Re: USAGE: THEORY/USAGE: irregular English plurals (was: RE: [CONLANG]
| From: | Thomas R. Wier <trwier@...> |
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| Date: | Tuesday, May 21, 2002, 5:06 |
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Quoting Philip Newton <Philip.Newton@...>:
> On 20 May 02, at 21:08, John Cowan wrote:
>
> > And Rosta scripsit:
> >
> > > which leaves just man:men, woman:women, foot:feet, goose:geese,
> > > tooth:teeth, mouse:mice, child:children, and, arguably, person:people,
> > > as the utter irregulars among the indigenes...
> >
> > Yes, I think person:people belongs here, although we also have
> > person:persons and people:peoples in different senses.
>
> Heh :) I sometimes like to confuse English learners (who have learned
> person/people) by pointing out that "peoples" is also a valid English
> word. ("What? A double plural?")
Except that it means something quite different from "people"
in that sense:
(a) person (one individual) : persons/people (several individuals)
(b) people (a set of individuals) : peoples (several sets of individuals).
("Persons", of course, sounds distinctly bureaucratic, pehaps
because bureacracies need to avoid confusion on forms like that
above.) Row (b), with a subtle shift in meaning, could be glossed
by "nation : nations" or "tribe : tribes".
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Thomas Wier "...koruphàs hetéras hetére:isi prosápto:n /
Dept. of Linguistics mú:tho:n mè: teléein atrapòn mían..."
University of Chicago "To join together diverse peaks of thought /
1010 E. 59th Street and not complete one road that has no turn"
Chicago, IL 60637 Empedocles, _On Nature_, on speculative thinkers