texted

[Arnold Zwicky]

On Mar 11, 2009, at 10:34 AM, John Baker wrote:

>
>        I recently was surprised to hear my adult nephew and niece
> pronounce "texted" with two syllables.  I am forced to admit the logic
> of that pronunciation, since I pronounce "text" and "texted" as
> homophones, but it still sounds weird to me.

you're not alone; see

http://arnoldzwicky.wordpress.com/2008/12/25/whats-the-past-tense-of-the-verb-text/

but let me get this right: you write TEXTED but pronounce it /tEkst/?
or do you just spell past /tEkst/ TEXT?

what about the base form of the verb (as in "I like to text")?  is
this also /tEkst/?  i ask this because it's been suggested to me by
several people that some speakers with past /tEkst/ have analyzed the
verb as having the stem /tEks/, so that /tEkst/ would just be the
regular past.  if so, the base form would be /tEks/ (spelled either
TEX or TEXT),  the present would be /tEks at z/ (possibly spelled TEXES,
but maybe TEXTS), and the present participle would be /tEksIN/
(spelled with TEXING or TEXTING).

i think that most people with past /tEkst/ have just moved the verb
"text" into the "cut"/"put" class, with PST/PSP identical to the base
form (and the non-3sg present form).   but there are other
possibilities.

arnold

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