# German: plural -s



## Dymn

Hi,

One of the various German mechanisms to form the plural of nouns is adding an _-s_, however this is reserved to colloquial words and loanwords. I personally find quite weird to make up a new morphological paradigma for foreign words instead of applying* the ones already existing in the language, but anyway, what is the origin of plural _-s_ in German? Can this be found in the native wordstock in any dialect? What is the situation in other Germanic languages?

* I know this is also very common (z.B. _der Computer - die Computer, der Akteur - die Akteure_), but still.

Danke sehr


----------



## berndf

The_ s_-plural is an 18th century French loan.


----------



## Kevin Beach

"-s" is also used sometimes to form the plural.  Indeed, I think I even saw "-'s" fleetingly on a picture of a roadside hoarding the other day.


----------



## ahvalj

Dymn said:


> What is the situation in other Germanic languages?


This _-s_ is inherited in the Ingaevonic languages — English: _king — kings_ < Old English _cyng — cyngas_ and Low German: _Kjennich — Kjennichs_ < Old Saxon _kuning — kuningos__._ Frisian has -_r_. Etymologically, it represents either a generalized Accusative Plural ending (with _*-nz>*-z>-s_) or a double Nominative Plural ending (_*-siz~-ziz>-s~-r,_ almost certainly in Frisian), see plural inflections in Germanic languages.


----------



## berndf

ahvalj said:


> Frisian has -_r_.


All West and North Germanic languages except English and modern Dutch have _-(e)r_ plurals.


----------



## ahvalj

The West Germanic (except Frisian) _-er_ Plurals are generalized from the type _lamb — lembir_, where _-r_ is etymologically a _suffix_ of the type _genus — genera; _in German, it has much expanded since Old High German times, where it characterized a limited number of stems. The Norse _-r _in the vast majority of cases is a true ending, an outcome of _-z,_ which is lost word-finally in West Germanic except in these Ingaevonic plurals; *_-z_ only becomes _-r_ in a few West Germanic pronouns (_wer_), so the Frisian plural marker is explained either as a Danish influence or as the outcome of the above double ending _*-ôziz._


----------



## berndf

ahvalj said:


> The West Germanic (except Frisian) _-er_ Plurals are generalized from the type _lamb — lembir_, where _-r_ is etymologically a _suffix_ of the type _genus — genera; _in German, it has much expanded since Old High German times, where it characterized a limited number of stems. The Norse _-r _in the vast majority of cases is a true ending, an outcome of _-z,_ which is lost word-finally in West Germanic except in these Ingaevonic plurals; *_-z_ only becomes _-r_ in a few West Germanic pronouns (_wer_), so the Frisian plural marker is explained either as a Danish influence or as the outcome of the above double ending _*-ôziz._


I don't quite understand where you see the difference. The r in both genera and lambir are the result of _z_-rhotization, like the Frisian _-r_.


----------



## ahvalj

In Old High German _-er_ is confined to the neuter _*-s-_stems. In Old Frisian this is the general Nom./Acc. Pl. ending of the masculine _*-o-_stems: _stēn — stēnar _(the _*s_-stems are not attested).

I just mean that they are etymologically unrelated, though indeed both are result of rhotacism.


----------



## berndf

Just because the -_r_ has fallen off in the masculine -_ar_ declension _*dagaz > *tagar > taga_ (compare ON _dagar_), it doesn't mean it is a different thing.


----------



## fdb

ahvalj said:


> where _-r_ is etymologically a _suffix_ of the type _genus — genera; _



genus is an IE neuter -os stem. *genesa > genera is because in Latin intervocalic /s/ becomes /r/. It is not a suffix.


----------



## ahvalj

_-os~es-_ is etymologically a suffix. What I tried to say is that the Norse _-r_ is a true etymological ending, as is the English _-s_, whereas German Plural_ -er_ and _-en_ are etymological suffixes reinterpreted as plural markers after the elision of the old endings (and even then cp. _Lämmern<lembirum_ with the true Dat. Pl. ending _-n_ following the old suffix).


----------



## berndf

But that is just one special case of an _-er_ plurals. There are others, neuter and masculine, where these is no reinterpreted suffix, like _Mann-Männer_, _Haus-Häuser_ or _Bild-Bilder_.


----------



## ahvalj

berndf said:


> But that is just one special case of an _-er_ plurals. There are others, neuter and masculine, where these is no reinterpreted suffix, like _Mann-Männer_, _Haus-Häuser_ or _Bild-Bilder_.


But even formally speaking, an ending cannot follow another ending, so if _-er_ is the ending what is the Dat. Pl. (_-er)-n_?


----------



## eamp

Most of the German -er plurals are much younger and transferred from original s-stems. 
In Old High German neuter a-stems the n./a. plural was identical to the singular. (Anglo-Frisian at least retained -_u _after "light" stems.)
Additionally the singular of neuter s-stem nouns was remodeled after the a-stems. So s-stem and a-stem neuters were now indistinguishable in the singular and whether a neuter added -_ir_- after the stem became entirely unpredictable. 
Subsequently this suffix was extended to many original a-stem neuters to provide a more clear plural marking. 
The whole process is quite similar to the reinterpretation of -_en _as feminine plural marker in later German.
The extension to male words is much later, 'Männer' being attested only from the 15th century apparently. Not sure about the motivation, but I suspect it has something to do with some original neuters passing into the masculine gender.

The situation is different in Old Frisian (some variants) where -_ar _is the normal n./a.  plural marker (not present in g./d.!) of _masculine _a-stems. Neuters generally don't show this ending and if so the -_er_/-_ar _in the plural occurs throughout, acting like a suffix.


----------



## Frank78

berndf said:


> The_ s_-plural is an 18th century French loan.



Not all, I guess. What about words from Low German like Deck-Decks, Wrack-Wracks?


----------



## berndf

Frank78 said:


> Not all, I guess. What about words from Low German like Deck-Decks, Wrack-Wracks?


I meant the _s_-plural as a productive form. By the way, the plural _die Wracks_ is in High German late 19th or early 20th century. Before it was _die Wracke_. I think in Low German as well (attestation).


----------



## Olaszinhok

ahvalj said:


> so if _-er_ is the ending what is the Dat. Pl. (_-er)-n_?


That phenomenon is pretty interesting to me, I had never thought about it. As regards the dative plural, German seems to have a sort of agglutination:  the nominative plural ending and the dative ending are agglutinated, for instance in the following forms:
_Mit (den)  Männern reden_; (M*ä*nn-er-n)  ; quite similar to the Hungarian_ a férfiakkal (férfi -ak-kal) beszélni  _ to talk to (with) (the) men. Do my examples make sense?
Another important feature (if I'm not mistaken) is that in German no dative ending can be added to a plural noun ending in - s. _Mit dem Auto, mit (den) Autos. _


----------



## ahvalj

Olaszinhok said:


> That phenomenon is pretty interesting to me, I had never thought about it, as regards the dative plural, German seems to have a sort of agglutination:  the nominative plural ending and the dative ending are agglutinated, for instance in the following forms:
> _Mit (den)  Männern reden_; (M*ä*nn-er-n)  ; quite similar to the Hungarian_ a férfiakkal (férfi -ak-kal) beszélni  _ to talk to (with) (the) men. Do my examples make sense?
> Another important feature (if I'm not mistaken) is that in German no dative ending can be added to a plural noun ending in - s. _Mit dem Auto, mit (den) Autos. _


That is because it is not a _real_ agglutination as in Hungarian: it is the etymological ending _-n_ of the Dat. Pl. added to what has been _reinterpreted_ as a plural marker in the modern language, compare:
_Macht — Mächte — Mächten_ from Old High German _maht — mahti — mahten, _cp. Gothic _mahts — mahteis — mahtim_ (a former stem-forming suffix _-i-_)
_Kalb — Kälber — Kälbern_ from Old High German _kalb — kelbir — kelbirum _(a former suffix _-ir-_)
Another question that both Umlaut+_-e_ and Umlaut+_-er_ have spread far beyond the circle of words these types originally characterized.

The _-s_-Plurals don't take the Dat. Pl. _-n_ because they never did, as this (Low German) marker was a real ending of the Nom./Acc. Pl., replaced in Dat. Pl. with its own ending:
Old Saxon _stên — stênos — stênum._


----------



## Red Arrow

berndf said:


> All West and North Germanic languages except English and modern Dutch have _-(e)r_ plurals.


Dutch has the regular plural endings -s and -en, but it also has a third irregular ending *-eren* for 15 neuter words. It is related to English -ren (children, brethren), and only occurs in Standard Dutch and Brabantian dialects. In the Flemish dialects (West, East and Zeeuws), it's *-ers*. In other dialects, it is simply *-er* like in German.

Both* -ers* and *-eren* are double plurals.

-er is also sometimes used in compound words with those 15 words: kindereitje, kinderboek, eierschaal, klederdracht...


----------



## Olaszinhok

ahvalj said:


> The _-s_-Plurals don't take the Dat. Pl. _-n_ because they never did, as this (Low German) marker was a real ending of the Nom./Acc. Pl., replaced in Dat. Pl. with its own ending:
> Old Saxon _stên — stênos — stênum._


Thank you for the detailed explanation.


----------

