Re: De Vulgari Regularitate (earlier: substratums)

--- In cybalist@..., "richardwordingham" <richard.wordingham@...>
wrote:

> --- In cybalist@..., Daniel Dubowy <bar_iona@...> wrote:
> >
> >
> > ****
> > Pluralization can also vary from Standard English:
> > eyes becomes "een" and shoes become "shuin." Nouns of
> > measure remain unchanged in the plural, so "two miles"
> > becomes "twa mile" and "five pounds" is "five pun."
> > ****
> >
> The dropping of the plural after numerals occurs, I recall, in
> Norfolk. The loss (or absence) of the plural marker is standard

with

> several units of measure e.g. 'stone', 'hundredweight', 'score'
> and 'dozen'. However, without a numeral of some sort, 'score'
> and 'dozen' do add 's' in the plural. And, of course, when used
> attributively, numbers plus measure do not have a plural marker,
> e.g. 'a six foot wall'.
>

The other Germanic languages do something similar.

> I recall seeing '-en' plurals for 'eye' and 'shoe' being described

as

> a South West English dialect feature. I suspect these forms can be
> found in many parts of the England and Scotland.
>

I wonder if English dialects can be profitably divided into "Anglish"
and Saxon ones? German has 'Schuhen', Dutch 'schoenen' (presumably
back-formed from a plural). S > z, f > v is also common to these
languages.

> Richard.