Re: OT: Silent last letters, pluralization, and possessive formation in English (was Re: Langmaker down since January?)

On 10/06/08 21:43:02, Eugene Oh wrote:
>
> On Tue, Jun 10, 2008 at 11:40 AM, Tristan McLeay
> <conlang@...>
> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > If it were me, I would spell the plural of "Illinois" as
> "Illinoises",
> > certainly not as "Illinoiss", and therefore the possessive plural
> as
> > "Illinoises'". Of course the rule seems sillily to be you don't add
> an
> > orthographic s if there's a silent one there already, so I'd
> presume
> > "Illinois'". That does, however, leave much to be desired.
> >
>
> The problem of course being that the plural should be /ilinoiz/ and
> not
> /ilinoiz@s/ (I'm using the phonemic spelling because X-SAMPA would
> pose
> distinction difficulties). I say if the word ends in a silent 's',
> keep the
> spelling in the plural.
I don't see why that's the problem. The problem is that "Illinois" has
a silent s at the end. The two solutions to that when you want to add
//s// to the end are to do nothing, or to just apply the normal
orthographic rules to solve a normal problem. That's to add "es" after
an "s".

> > > I see that the Wikipedia entry for [[Apostrophe]] says:
> > >
> > > "For possessive plurals of words ending in silent x, z, or s, the
> few
> > > authorities that address the issue at all call for an added s,
> and
> > > require that the apostrophe precede the s: The Loucheux's
> homeland
> is
> > > in the Yukon; Compare the two Dumas's literary achievements. As
> usual
> > > in punctuation, the best advice is to respect soundly established
> > > practice, and beyond that to strive for simplicity, logic, and
> > > especially consistency."
> >
> > The inclusion of "silent x" there seems to imply that it is
> possible
> to
> > spell "box's" as "box'", which of course it isn't. The
> > apostrophe-for-possession rule only applies, to my knowledge, to
> plurals
> > and particular names, generally biblical or classical.
> >
> >
>
>
> No it doesn't. "Box" doesn't have a silent 'x'. And the paragraph
> doesn't
> cover non-silent x's, z's and s's, or singulars.
It most definitely does imply that. Why else would you be discussing
silent x's if you're not contrasting it against pronounced x's. The
text doesn't mention silent or t, r, gh. Why not?

--
Tristan.

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