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

Raymond Brown scripsit:

> Yep - I've never heard "fox" beng used in a plural sense.  But lion, rhino,
> widerbeest, zebra are often used in a plural sense.  Zebra & wilderbeest
> are 'self-herdable', but we don't get herds of lion(s) or rhino(s).
Fair enough.  But do we count "one lion, two lion; one rhino, two rhino"
in the way we count "one fish, two fish/two fishes"?  I still doubt it.
One can talk of hunting lion (mass noun) or lions (plural count noun),
but that is more like the business with eating shark (as opposed to
catching five shark).

And in any event "deers", "sheeps" are definitely out in all contexts.

--
John Cowan <jcowan@...>     http://www.reutershealth.com
I amar prestar aen, han mathon ne nen,    http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
han mathon ne chae, a han noston ne 'wilith.  --Galadriel, _LOTR:FOTR_

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