Re: s-stems in Slavic and Germanic

> 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.

>

Oops, that rings a bell, you're right of course.
I suspect they were trying to get rid of the s-plural, shibboleth-
wise (the whole Caxton-story, in the archives).


Torsten