[Lexicog] Re: lexical entries as singulars or plurals

[Kim Blewett]

About catfish, y'all:

As a recent transplant to North Carolina, we can testify that *everyone*
eats catfish around here! It's not bad, actually...

Kim Blewett

-----Original Message-----
From: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
[mailto:lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Mike Maxwell
Sent: Tuesday, August 23, 2005 12:49 AM
To: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Lexicog] Re: lexical entries as singulars or plurals

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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