Re: s-stems in Slavic and Germanic

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

>
> At 1:57:16 PM on Sunday, February 8, 2009, tgpedersen wrote:
>
> > There was a move towards seeing English as a Creole
> > language arising from the meeting of Anglo-Saxon and
> > French in post-1066 England some years back. It was
> > countered with the observation that similar creole-like
> > processes took place in the area I mentioned: Dutch, Low
> > German Continental Scandinavian.
>
> Hardly the only counterargument. Those who are actually
> interested should read Thomason & Kaufman.

As opposed to those who are not actually interested?
Would you care to inform us what they are, or would you prefer to
harumph again?

> Or, for the methodological issues, Roger Lass on 'contact
> romantics'.

Is his idea if dealing with the methodological issues to call his
opponents 'romantics' or does he actually deal with the subject?

>
> > No Saxon in England would argue with a Norman that it was
> > eyren,
>
> True: the OE plural was <æg(e)ru>. The plural <eyren> was
> an innovation in Southern ME, which generalized the <-en>
> plural almost as enthusiastically as the Northern varieties
> generalized the <-es> plural.

Interesting, that's what Dutch has done now.


Torsten