Re: Adopting a plural

On Tuesday, October 5, 2004, at 05:57 , Muke Tever wrote:

> On Tue, 5 Oct 2004 09:35:44 -0700, H. S. Teoh <hsteoh@...>
> wrote:
>>> d)  It means 2+, and is used on words that look like they come from the
>>>       other language (virii; octopi)
>>
>> <obligatory pedantic remark>
>> "Octopus" really came from Greek, not Latin, so the "proper" plural
>> would be "octopedes", not "octopi".
>> </obligatory pedantic remark>
>
> ObAntipedantry:
> That's why I made it an example under "words that _look like_ they come
> from the other language".  "Virus" doesn't take a plural in -ii either.
Yep - I understood what you meant   :)

The Latin _uirus_ is a mass noun (= slime, poison, venom) & doesn't have a
plural. But if it were to have a plural, 'twould not be *uirii. Why _two_
Is at the end?? In fact the word is one of the small group of 2nd decl.
neuters in -us, so:
Nom. & Acc.  uirus  /wi:rus/
Gen.         uiri   /wi:ri:/
Dat. & abl.  uiro   /wi:ro:/

Other words similarly declined are _uulgus_ (or _uolgus_) "the common
people, multitude", _pelagus_ "the (open) see" are also mass nouns.

Latin neuter plural nouns always end in -a, so if _uirus_ had a plural, I
guess it would've been *uira (I seem to recall from years back some on
this list said that in Danish _vira_ was used as the plural of _virus_).
As Muke obviously knows, the 'virii' that one does encounter in certain
computing 'literature' is a pretentious and doubly* erroneously formed
plural.

* (a) it gives a masc. plural ending to a neuter word, and (b) it inserts
an extra -i- for no good reason.

> The correct spelling is actually |octopodes|, btw.   |-ped-| is the Latin
> spelling ;)
It certainly should be |octopodes|

-ped- would be Latin, but *octopes is not found. There is a fairly
uncommon adjective _octipe:s_ (of which the plural is _octipede:s_), but
it only means "eight-footed' and can be applied to any creature so endowed.
  It was not used as a noun to mean 'octopus'.

Altho _okto:pous_ (pl. _okto:podes_) was found in ancient Greek, the more
common form was _oktapous_, (pl. _oktapodes_). The modern Greek /xta'pODi/
  is derived from a diminutive _oktapodion_.

Chambers English Dictionary says of 'octopus': "pls. octopuses, (_arch._)
octopodes, (*octopi* is wrong)." I guess that in 1988, when mine was
printed, the equally wrong 'virii' had barely made an appearance.

But, like 'virii', 'octopi' is a _double_ error: it adds the wrong plural
suffix to a mistaken form of the stem.

Just to remind ourselves, what Jeffrey asked was:
'So one of my conlangs did not historically mark number. Based on contact
with an "imperial" language, speakers have borrowed that language's plural
affix and sporadically apply it.'

Its speakers have borrowed a plural affix from an "imperial" language and
apply it sporadically. Isn't that more or less parallel to our sporadic
use of Latin (and Greek) plurals? The point surely that Muke was making is
that they might well use it incorrectly on words they thought came from
that language.

ObExtraInfo   :)
The Classical Lain for octopus was _polypus_ which, tho derived from Greek
_polypous_, was declined as tho it was a 2nd decl. masc. with stem polyp-
{groan}. In Vulgar Latin it was *polpu- hence:
Spanish: pulpo; Portuguese: polvo; Italian: polpo.

It ought to have given French *pouf, but it didn't. The French has changed
gender and is _la pieuvre_ and I don't know the etymology.



Ray
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