XPost: alt.usage.english
On 9/3/2024 2:45 PM, Ross Clark wrote:
On 4/09/2024 9:22 a.m., HenHanna wrote:
; > Does the dropping of the final S go back to Greek or Hebrew? >>
Crossposted to sci.lang, where people might know the answer.
Is there a natural tendency for languages to lose final
syllables or final consonants? <<<
----------- Why is this thread named [Somewheres] ?
is there a suggestion that ...
Somewhere came from Somewheres ? --- (Dropped S)
i think Not !
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/somewheres
i thnk the -s in Somewheres is old, and the same as in
Forwards
Backwards
Outwards
Inwards
Upwards
Downwards
Homewards
Sideways
Besides ?
Unawares ?
forward + -s → forwards
downward + -s → downwards
alway + -s → always
sometime + -s → sometimes
betime + -s → betimes
while + -s → whiles
betide + -s → betides
toward + -s → towards
beside + -s → besides
evening + -s → evenings
unaware + -s → unawares
among + -st → amongst
mid + -st → midst
while + -st → whilst
betwixt
against
alongst
amongst
beknownst
midst
unbeknownst
whilst
whomst
You (whoever "you" are) are right.
I pointed this out a couple of days ago, referring to what I call
"floating adverbial -s". You may have missed it as a result of your
incessant cross-posting. (Thunderbird won't let me cross-post.)
All the words above are (I think) examples of it. (Sometimes with extra
-t.)
IIRC, Peter Moylan originally asked about the form "besides", which was
new to him. Some time later, he mentioned that in choral singing, the
sound of [s] is disliked, and singers are instructed to mute or even
suppress it. This led to general discussion of loss or weakening of [s]
and other sounds in languages. But I don't think anyone actually claimed
that "somewheres" became "somewhere" in this way. If they did, they were wrong.
in English choruses, the final S is never dropped.
----------- all S's are emphasized, enunciated... iirc.
_____________________
whenabouts?
thenabouts?
nearabouts
roundabouts
hereabouts
thereabouts
whereabouts --- in Each, -S is adverbial
i was trying to remember... there was a thread about
the adverbial -S suffix in AUE and i think i found it.
_______________________________Subj: Whereabouts
[email protected] ------- Aug 24, 2011 ---- to AUE
On Aug 24, "Peter Duncanson (BrE)" <
[email protected]> wrote:
.........
The strange thing is that the -s isn't historically a plural at all.
It's the "adverbial -s", originally from an OE genitive singular. Yet "whereabouts" is certainly treated as plural for purposes of
agreement, and I think may even be felt by some speakers as
semantically plural, something like "the particulars of his location",
or maybe as suggesting that he moves around (has more than one location)?
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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