>And those s-plurals are all French or other foreign loans, if not
>loans from Low German, oder?
Ober German dialects also have s-plurals (nicht wahr Mädels und
Jungs? :^)
>>saying e.g. die Müllers, die Schmidts, die Maiers, die Hubers, die
>>Schröders, die Fischers.
>
>That's generally considered to be a genitive s.
Really? "Die Müllers haben die Schmidts getroffen." Nominative:
die Müllers. Akkusative: die Schmidts. (Obacht: *_die_ xxxs*)
It is in "Müllers Freund Schmidt" and "Schmidts Freund Müller"
where there is a genitive... singular (as though "des Müllers Freund").
It is this the genitive you mean -- and which Germans in general
stubbornly tend to write with apostrophe, Müller's, Schmidt's,
in spite of an orthogr. reform 100 years ago. (The same happens
to another category, "ins, fürs" --> "in's, für's". :^)
>Torsten
George
--
--
Meinungen sind wie Grundstücke: Erstens sind sie zu teuer
und zweitens kann man nicht immer darauf bauen. (Dieter
Hildebrandt, Kabarettist)
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