Re: OT: English and schizophrenia

Thomas R. Wier scripsit:

> Oh, I wouldn't say it's that irregular.  Of those 9 different patterns,
> only three or four are very productive (-(e)n, -e, null and -s for foreign
> loans).
Pinker (in _Words and Rules_) claims that only -s is productive;
in tests of both German-sounding and foreign-sounding nonsense nouns,
most German-speakers are comfortable only with -s endings.

In English, we are used to the idea that regularity = normality;
weak verbs are the regular forms, and -s nouns ditto.  But
the German noun evidence is that the regular form, the one applied
by rule, is actually used only in about 1% of the cases.

BTW, -s is used not only for foreign loans, but also for
all sorts of rootless forms, like letters of the alphabet
and conversions (die Ichs und die Es's, e.g.)

--
John Cowan                                   cowan@ccil.org
One art/there is/no less/no more/All things/to do/with sparks/galore
        --Douglas Hofstadter

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