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Re: USAGE: THEORY/USAGE: irregular English plurals (was: RE: [CONLANG] Optimum number of symbols

From:And Rosta <a-rosta@...>
Date:Saturday, May 25, 2002, 14:42
Jan van Steenbergen:
> --- And Rosta wrote: > > > > man:men, woman:women, foot:feet, goose:geese, tooth:teeth, mouse:mice, > > > child:children, ox:oxen, fish:fish, shrimp:shrimp, deer:deer, sheep:sheep, > > > moose:moose, elk:elk, salmon:salmon, herring:herring, bison:bison, > > > calf:calves, half:halves, hoof:hooves, elf:elves, knife:knives, > > > life:lives, wife:wives, loaf:loaves, self:selves, shelf:shelves, > > > thief:thieves, leaf:leaves, scarf:scarves, wolf:wolves. > > Wouldn't "brethren" belong to this category as well?
Yes, actually. My sense is that in contemporary English, _brethren_, like _police_, lacks a singular, and hence does not belong in the above list. But _brethren_ and __police_ remain irregulars in not taking the -s plural.
> > As for the rest of the list, _oxen_ is obsolescent, being replaced > > by _oxes_, which leaves just man:men, woman:women, foot:feet, goose:geese, > > tooth:teeth, mouse:mice, child:children, and, arguably, person:people, > > as the utter irregulars among the indigenes... > > Arguably, indeed. I'm not a native speaker of English, but looking at this > discussion from the sidelines I don't think "people" can be > considered a plural form of "person", even if it's often used that way. > "Person" has only one plural: "persons". > I would argue that "people" is a singular form (plural: "peoples"), with a > meaning that with the centuries shifted in the direction of a plural. Thus, > "the people are..." can be compared with "the government are..." > Which means, that "people" used as a plural does not have a singular form; > if one wishes to explicitly express a singular meaning, "person" comes > closest, but it's not the same thing.
people:peoples, in the sense of 'ethnos', is clearly a different lexical item. _People_, the putative plural of _person_, is undoubtedly plural: "these people", "those people". Where the analytical problem and scope for argument comes in is whether to say that _person_ has two plurals, one suppletive (people) and one not (persons), or whether plural _people_ has, like _brethren_ and _police_, no singular counterpart. My own vote is for _people_ as plural of _person_: inter alia it gives a better account of alternations like _townsperson: townspeople_. --And.

Replies

Thomas R. Wier <trwier@...>
Michael Poxon <m.poxon@...>
Jan van Steenbergen <ijzeren_jan@...>