Peculiar plurals: origin and uses

Man, men, etc. The eight Plurals are called Mutation-plurals, because they are formed by a change or mutation of the inside vowel of the singular. Once there were many more such plurals than there are now. The original plural of man was "mann-is". The "i" in the ending -is had the effect of changing the a of mann or man into a sound more like itself; thus mann-is became menn-is. The effect of "/" in thus changing the preceding vowel is called Vowel-mutation in English and Umlaut in Ger­man. When the -is was dropped, nothing but the vowel-change was left to distinguish the Plural from the Singular. This Muta­tion-method became obsolete when the Anglo-Saxon system of grammar decayed.

Ox, oxen, etc. The four Plurals are formed by a process that is now as obsolete as that of vowel-mutation. In Old English -an (now written -en) was not as common as a then Plural ending -as (now written -es or -s). But -as or -es became much more common when the decay of Anglo-Saxon was setting in. After­wards, when French influence had begun to work (about 200 years after the Norman Conquest), the French Plural in -s helped to drive the nail home, so that -s or -es became eventually the sign of the Plural for almost all our nouns.

Foreign Plurals. We have some Plurals which have been borrowed direct from foreign nouns:

Latin Plurals: from -urn (sing.) to -a (plur.); addend-a, agend-a, dat-a, errat-a, strat-a, memorand-a (or memorand-ums); from -us

True Singulars used as Plurals. - By a "True Singular" we mean that the final "s" is part of the original Singular noun, and not a sign of the Plural.

Such nouns, though Singular by etymology, are liable to be considered Plural on account of the final "s"; and all except the first of these named below are now always used as if they were Plural.

Summons (Fr. semonce). - This noun is still correctly used as a Singular; as "I received a summons to attend"; "This sum­mons reached me to-day." The plural form is summonses.

Alms (A.S. selmesse). - "He asked an alms" (New Testa­ment). But now the word is generally used as if it were Plural; as, "I gave alms to the beggar, and for these he thanked me."

Eaves (A.S. efese). - The edge or lower borders of the roof of a house. The word is now always used as a Plural; as, "The eaves are not yet finished."

Riches (Fr. Richesse). - This too is really a Singular; as, "In one hour is so great riches come to naught (New Testament); but now, on account of the final s, this noun is always used as a Plural; as, "Riches do not last for ever."

Cherries (Mid. Eng. cheris): cf. Latin, ceras-us, - The s looked so like a Plural ending, that a Singular cherry was coined.

Peas (A.S. pis-a. Singular). - When the a was lost, the fi­nal s looked like a Plural; so a Singular pea was coined; "The vaunting poets found nought worth a pease". - SPENCER. "Of the bigness of a great peaze. - RALEIGH, Hist. World (Spelt with a 2 by Raleigh, because it was so pronounced).

True Plurals used as Singulars. - In such nouns the final s is really a sign of the Plural:

Amends. - This is sometimes used as a Singular and sometimes as a Plural: as, "An honourable amends" (ADDISON).

Means. - This is now almost always used as a Singular; as, "By this means".

News. - This is now almost always used as a Singular; as, "111 news runs apace." Mid. Eng. new-es (plural); French nouvelles.

Innings. - This is a word used in cricket to denote the turn for going in and using the bat. It is always used as a Singular; as, "We have not yet had an innings"; "Our eleven beat the other by an innings and ten runs."

Gallows. - The framework from which criminals are hanged. This noun is used as a Singular; as, "They fixed up a gal­lows."

Odds. - A word used in betting to denote the difference of one wager against another. "We gave him a heavy odds against ourselves."

Sledge. - A respelling of sleds, plural of sled, which is still used in Canada for "sledge". This is always used as Singular: "A sledge (сани, они) is sliding down the slope".

CASE

Case is "any one of the varied forms of a noun, adjective or pro­noun, which expresses the varied relations in which it may function" (Oxford English Dictionary). That is, it is a form to express relation­ship, not the relationship itself; and the kind of relationship is one that only certain sorts of word (those characteristically functioning in the noun-phrase) enter into - case and noun, etc., are to some ex­tent mutually defining words. OED's definition is meant to apply to a wide range of languages; it does not of course imply that all these form-classes actually have case-systems in English (for adjectives clear­ly not). For the two terms of the English noun case-system, the labels "common case" and "genitive case" are probably the most appropri­ate of those available.

The two terms of the case-system of English nouns are not on an equal footing. Formally, the one we have called common case is un-inflected, while the genitive is inflected; functionally, the uses of the penitive are specific, those of the common case general, in the sense that a noun is in the common case unless there s reason for it not to be. In other words, both formally and functionally, the common case is unmarked and the genitive marked.

In the common case singular, the base of the noun is used. In the genitive a morphemic suffix is added, once again -'s sibilant suffix having alternants [iz], [z], [s] in the same distribution as the open-class plural morpheme. There is, of course, a distinction in the writ­ten form, where the genitive has an apostrophe before the -s; and there is a difference in speech in those words that have closed-class plurals, since there are no exceptions to the spoken form of the geni­tive suffix - save in a few expressions where the next word begins with s-, and then only regularly in expressions that have become tra­ditional as wholes, such as Pears' Soap [psaz soup]. This degree of uniformity in distribution is unique amongst grammatical bound mor­phemes in English.

In the plural the common-case forms are those described above. For those words that have open-class plurals, there is no formal case-con­trast, though in writing a distinction is made by placing an apostrophe after the -s in the genitive. Nouns with closed-class plurals do have a contrast in speech, adding to the common-class plural the sibilant mor­pheme with alternants [izj, [z], [s] in the now familiar distribution.

The value of grammatical contrasts is that they convey meanings and distinctions that the language is not well adapted to convey lex­ically; so any attempt to sum up "the meaning" of the genitive is. doomed. It is hard to get nearer to it than to say that it conveys a relationship, which may be of possession, origin, consisting of, ex­tent of, association with or concerning (directed towards). Genitives commonly occur in collocations with another noun-like word, which provides the second term of the relationship, and may be classified according as the relationship is subjective (directed from the referent of the genitive noun to that of the other) or objective (directed to­wards the referent of the genitive noun). An example (adapting a book-title) is "my aunt's murder" (subjective if it refers to the murder she committed; objective if it refers to murder committed upon her). There is no forma] difference, and this may lead to ambiguity, but generally the context and lexical probability make clear which is meant. Of the kinds of relationship expressed, that of possession is probably dominant, with the result that there is a tendency to avoid the genitive of nouns whose referents cannot possess (are not, or are not thought of as being, human or at least animal). So we readily speak of a stu­dent's book, but not of a book's student (=one who studies that book); and similarly not only for nouns with actually personal referents, but for others like "ship" and "car", which have as referents things some speakers like to think of in human terms; but hardly the “typewrit­er's ribbon". Possession is not the only relationship expressed by the genitive, however, and in expressions of a certain pattern the genitive of extent is very common (indeed, compulsory for the required rela­tionship), e.g., a day's work, a stone's throw. For this reason, it is inadvisable to give the case a name like "possessive", or indeed any transparent name, for it just does not correspond to any simple lexical notion in English, except in a special sense we shall now look into. Naturally the genitive relationship in its full range needs to be expressed in connection with nouns not eligible, as we have explained, for genitive case-forms. In such words, a quite different pattern is used, namely the particle "of followed by the noun in common case, the whole following the form for the other term of the relationship (as in "The Book of the Month"). “Of” therefore does have much the same "meaning" as the case-form (though its distribution is differ­ent) and we might have used the name "of-case" if we could have been sure that that would not suggest that of-constructions them­selves are case-forms. Though "of is a word, it belongs not to lexis, but to grammar, since it is one of the closed-system items we shall call "prepositions".

There are two difficulties about describing the use of the genitive. That of saying what kind of relationship it expresses we have already met. The second is that of the relative distribution of case-construc­tion and of-constructions. The general principles outlined so far must now be restricted in application. First there are idioms, constructions functioning as wholes, internally invariable, such as "money's worth”, “harm’s way”, “heart's content”, “mind's eye”, “wits’ end”. Secondly a genitive used quasi-adjectivally in certain words which other­wise do not conform to noun patterning, as in "yesterday's rain", "to-day's engagements", "to-morrow's match". Such constructions яге not like the idioms, for their total lexical content is not fixed, but they do represent fixed patterns of usage. Thirdly, various forces com­bine to keep alive a sense of patterns formerly productive in the lan­guage; one such force is the analogy of idioms, another is the memo­ry of familiar quotations (mind's eye is one of these, and one less fully assimilated is the round world's imagined corners), and a third is news­paper usage, especially in headlines, for which the compactness of the case-form is very convenient, so that it is often used where it would ordinarily be inappropriate, and so become increasingly familiar. Euphony is also a disturbing factor; except in set expressions (idi­oms, quotations and references) most speakers avoid the case-con­struction after final [s], saying, for instance, “The Eve of St. Agnes” rather than “St. Agnes’ Eve”. But the most important restriction of all is that our generalization applies, as far as speech is concerned, almost wholly to the singular forms. As we have seen, the case-con­trast in the plural is vestigial, and generally in the plural of-construc­tions are preferred. In writing the case-construction is more freely used, and some speakers follow the model of written English.

There are some instances, commonly in rather fixed patterns, in which the genitive is not associated with another noun-like word, but used absolutely, notably with locative force (at the greengrocer's); it may also occur, not alternatively with the of-construction, but in con­junction with it (that boy of Smith's).

The problem of case in Modern English nouns is one of the most vexed problems in English grammar. This can be seen from the fact that views on the subject differ widely. The most usual view is that English nouns have two cases: a common case (e. g. father) and a genitive (or possessive) case (e. g. father's). Side by side with this view there are a number of other views, which can be roughly classified into two main groups: (i) the number of cases in English is more than two, (2) there are no cases at all in English nouns.

The first of these can again be subdivided into the views that the number of cases in English nouns is three, or four, or five, or even an indefinite quantity. Among those who hold that there are no cases in English nouns there is again a variety of opinions as to the relations between the forms father and father's, etc.

Before embarking on a detailed study of the whole problem it is advisable to take a look at the essence of the notion of case. It is more than likely that part, at least, of the discussions and misunderstandings are due to a difference in the interpretation of case as a grammatical category. It seems therefore necessary to give as clear and unambiguous a definition of case as we can. Case is the category of a noun expressing relations between the thing denoted by the noun and other things, or properties, or actions, and manifested by some formal sign in the noun itself. This sign is almost always an inflection, 1 and it may also be a "zero" sign, i. e. the