Re: EAK nouns

Jörg Rhiemeier wrote:
> Hallo!
>
> On Sun, 13 May 2007 08:34:33 +0100, R A Brown wrote:
>
>
>> Philip Newton wrote:
>>
>>> On 5/12/07, R A Brown <ray@...> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> For example the nominative �?οή (drink-offering) is retained
>>>> in the adjective �?οη�?�?ρο�? (offering �?οαί to the dead);
>>>>
>>> (Shouldn't that be "offering �?οά�? to the dead"?
>>>
>> The definition "offering �?οά�? to the dead" was taken from the Lewis &
>> Short Lexicon.
>>
>>
>>> Or, if you're going
>>> with English case-[and-number-]marking, "offering �?οήs to the dead"?)
>>>
>> But we don't, do we? We just use the foreign nominative. For example we
>> might say "There were a lot of fungi in the wood this morning", but few,
>> I think, would say "There were a lot _fungorum_ in the wood this
>> morning"      :)
>>
>
> This sort of thing was actually common in the speech of educated Germans
> some time ago.  Latin loans were declined Latin-wise.  It no longer is,
> though.
>
> ... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
>
German I think would be more amenable to this sort of thing anyway,
being that German already draws the same case distinctions as Latin.  In
German, you're essentially just saying that "der fungus" has an unusual
genitive form "des fungi".  Whereas in English, you'd have to explain
the whole concept of case, as noun phrases don't change for case in English.