Re: Number

Hi!

"Thomas R. Wier" <artabanos@...> writes:
> Henrik Theiling wrote:
> I was always told that the genitive singular of monosyllabic nouns
> is -es, rather than simply -s:  das Haus, des Hauses (although I've
> noted that the German press consistently refer to George W. Bush's
> policies by <Bushs> rather than <Bushes>).
Hmm, I think the -e- may surely be inserted, but is often dropped.  I
would guess that the real rule for inserted reduced -e-'s in German
(also at other places) has a lot to do with per-word statistics.

`des Faches' is perfectly fine, although `des Fachs' seem to me to be
used more often.

Words ending in -s will definitely require -es to make a pronouncible
word (`des Dachses').  Words ending in -sch may have a higher
probability to get used with -es, I would guess (`des Fisches'),
because [Ss] (`des Fischs') is hard to pronounce (but correct).

But really, -es seems to be perfect most/all(?) of the time, so maybe
you were just told the simple rule that I did not obey. :-)

**Henrik