Re: Messy orthography (Re: Sound change rules for erosion)

> > How long would it take for the -en, -an, -on, and -un to all merge into -in
> > after the word-final short vowels were lost?  Would the separate plural
> > endings persist for a long time or a short time?
>
>I would say a long time. German has four or five separate plurals that all
>maintain good currency, with only a slight tendency for simplification.
I think that this would mean that modern Trehelish would still have all
five of the -Vn plurals, but I won't know for certain until I've set the
timescale and know when the final short vowels were lost.  I will keep in
mind, though, that the language is going to go in the direction of all the
-Vn plurals collapsing into -in.

>  Welsh
>has something like *nineteen* different plural forms.
Good grief!  That is ridiculous.  Or maybe I shouldn't think it's too
ridiculous.  I was going to say that Trehelish had only six ways to form
the plural, but it depends a on how you want to count them.  Do you count
labialization of the final stem consonant as the sixth type of plural or do
you say that Trehelish forms plurals in p_w, t_w, k_w, b_w, d_w, g_w, f_w,
s_w, v_w, z_w, m_w, n_w, r_w, and l_w?  If you count the latter way, then
you have nineteen total, but I don't think that I'd count it that way.  If
you see a word ending in a consonant, you have no way of knowing which of
the six potential plural forms is the correct one without simply knowing it
- and there may be more than one correct plural, depending on the meaning
of the word.

The proto-language started out with only two ways to form the plural, and
you always knew which one to use.  What a change.  If the word ends in a
vowel, you're still in luck, and it's easy, but if it ends in a consonant,
forget it.

>  Native speakers have good
>memories, so while simplification is eventually inevitable, a reasonable
>number
>of plural formations are likely to survive for a very long time.
Another reason to believe that the modern Trehelish language has probably
not yet lost the distinction.

Isidora