tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Apr 16 18:15:34 1997
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Re: SopDaq
- From: Marian Schwartz <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: SopDaq
- Date: 16 Apr 97 21:13:41 EDT
ghItlh ~mark latlhpu' je
>>> >> What is likely is that the process is not (or no longer) productive.
>> >> No one would deny that _feet_ is formed from _foot_ via umlaut, but
>> >> that doesn't make *_beet_ a correct plural form of _boot_.
>> >
>> >True, but _boot_ and _foot_ don't have the same sound in
>> >the middle.
>>
>> But "boot" and "tooth" do, and yet one is teeth and the other boots.
>
>True, however, words which are pluralized generally base the plural on the
>ending, not the middle of the word. The word "boot" does not necessarily
>rhyme with "tooth", the only other usable noun that springs to mind that
>does rhyme with "boot" is "root", and its plural is "roots", which of
>course, rhymes with "boots". So, Mark, I'm not sure what line you were
>leading us to...
Sheez. Then consider "booth" and "tooth", which DO rhyme, but "booth"
pluralizes as "booths" and "tooth" as "teeth." Happy now?<
I'd like to offer an explanation for all of this rigamorole: English nouns are
very irregular (though not as much as German!), and no general rule can really
be assigned.
By the way, I hear the "foot-feet," "take-took" formation, with the middle vowel
changing, was very common in Proto-Indo-European, the base of Slavic, Romance,
Germanic, Indian languages, Irani languages, and who knows what else.
Qapla'
qoror