associative plurals

[Geoffrey S. Nathan]

At 09:57 AM 8/28/2001 -0400, Paul Hopper wrote:
>Associative duals and plurals in early Scandinavian:

Paul's examples of Germanic languages reminded me of a colloquial
associative plural that was in common use in Canadian English when I was
growing up in the fifties and early sixties.  The phrase 'and them'
(normally @ndhEm; @=schwa, dh=edh, E=epsilon) had exactly that meaning, so that
'Joe and them ' meant Joe and his crowd, the people who hung about with Joe
etc.  I moved away from Canada in my early twenties and I don't know if
this is still current.  I guess it's also syntactic, sort of...

Geoff

Geoffrey S. Nathan
Department of Linguistics
Southern Illinois University at Carbondale
Carbondale, IL, 62901-4517
Phone:  (618) 453-3421 (Office) / FAX (618) 453-6527
         (618) 549-0106 (Home)
                                                         geoffn at siu.edu