Form of the plural marker.

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Form of the plural marker.

While LT is extremely regular in the formation of pluralsThe LT plural marker is ´ª, which may be pronounced differently depending on whether it follows a vowel, a nasal, or another stop: [hal], [gal], or [kal], respectively. ST has great variability, and speakers disagree as to what is `standard'.

The most common form of the plural in ST is õ´(ª) nga(l. The final retroflex lateral is not present in isolation, but when other suffixes are added, it appears:

×Àýà ¾×ÆÂÕõ´ÄÔ? rendu manevingalaa? `two wives?'
Çþß ×´ÔÃÿ×»õ´ë£ anju ko= to0pt.25ex ##= by .25ex andengalum `all five children'

This plural marker also appears in pronouns (cf. pronouns sec. ??), also with final lateral: ¼Öõ´(ª) niinga(l). We will consider the final retroflex lateral to be part of the UNDERLYING FORM of the plural marker, which is deleted (not pronounced) before pause.

In some dialects, the õ´(ª) nga(l) form is only used following nouns that end in a nasal, e.g. ¾À£ maram ¾Àõ´ maranga `trees'. Otherwise the plural marker is ´(ª) ha(l), e.g. ¾×ÆÂÕ´ maneviha `wives'.

In some dialects, there are some `irregular' plurals, involving changes of the noun stem before plural:

Ù½¿¨ payyan `boy' ½¶õ´ pasanga `boys'

Harold_F.Schiffman