Re: English Changes or what into Conlangs

Padraic Brown wrote:
>
> On Sat, 4 Dec 1999, Sally Caves wrote:
>
> >Well Ray, an -s plural did exist in Old English.  In the masculine
> >a-stem, the most common of the noun classes in OE, as I pointed out
> >in an earlier post.  Which leads me to wonder: what is the status of
> >the "s" plural in Indo-European nouns and in Latin?  Where did the
> >Old French speakers get it, and why did it become standard there as
> >well?
> >
> >Looking at my extremely dusty Latin grammar, I note that you have s
> >plurals in the accusative case in all the declensions, and in
> >nominative and accusative in *some* declensions.  Did this influence
> >development of s ending in French?
> >
> >        puella/puella, but puellam/puellas.
> >        vir/viri, but virum/viros.
> >        lex/leges, and legem/leges.
> >        imber/imbres and imbrem/imbres.
> >
>
> >From what I understand, Western Romance derives its plurals from the
> accusative form.  Eastern Romance seems to retain the nominative.
>
> Ex.: Ptg senhores, Cast sennores, Cat senyors, OProv senhors (obl),
> OFr seignors (obl), Fr seigneurs; but Sic signuri, Ital signori, Rom
> [domnii].
>
> >Curious.  Where, then, does OE get its s plural?  German:  s is a
> >plural in some words, but it's overshadowed by -er and -en plurals:
> >Die Manner, "the men."  Die Lieder, "the songs."  Die Gedanken, "the
> >thoughts."  Die Autos, "the cars."  No wonder Mike thought English
> >"s" plural came from the French.
>
> It always had one.  The -ar in ON, the -as in OE and probably the -er
> in German come from Proto Germanic -az.  Gothic retains the -s,
> too:
>
> Goth.   OSax.   OFris.  OLFranc.OHG     ON
> dags    dag     dei     dag     tag     dagr
> dagis   dages   deis    dagis   tages   dags
> daga    dage            dage    tage    dagi
> dag     dag             dag     tag     dag
>
> dagos   dagos   degar   daga    taga    dagar
> dage    dago    daga            tago    daga
> dagam   dagun   dagon   dagin   tagun   dougum
> dagans          dega    daga    taga    daga
>
> Padraic.
You really haven't lit on my Gothic post yet, have you?
Here are the two of us repeating the same bloomin'
paradigms.  I know that OE has the s-plural; but I
hadn't considered that the -er ending was a manifestation
of the z-ending.  I'll store that one away. <G>

Sally
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SALLY CAVES
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Niffodyr tweluenrem lis teuim an.
"The gods have retractible claws."
                                from _The Gospel of Bastet_
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