12.2558, Qs: Aligned Arabic-Eng Text, Use of 's for Plural

[LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List:  Vol-12-2558. Sat Oct 13 2001. ISSN: 1068-4875.

Subject: 12.2558, Qs: Aligned Arabic-Eng Text, Use of 's for Plural

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=================================Directory=================================

1)
Date:  Fri, 12 Oct 2001 14:36:57 -0400
From:  "Bud Scott" <bscott22 at verizon.net>
Subject:  Aligned Arabic-English text

2)
Date:  Sat, 13 Oct 2001 14:59:02 +0000
From:  "Phil Gaines" <gaines at english.montana.edu>
Subject:  's for plural

-------------------------------- Message 1 -------------------------------

Date:  Fri, 12 Oct 2001 14:36:57 -0400
From:  "Bud Scott" <bscott22 at verizon.net>
Subject:  Aligned Arabic-English text


Can anyone direct me to where I might obtain aligned Arabic-English
text?

Thanks in advance.

Bud Scott
Parse International, Inc.


-------------------------------- Message 2 -------------------------------

Date:  Sat, 13 Oct 2001 14:59:02 +0000
From:  "Phil Gaines" <gaines at english.montana.edu>
Subject:  's for plural

Has anyone written or presented on the phenomenon--some might prefer to call
it epidemic--of an increasing use of 's to form the plural?  Sites at which
I've noticed this a lot are signage and webpages.  Today, for example, I
passed a sign that said "Three taco's for $2.00."  Perhaps there is a
plausible analysis dealing with patterns in orthography--possibly correlated
with phonological rules--but I prefer to think that this is a language
change phenomenon with a purely pragmatic/functional motivation, perhaps a
disambiguation device, i.e. an emphasis of the plural in cases where the
apostrophe-less word would tend to foreground another meaning.  I'm
speculating; is there any analysis out there?

Philip Gaines

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