08-01-04 12:11, tgpedersen wrote:
>> it wasn't the plural suffix that was unfamiliar to her, but the whole word <egges>.
>
> If that were the case, there would no point in Caxton telling the story.
It MUST have been the case, for we know for sure that in Caxton's time
only a handful of Southeastern words still had plurals in <-en>, and the
redst hasd <-es>. She didn't realise (or so Caxton tells us) that the
Northern word /eg&z/ was the same as her Kentish /æ:r&n/ (or something
like that). Even though she was able to recognise the plural ending, it
was of little help to her, since the SINGULAR form of her 'egg' word was
<ey> /æ:/, not Northern <egge> /eg/. She didn't know what /eg/ was
supposed to mean.
Piotr