Re: s-stems in Slavic and Germanic

From: Brian M. Scott
Message: 62838
Date: 2009-02-05

At 1:49:49 PM on Thursday, February 5, 2009, tgpedersen wrote:

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

>> At 12:14:56 PM on Thursday, February 5, 2009, Andrew
>> Jarrette wrote:

>> [...]

>>> I don't know where German did get its few noun plurals
>>> in <-s>, maybe it's from the Seemannsprache you have
>>> mentioned, or from Mittelniederdeutsch, or perhaps
>>> French, since it seems to be commonest among words of
>>> foreign origin.

>> R. Priebsch & W.E. Collinson, _The German Language_, 3rd
>> edn., 1948, p. 204:

>> There was an Old Saxon plural in <-os> which was retained
>> in Low German till the twelfth century, but receded later
>> under the influence of High German, and it is not clear
>> how far it is the source of the modern plurals. We find a
>> recrudescence of <s>-forms in the Netherlands in the
>> thirteenth century followed by their reappearance in Low
>> German in the fourteenth, first of all in the 'nomina
>> agentis' in <-ere>. Then there was a new influx of
>> <s>-plurals from French from the seventeenth century
>> onward.

> Note the weasel word 'recrudescence'.

I can't: it isn't.

> The two gentlemen (a German and an Anglosaxon I suppose)

There haven't been any Anglo-Saxons in centuries.

> can't show that the s-plural disappeared in Dutch which
> they really really want to do,

And you know this without even having read the book!

Your conspiracy theories and associated attempts at
mind-reading are as unimpressive as they are tiresome.

> and the Low German s-plural in their tale 'receded' and
> then 'reappeared' (note that they never commit themselves
> to stating that it disappeared).

The obvious reading of the passage is that it disappeared
from the extant written record, but they assume that it
continued at some level in the spoken language.

>> Hence it is perhaps best to assign them in N.H.G. to a
>> foreign origin.

> And as I have shown above there is no 'here', so their
> 'hence' is vacuous.

You've shown nothing.

[...]

>> A more recent treatment might also point to English
>> influence.

> Not really.

Fritz Tschirch, _Geschichte der deutschen Sprache_, 3.,
ergänzte und überarbeitete Auflage bearbeitet von Werner
Besch, 1989, II:197.

Mit den <r>-Pluralen treten seit dem 17. Jh. im norddt.
Raum die auf nd. <-s> in Wettbewerb. Freilich bewahren
sie weitgehend ihren ungangssprachlichen Charakter, so
<Jung(en)s>, <Mädels>, <Kerls> (Goethe, 10. 3. 1777),
<Dramas> (7./8. 3. 1775), <Korporals> (Lessing: Minna
II/1). Seit der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jh.s steigen sie
in die Schriftsprache auf und bilden insbesondere die
Pl.-Formen der Eigennamen wie in den Werktiteln von Julius
Stindes <Buchholzens in Italien> (1883), Wilhelm Jordans
<Die Sebalds> (1884), Ernst von Wildenbruchs <Die
Quitzows> (1888), Theodor Fontanes <Die Poggenpuhls>
(1896), Thomas Manns <Buddenbrooks> (1901), Hermann
Sudermanns <Die Raschhoffs> (1919), William von Simpsons
<Die Barrings> (1937), so daß wir neuerdings von den
<Bachs>, den <Schlegels>, den <Grimms> (Brüder Grimm
Gedenken 1963, S. 154, 3) sprechen, wenn wir die
Mitglieder dieser berühmten Musiker-, Dichter- und
Gelehrtenfamilien meinen. Daß die <s>-Plurale während des
letzten Jh.s in der Hochsprache so rasch um sich greifen,
verdanken sie dem Eindringen englischer Pl. wie <Lords>,
<Clubs>, <Streiks>, <Profis>, und frz. <Stores>,
<Ballons>, <Kartons>, <Filets>, <Parfüms>, die nach dt.
Schreibgewohnheit artikuliert werden; entsprechend wird
auch <Büros> gebildet und gesprochen.

Brian