Re: [tied] Middle English Plurals

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski
<piotr.gasiorowski@...> wrote:

> 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.
>

This might interest you. It seems I was right that the merchants were
indeed going abroad to Zeeland (the islands in the Rhine delta, north
of the Flemish ports):

http://www.swuklink.com/BAAAGBIO.php

More of his ruminations on foreign, and domestic, plain and refined,
Kentish and not. Note the Dutch connection.

For your own illumination, browsing through a textbook of modern
Dutch would be a good idea. Specifically on the plurals: The standard
is <-(e)n>, pronounced '-&', come about by the merger of <-e> with <-
en> through the loss in speech of <-n>, <-s> being used mainly after
<-en>, <-er>, <-el>, and <-eren> in a small group of neuters. I
wouldn't be surpried if the wyves language had a similar grammar.

Torsten