Re: s-stems in Slavic and Germanic

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:

>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Joao S. Lopes" <josimo70@> wrote:
> >
> > I'm gathering examples of s-stems in Germanic and Slavic. Could
> anybody give me more examples?
> >
> > Germanic (Gothic)
> > sigis, agis, hatis, skathis, rimis, ahs, *lambas-, *landas-, *skinTas-
> >
> > Slavic
> > nebo
> >
>
> Germanic s-stems have plural -er in German (and -eren in Dutch).
> Here's a list of some:
> http://tinyurl.com/b53k9k
> plus eg. Amt, Ämter "public office"
>
>
> Torsten
>

But of the nouns that end in -er in the plural in German, only a few
are original s-stems (e.g. Kalb-Kälber, Lamm-Lämmer); German has
greatly expanded the number of nouns that end in -er in the plural by
taking this ending from the original (all neuter) s-stems' plural and
introducing it to the plural of neuter nouns that originally had a
plural form identical to the singular (e.g. <wort>). This was
probably done in order to make the plural forms of these neuter nouns
more distinct. The ending also was transferred to some masculine
nouns that originally were identical in the plural. e.g. Mann-Männer.

Andrew