In praise of linguistic innovation and correct plurals

[John Dunn]

It occurs to me, rather belatedly, that there is in Russian a close, if not quite exact parallel to с деньрожденьем.  Until about the 17th century the genitive of шестнадцать was often штинадцати, a form that partially reflects the etymology: шьсть на десѧте, шьсти на десѧте.  No doubt there were even then those who looked with disfavour on those younger scribes who had the temerity to write шестнадцати.  You may, incidentally, be interested to know that Google comes up with seven responses for с день победой, though a couple of these have other linguistic anomalies.
 
I agree with Paul Gallagher's comments on the question of analyticity.  I have always been sceptical about the extent to which there is growing analyticity in Russian.  I think that what happens generally (though not perhaps in this particular instance) is that Russian tends to simplify and to avoid redundancy in the specification of grammatical relationships.  Hence the appearance of such constructions as в городе Белая Калитва and the tendency not to decline all parts of complex numerals.

I stand by brother-in-laws'.  I cannot imagine myself saying brothers-in-law's (-laws'?), though I follow the logic and if I had time to think about it, I might write it.   But then I would agonies of doubt over where to put the apostrophe.  I imagine that most languages have forms that require considerable mental gymnastics, but which you are likely to want to use no more than once or twice in a lifetime (in Slavonic languages they mainly involve numerals).  It is possible to great fun trying to establish principles that might lead to a 'correct' answer, but when the once-in-a-lifetime occasion comes up, the chances of being able to follow these principles are not that great.

John Dunn.
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