Re: s-stems in Slavic and Germanic

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

> > But why would the Southern German insist that the correct plural of
> > <Wort> is (the new and at first incorrect) <Wörter> rather than (the
> > old and originally correct) <Wort>, instead of the creolized
> > <Wort(e)s>? I don't see how this s-shibboleth would encourage the
> > spread of <-er> beyond its original bounds.
>
> No, but the whole plural thing would have been in a state of flux, and
> one more motive wrt. to those endingless neuters would be to supply
> them with a proper plural ending. To the 'correct' camp the usual -e
> without umlaut from the strong masculines hasn't sounded proper enough
> (Wörter, BTW, also has the plural Worte).
>
>
> Torsten
>

OK, I guess that makes sense, although I doubt that plurals in <-s>
were part of the German state of flux. I await a reply from Elz.bieta
Adamczyk whose paper might shed light on this matter, whether it can
be shown that shibboleth had any role in the diffusion of the
umlaut+-er plural. And yes I have always known of the other plural
<Worte> (so perhaps I should have chosen another word as an example;
this one is just so easy to remember) meaning "words collectively,
such as an utterance" I think (never learned the proper distinction
while studying German at school). I wonder if avoidance not of <-s>
but of <-e>, held to be masculine, might be the "shibboleth" here, in
loose terms.

Andrew