Newsgroups: sci.lang
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!bb3.andrew.cmu.edu!nntp.sei.cmu.edu!news.psc.edu!hudson.lm.com!news.math.psu.edu!ra.nrl.navy.mil!europa.chnt.gtegsc.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.mathworks.com!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!in1.uu.net!comp.vuw.ac.nz!actrix.gen.nz!kriha
From: kriha_p@actrix.gen.nz (Paul J. Kriha)
Subject: Re: Which family is Japanese in?
Message-ID: <43c2b7$i0_003@actrix.gen.nz>
Sender: news@actrix.gen.nz (News Administrator)
Organization: Kriha Consultants Pty Ltd
Date: Fri, 15 Sep 1995 14:24:39 GMT
References: <Pine.SUN.3.91.950912112832.17959A-100000@aloha.cc.columbia.edu> <437dbp$arg@clarknet.clark.net> <Pine.SUN.3.91.950914102043.19279A-100000@konichiwa.cc.columbia.edu>
X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #3
X-Nntp-Posting-Host: kriha.actrix.gen.nz
Lines: 37

In article 
<Pine.SUN.3.91.950914102043.19279A-100000@konichiwa.cc.columbia.edu>,
   Peter D Banos <pdb1@columbia.edu> wrote:
>On 13 Sep 1995, Harlan Messinger wrote:

[...]

>Lately I've come to pay attention to what foreign languages do with the 
>"s" in borrowings from English like "shorts" - a plural marker without a  
>clearly plural 
>significance. Some seem to treat it as just part of the word [Hungarian 
>_sorc_, the "s" being pronounced as our "sh" and the "c" like "ts"], others 
>translate it into the local plural-marker [Polish _szorty._] I've even 
>seen _sortsut_ listed for Finnish [the "s" has a hacek, like the "c" in 
>"hacek"...] - keeping the "s" and _adding_ the Finnish plural  marker! 
>By the way, I've gotten all these from dictionaries and glossaries; can 
>anyone out there confirm or deny that they are what native speakers 
>normally say?

I can't confirm what the speakers of the mentioned languages would say.
Czech uses its own plural marker: _s^ortky_ [the ^ represents a
hacek above the preceeding letter].  For some reason a diminutive-
-uncountable-plural suffix -ky was chosen.  Perhaps it had something
to do with the physical size of the attire. :-)

Generally speaking Czech gets rid of all original markers and
installs its own.  Because it has so many to choose from it
usually installs the ones that make the loan word look native
and easily pronounceable.  I guess all Slavonic languages
do more or less the same.

Paul JK





