Re: s-stems in Slavic and Germanic

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@...> wrote:

>
> At 1:49:49 PM on Thursday, February 5, 2009, tgpedersen wrote:
>
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott"
> > <BMScott@> wrote:
>
> >> At 12:14:56 PM on Thursday, February 5, 2009, Andrew
> >> Jarrette wrote:
>
> >> [...]
>
> >>> I don't know where German did get its few noun plurals
> >>> in <-s>, maybe it's from the Seemannsprache you have
> >>> mentioned, or from Mittelniederdeutsch, or perhaps
> >>> French, since it seems to be commonest among words of
> >>> foreign origin.
>
> >> R. Priebsch & W.E. Collinson, _The German Language_, 3rd
> >> edn., 1948, p. 204:
>
> >> There was an Old Saxon plural in <-os> which was retained
> >> in Low German till the twelfth century, but receded later
> >> under the influence of High German, and it is not clear
> >> how far it is the source of the modern plurals. We find a
> >> recrudescence of <s>-forms in the Netherlands in the
> >> thirteenth century followed by their reappearance in Low
> >> German in the fourteenth, first of all in the 'nomina
> >> agentis' in <-ere>. Then there was a new influx of
> >> <s>-plurals from French from the seventeenth century
> >> onward.
>
> > Note the weasel word 'recrudescence'.
>
> I can't: it isn't.

Torsten says so, so it's wrong.

> > The two gentlemen (a German and an Anglosaxon I suppose)
>
> There haven't been any Anglo-Saxons in centuries.

Would you quit pouting?
Did someone pee on your sandwich?

> > can't show that the s-plural disappeared in Dutch which
> > they really really want to do,
>
> And you know this without even having read the book!

No, actually I surmised it. You are my secret Popper test, since I
know you will do everything in your power to find the quote which
proves me wrong. You haven't, so I must be right.

> Your conspiracy theories and associated attempts at
> mind-reading are as unimpressive as they are tiresome.

Do you have any factual objections?

> > and the Low German s-plural in their tale 'receded' and
> > then 'reappeared' (note that they never commit themselves
> > to stating that it disappeared).
>
> The obvious reading of the passage is that it disappeared
> from the extant written record, but they assume that it
> continued at some level in the spoken language.

Are you actually a native speaker of English?

> >> Hence it is perhaps best to assign them in N.H.G. to a
> >> foreign origin.
>
> > And as I have shown above there is no 'here', so their
> > 'hence' is vacuous.
>
> You've shown nothing.

Harumph!

> [...]
>
> >> A more recent treatment might also point to English influence.
>
> > Not really.
>
> Fritz Tschirch, _Geschichte der deutschen Sprache_, 3.,
> ergänzte und überarbeitete Auflage bearbeitet von Werner
> Besch, 1989, II:197.

I was thinking post-war, but OK.

> Mit den <r>-Pluralen treten seit dem 17. Jh. im norddt.
> Raum die auf nd. <-s> in Wettbewerb. Freilich bewahren
> sie weitgehend ihren ungangssprachlichen Charakter, so
> <Jung(en)s>, <Mädels>, <Kerls> (Goethe, 10. 3. 1777),
> <Dramas> (7./8. 3. 1775), <Korporals> (Lessing: Minna
> II/1). Seit der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jh.s steigen sie
> in die Schriftsprache auf und bilden insbesondere die
> Pl.-Formen der Eigennamen wie in den Werktiteln von Julius
> Stindes <Buchholzens in Italien> (1883), Wilhelm Jordans
> <Die Sebalds> (1884), Ernst von Wildenbruchs <Die
> Quitzows> (1888), Theodor Fontanes <Die Poggenpuhls>
> (1896), Thomas Manns <Buddenbrooks> (1901), Hermann
> Sudermanns <Die Raschhoffs> (1919), William von Simpsons
> <Die Barrings> (1937), so daß wir neuerdings von den
> <Bachs>, den <Schlegels>, den <Grimms> (Brüder Grimm
> Gedenken 1963, S. 154, 3) sprechen, wenn wir die
> Mitglieder dieser berühmten Musiker-, Dichter- und
> Gelehrtenfamilien meinen.

OK, so this is one application of s-plural in modern German, which
Tschirch ascribes to the influence of platt, not English.
(Incidentally, the same construction has gained ground in Danish, eg.
'på besøg hos Olsens', even thought we have no s-plural, it's
understood more like a genitive).

> Daß die <s>-Plurale während des
> letzten Jh.s in der Hochsprache so rasch um sich greifen,
> verdanken sie dem Eindringen englischer Pl. wie <Lords>,
> <Clubs>, <Streiks>, <Profis>, und frz. <Stores>,
> <Ballons>, <Kartons>, <Filets>, <Parfüms>, die nach dt.
> Schreibgewohnheit artikuliert werden; entsprechend wird
> auch <Büros> gebildet und gesprochen.

As I said, the s-plural enters the German language with the foreign
loans, but doesn't spread to the 'old' words, like I said (actually
that's not quite true, new diminutives in -y or -ie in the English
fashion take -s in the pl., even if based on a German word.


Torsten