Re: [tied] -ves plurals in English

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 10660
Date: 2001-10-27

The contrast between -f- and -v- is reflected in the modern orthography, but many speakers still distinguish voiceless and voiced fricatives in the following pairs without any difference in the spelling:
 
house : houses
path : paths
bath : baths
wreath : wreaths
mouth : mouths
 
Piotr
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, October 27, 2001 5:07 AM
Subject: Re: [tied] -ves plurals in English

On Fri, 26 Oct 2001 21:35:41 EDT, jpisc98357@... wrote:

>Dear Friends,
>
>     Can anyone explain why and when Engles developed an unusual way of
>creating plurals?
>
>self      selves  (our, them, your)
>calf      calves
>half      halves
>wolf     wolves
>sheaf  sheaves

In OE [v] was merely a positional allophone of /f/, for instance
between vowels or between /l/ and vowel.  The allophone acquired
phonemic status somewhere in ME, which is also when the Norman scribes
started to write is as such (<u> or <v>).

>    And while the question is being considered, how about
>
>goose     geese
>mouse    mice
>louse       lice

That one's rather older: Germanic i-umlaut before the consonant stem
plural ending *-iz (< PIE *-es).