The rule for /-s/ in plural and verbs

[ChrisESL]

I had an interesting tangent with my student last night. He's an advanced student from Russia. We got to English plurals/3rd person present verb agreement.
He wanted to know what the exact rule was for [-s], [-z] and [-ez].
I told him that I wrote this out ten years ago in a Morpho-phonology class in college, but couldn't remember all the details.
He asked if all Americans learned this rule in high school, and I chuckled, "of course not". He was surprised, cause all Russians learn all their complex morpho-phonological rules by 6th grade. (Ah, those Russians...)

Anyone have a simple write-out of that plural/verb [-s] rule?

Thanks

Chris
ChrisESL.blogspot.com

[lolwhites]

1) If the final sound of the original word is alveolar (s, z, sh, zh (as in leisure, ch or j (as in John) the pronunciation is [iz]:
e.g. watches, bosses, galoshes, glasses

2) If the final sound is voiceless, other than the sounds above, the pronunciation is [s]:
e.g. cats, books

3) If the final sound is voiced (including all vowels), the pronunciation is [z]:
e.g. dogs, birds, bees

Works for third person -s on verbs too.

Students need to be reminded to look at the sound and not the letter in case they think capes is pronounced "cap-es".

nb I can find the IPA in Word, but does anyone know how to type it onto web forms?

[Metamorfose]

That's an interesting question. Do natives ever learn or are shown those phonemic rules in school?

José

[Jimbobob]

That's an interesting question. Do natives ever learn or are shown those phonemic rules in school?

José

Not in normal classrooms. College level linguistic courses, yes. We basically just internalize the pattern naturally

[Anuradha Chepur]

lolwhites:

nb I can find the IPA in Word, but does anyone know how to type it onto web forms?

Once I typed it in word and copied and pasted in on Dave. It worked.
Hope this helps.