Re: USAGE: THEORY/USAGE: irregular English plurals (was: RE: [CONLANG]

Quoting John Cowan <jcowan@...>:

> Muke Tever scripsit:
>
> > But I think the zero plural can be extended to all fish?
>
> I don't think so.  "Herring", yes, "trout", yes; but "I caught five
> shark today"?  "The aquarium has six guppy"?  I don't think so.
> Of course, there are also mass versions of fish names, referring to
> the fish as a food:  "I ate shark in San Francisco", but that is
> not the same thing at all.
I'm given to understand that among hunters and anglers it is not
uncommon to get rid of the plural -s morpheme entirely even in words
that normally *do* take it, with the condition that the noun has to
be overtly quantified in some way. Hence, "I caught five shark today"
would be entirely licit for them (in this register/dialect).

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Thomas Wier          "...koruphàs hetéras hetére:isi prosápto:n /
Dept. of Linguistics  mú:tho:n mè: teléein atrapòn mían..."
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