[Lexicog] Re: lexical entries as singulars or plurals

[Mike Maxwell]

billposer at alum.mit.edu wrote:
> To me "fishes" is the plural of "kind of fish" whereas
> "fish" is the plural of individual fish.

Jim Hoard once told me that the animals whose names (can) have null plurals 
are all game animals.  Thus: deer, elk, trout, bass, bear, bison etc. 
Whereas non-game animals have overt (and obligatory) plurals: dog, cat, 
elephant (well, most people don't shoot them...), cow, sucker (a kind of 
"trash" fish), shark.  ('Catfish' seems to be an exception, but whether 
that's because its head noun is 'fish', or because for some people, they 
are game animals, I don't know.)

Certainly it's a fuzzy boundary, but I think Jim is basically right.  And 
while one can dream about doing a dissertation on this sort of stuff, I 
suspect someone has already done it...
-- 
	Mike Maxwell
	Linguistic Data Consortium
	maxwell at ldc.upenn.edu


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