HOMEWORK #9
ENGL 4301 Spring 1998
Due Tuesday, 21 April
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 #9 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 many 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 have regularized to -s/-es forms.
Make a list of as many "irregular" plurals in English today as you can possibly find. Then, write a brief essay commenting on the future of these irregular plurals. Which are likeliest to disappear in favor of regular forms over the next century or two?