Re: USAGE: THEORY/USAGE: irregular English plurals (was: RE:

Tom Wier:
> > Can you say "The buffalo are scarce today", "These buffalo were
> > tracked down yesterday"? How about "antelope"? "Wildebeeste"?
>
> This may be the "Hunter's nonplural" that I was referring to earlier,
> although I suspect that this construction is triggered more often by
> overt quantification.  (Cf. Georgian, e.g., where all overtly quantified
> nouns may not take plural marking.)
What counts as overt quantification (as the trigger for these
putative zero plurals in English)?

Number + singular measure noun is common in English, especially in
trad dialects, but I'm not sure what you have in mind regarding the
Hunter's Nonplural.

--And.

Reply