[Lexicog] erratum

[billposer at ALUM.MIT.EDU]

I must be getting senile. Macintosh and Chipmunk don't end in /s/.
Some other hypothesis is required for the restrictions on the
use of the /n/ plural for computers. Maybe the singular has to
end in an obstruent? The following are all bad:

	PDP-en
	SEL-en	     (obscure laboratory minicomputer)
	Dandelion-en  (Xerox 1108 Lisp workstation)
	Dandetiger-en (Xerox 1109 Lisp workstation)
	Twenty-en (DEC 20)
	SGI-en
	Alto-en
	Apollo-en
	Rainbow-en (DEC's answer to the IBM PC. Didn't take off.)

Curiously, there don't seem to be many computer names that
end in obstruents. I can't think of any others to test with
except for things like UNIVAC and ENIAC. Those seem better than 
most of the others with /n/ plurals, but imperfect. I want to
say "UNIVAC-sen" and "ENIAC-sen". Yet no /s/ is added in the
case of "Chipmunk". Obviously a topic for a dissertation here. :)

Bill


--
Bill Poser, Linguistics, University of Pennsylvania
http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~wjposer/ billposer at alum.mit.edu


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