Re: Adopting a plural

Quoting "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh@...>:

> On Mon, Oct 04, 2004 at 10:48:03PM -0600, Muke Tever wrote:
> > On Mon, 4 Oct 2004 22:44:27 -0400, Jeffrey Henning <jeffrey@...>
> > wrote:
> > >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. Which is more likely...?
> > >a) It means 2+, just like its source language
> > >b) It means 2+ and that's emphatic (of some importance in the discourse)
> > >c) It means "a great many"
> >
> > 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>
Given that _virii_ apparently is meant to be a pl of _virus_ (which in Latin
pluralizes as _vira_), I suspect Jeffrey supposedly wrote wrong forms,
suggesting he intends to use that in the conlang too.

Anyway, I thought it should be _octopodes_?

                                                    Andreas

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