--- In cybalist@..., "richardwordingham" <richard.wordingham@...>
wrote:
> --- In cybalist@..., "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>
>
> > Danish has no s-plural, so it's "en hotdogs, to hotdogs".
>
> Do educated Danes use foreign plural inflections in foreign words?
Yes. The rules in Danish are those of German, but laxer (no "ein
Atlas, zwei Atlanten"). One additional problem, however, is that any
plural must be capable of being inflected for definiteness, by
adding -ne. This rules out -s as a viable plural in Danish (unlike
German: Hotels, Danish hoteller).
Very soon after borrowing English loaned nouns are equipped with
the "still productive" class ending -er (most Danish old masculines
have -e from the a-stem pl. acc.), giving it a home-spun feel, which
is de rigueur with everything in Denmark, or they are classified with
the few common gender nouns that, like n., take no pl. ending (fisk -
fisk), one method being generalizing the English plural -s (but this
is either old loans, klips "clip", slips "neck-tie", pyjamas, kiks (<
cakes) "biscuit" passing first through German, or sub-standard
like "en hotdogs". But if there is no alternative, English -s
survives: bit, bitten, bits, bitsene.
For some reason there exists a sole collective -s in Danish: høne,
høner, høns "hen", collectively in English "chicken". Styks "items"
is a Dutch loan.
>
> Richard.