In today's class, Dr.Armstrong explained that the
plural forms of some English words―hippopotamus,
octopus, to name a few―can be derived by adding
a suffix“-i”,when it occuerd to me that a lingu-
istic phenomenon so-called “Umlaut plurals”has
much to do with this.
Examples of“Umlaut plurals”are somethings uni-
versally known―foot/feet goose/geese, man/men.
These instances are often taught as “exceptional
cases”in that they cannot be derived with “nomal”
procedures of adding a suffix“-(e)s”,but even a
cursory look at the history of English language
proves this is not the case. “Umlaut plurals”can
be systematically explained with some knowledge of
it. For example, the old saxon's equivalent of the
english word“foot”was “foti”, the suffix“-i”,
meaning“more than one”. In the course of history,
the suffix“-i”had a phonological effect on the
preceding vowel“-o-”, and then changed it to“-e-”.
What happened next? Surprisingly enough, it per se
disappeared.
In this way, in our eyes, “Umlaut plurals”seems
exceptional. How interesting.
