ENGL 4301 Spring 1997
Due Monday, 31 March
We've talked about the sounds of the words "foot and "feet" and about their cognates in other Indo-European languages. I want to use assignment #8 to discuss a different aspect of these words: the status of words like "feet" that we call, somewhat inaccurately, "irregular plurals."
Every new English word for many centuries has taken a plural in "-s" or "-es"--take a new word like "CD"; what it its plural? "CDs." Yet centuries ago "s/es" was only one of several plural markers in English. Chaucer's usual plural for "eye," for example, was "eyen." Yet over the years most plurals in English have shifted toward "s/es" forms.
Make a list of all the plurals in English that you can think of that are not formed in "-s" or "-es"--then, write a 2-3 page essay speculating on: 1) why these plurals have not followed the pattern that the word "eyen" took toward the "regular" form "eyes"; and 2) which of the "irregular" plurals in English will change into "s/es" plurals over the next few centuries.