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From: donh@netcom.com (Don HARLOW)
Subject: Re: Single European Language
Message-ID: <donhDA72ys.Dwx@netcom.com>
Organization: Esperanto League for North America, Inc.
References: <802994486snz@storcomp.demon.co.uk> <DA5o00.E34@tigadmin.ml.com>
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 1995 03:28:04 GMT
Lines: 26
Sender: donh@netcom5.netcom.com

pardoej@lonnds.ml.com skribis en lastatempa afisxo <DA5o00.E34@tigadmin.ml.com>:
>In article <802994486snz@storcomp.demon.co.uk>, Phil Hunt writes
>> EL forms plurals with "-s" as do most of the EU's 5 main lanugages
>
>Well, if three is "most"...  What about nouns ending is "-s"?
>
>...quibble quibble.
>
Yet another quibble -- what if we are talking about the _spoken_ rather 
than the _written_ language? Formally, French has a plural in -s, but in 
the spoken language this only appears in elision before following words 
that begin with a vowel sound (in which case /s/ is invariably converted 
to /z/, as it also is in English plurals, more often than not). 
Otherwise, spoken French is almost as plural-free as Japanese; and those 
plurals which _are_ spoken are generally inflected and irregular 
(e.g. _cheval_ -> _chevaux_).

None of which, I suppose, matters, as long as we restrict ourselves to 
the net or other written media...


-- 
Don HARLOW			donh@netcom.com
Esperanto League for N.A.       elna@netcom.com (800) 828-5944
ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/el/elna/elna.html         Esperanto
http://www.webcom.com/~donh
