[tied] Re: Middle English Plurals

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

> 08-01-04 21:09, Brian M. Scott wrote (trying to read Torsten's

mind):

>
> > * A language with a single, uniform plural formation is
> > fitter than one with multiple plural formations.
>
> > * If one of two competing varieties has some simple
> > distinguishing characteristic (e.g., uniform plural in
> > <-es>), speakers of the other will bend over backwards
> > to avoid that characteristic (e.g., by maintaining a
> > variety of plural formations).
>
> I see. This explains why the speakers of Middle Estuary English

didn't

> go very far to generalise <-en> in opposition to <-es>. They would

have

> made their system of plurals too simple in that way. But why did

they

> eventually generalise <-es>? Did they change their minds about

wanting

> to be unlike Northerners? If you are right about Torsten's

underlying

> claims, their behaviour was irrational. Any sane dialect would have
> switched to <-en>, optimising both the contrast with the competing
> variety AND its own fitness ;-).
>

Yes, but the problem is that this is not a symmetric relationship.
Basically I see it as a conflict driven by the age-old antagonism
between traders and settlers, ie. existing hierarchies. Trade and
traders are a threat to all existing hierarchies, and traders see
hierchies as a threat to the freedom of trade. Therefore, for the
Southern <-en> plural users to go the whole hog and and use <-en>
everywhere would be a betrayal of everything they stood for, namely
an instinctive conservatism. It is not a loyalty of place, to the
South, but a loyalty of time, to the old system. Note also that the
wyf lived on the travelling route which was the most natural for
merchants to use, and lack of wind cannot have that uncommon
occurrence, in other words, the way I read the story she is very
tired of nouveau-riche traders using her farm as a supermarket, which
is why she _pretends_ not to understand a form that was rather common
in her time. But I may be wrong, of course.

Torsten