Re: Rs

Andreas Johansson scripsit:

> Replaced by? German does still retain the infinitival _-n_ in _zu tun_ "to
> do", but as seen still uses the preposition to. So I'd been sort of assuming
> this infinitival marker was inherited from the common ancestor ... am I wrong?
No, you're right.  (Or "Yes, you're right" in Japanese or Russian.  :-) )

It's not quite clear whether it was a sound change or something else that
caused English to dump essentially all its -n inflections, both infinitive
and noun plural, at the beginning of the Modern English period.  The
"Lyke-Wake Dirge" from the 17th century still speaks of "hosen and shoon",
though "hose" has now become a sort of mass noun, and "shoe" has a regular
-s plural.  Of course, "children" still survives, with an even older
pre-OE "-r" plural buried under the -n plural, and "brethren" and "oxen"
are still with us, though "brothers" is the normal plural and And reports
"oxes" as increasingly common.

For the Lyke-Wake Dirge, see http://www.bartleby.com/101/381.html .
This must have a northern (Danelaw or Scottish) provenance, as shown
by "whin" (gorse) and "brig" for "bridge".

--
John Cowan           http://www.ccil.org/~cowan              cowan@ccil.org
To say that Bilbo's breath was taken away is no description at all.  There
are no words left to express his staggerment, since Men changed the language
that they learned of elves in the days when all the world was wonderful.
        --_The Hobbit_

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