Re: Declension Help
| From: | Philip Newton <philip.newton@...> |
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| Date: | Sunday, December 17, 2006, 18:25 |
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On 12/17/06, Roger Mills <rfmilly@...> wrote:
> several irregular
> allomorphs: -en in a few words (ox-, child-**), vowel change (man/men),
> i/ae/a in a few Latin loans, and zero (sheep) etc.
> --------------
> **note that {child} has the allomorph {childr-} in the plural
> --------------
Synchronically speaking, I suppose? Because to the best of my
knowledge, diachronically at least, the root {child} is the same in
the singular as in the plural.
Only it happens to have two plural morphemes tacked onto it: {-(e)r}
and {-en} - child-r-en. (Like Dutch "eieren" or "kinderen", from
"ei"/"kind" + -er + -en, also with two plural morphemes.)
Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>