Res: [tied] Re: s-stems in Slavic and Germanic

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Joao S. Lopes" <josimo70@...> wrote:

>
> The same "simplification" occurred through shift from Latin to

Portuguese: corpus "body" (corpu, pl. corpora) and tempus
"time"(tempu, pl. tempora), both s-stems became corpo (pl.
corpos) and tempo (pl. tempos), "regularized" to o-stems.

>
> JS Lopes
>
>

Actually this is the opposite of what happened in German: instead of
the s-stems becoming "regularized" to the o-stem plural (which would
be <-e>), their distinctive plural was retained and even extended to
many words which formerly did not have this plural formation (see the
list provided earlier by Torsten).

Andrew

>
>
> ________________________________
> De: tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...>
> Para: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
> Enviadas: Quarta-feira, 4 de Fevereiro de 2009 22:42:30
> Assunto: [tied] 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
>
>
>
>
>
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