpheme occurs with the particular verbs called irregular verbs. These variants of past tense morpheme are said to be lexically conditioned. The examples of irregular verbs which contain the past tense morpheme are as follows:

Verb      {-ed}       Inflection Result
am, is     -ed          was
are         -ed           were
break     -ed           broke
bring      -ed           brought
buy        -ed           bought
catch     -ed            caught
do         -ed            did
go         -ed            went
put        -ed            put
teach     -ed           taught

In English sentence the past tense morpheme is used to show the past event or condition. Therefore the adverbs of time showing past time such as yesterday, last week, two years ago, and in 1999 are related to the past tense morpheme. Look at the examples :

(17) My mother cooked yesterday.
(18) She came here two days ago.
(19) She worked in Jakarta last year.