Re: [tied] Re: English Young (was: Indo-Iranian Vowel Collapse)

At 9:02:32 AM on Friday, November 25, 2005, Richard
Wordingham wrote:

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

>> Richard Wordingham wrote:

>>> a) The singular derives from *kalba-m or *kalba-z - both
>>> neuter and masculine thematic plurals are know from Old
>>> English.

>> Of course the es-stem nom.sg. *kalb-az is
>> indistinguishable from these two in OE. Are you sure
>> about the neuter thematic plural? It would be *<c(e)alf>,
>> but as far as I recall the only neuter plural in OE is
>> <c(e)alfru> (beside strong masculine <c(e)alfas>).

> I have to rely on my derived sources. Onions reconstructs
> West Germanic *kalbam, and cites a masculime _kalbr_ from
> Old Norse. (I hope I remember the labial correctly - I'll
> check tonight.)

It's <kálfr>, and it declines like a masc. o-stem.

[...]

> For the OE plural, I can only go by Quirk and Wrenn's
> '_Cild_, _cealf_, and _lomb_ appear also with General
> Neuter inflexions (like _land_, para. 31), and the first
> two are recorded more rarely with General Masculine
> inflexions.'.

The OED doesn't mention a nom.pl. <cealf>, but it does note
the occasional occurrence of nom.pl. <lamb>, saying that
it's due to analogy with o-stem animal names.

Brian