[tied] Re: Middle English Plurals

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

> At 11:32:36 AM on Thursday, January 8, 2004, Piotr
> Gasiorowski wrote:
>
> > 08-01-04 14:30, tgpedersen wrote:
>
> >> It isn't. It's the language with generalised plural <-s>
> >> that's fitter than its opposite, a conservative,
> >> complication-preserving, s- shunning and _as a
> >> consequence_ of that n-loving language.
>
> > Is there anyone on the group (apart from Torsten) to whom
> > this convoluted drivel makes any sense?
>
> Taking into account what he's written elsewhere in the
> thread, I *think* that Torsten is making two claims:
>
> * A language with a single, uniform plural formation is
> fitter than one with multiple plural formations.

And this is a trader's language. The use of a single, uniform plural
is so to speak the linguistic correspondent phenomenon to Marx'
observation that the category of money relationship will replace all
other human relationships. The trader is saying, as it were: "If all
commodities are for sale, why should they have different plurals?"

> * 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).
>

Corresponding to the objections non-traders have against this
dissolution of all values. But if trade prevails, their objections
are futile, if for no other reason, then because their purpose is
primarily conservative: to preserve what once was; unless trade
abates, as it did in Holland after the Gouden Eeuw (golden century),
when France reached the Rhine at Strasbourg and strangled Dutch
trade; as a result <-s> plurals in Dutch receded.


And you have understood me correctly.


Torsten