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From: deb5@midway.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: the "s" inflection of Spanish
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References: <5c8pab$30d@portal.gmu.edu> <01bc0c69$1ce4fe40$LocalHost@default> <ALDERSON.97Jan29115859@netcom16.netcom.com> <5dq3hq$76q@news.utrecht.NL.net>
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 1997 18:11:00 GMT
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In article <5dq3hq$76q@news.utrecht.NL.net>,
T.T. Gerritsen <T.Gerritsen@inter.nl.net> wrote:
>alderson@netcom16.netcom.com (Richard M. Alderson III) wrote:
>
>>The plural <s> emerged in the Romance languages from their Vulgar Latin
>>ancestor, not from any outside influence.
>
>Not all Romance languages have plurals in <s>,

Who said they did?

>Italian and Romanian
>being the most important. Plural <s> wasn't of course 'borrowed' from
>Germanic, but its influence could have 'tipped the scales' in favour
>of <s> instead of <i>, such as in Romanian, where Slavic influence
>could have favoured <i>. But this is a poor explanation for the
>Italian plural.

Who was trying to explain the origin of the Italian plural?  Not Mr.
Alderson.  (Although, in another part of this thread, M.C.V. gave an
excellent explanation of the evolution of /s/-plurals in the Indo-
European languages that briefly discussed the sources for /i/-plurals in
Italian et al.)
-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
