Читать книгу A Book of Middle English - J. A. Burrow - Страница 32

A few nouns have plurals without ending. Some are survivals of Old English neuter nouns that were unchanged in the nominative and accusative plural, such as þing, 5/4, word, 2/139, wunder, 1/11, and also hors, 5/304 and other words for animals, as deore, 3/117; compare the Modern English plural ‘deer’. Others are terms of measure following a numeral: þre mile, 5/350, fyfty syþe, ‘fifty times’, 14j/46, on which see also 5.2. The plural dede, ‘deeds’, 16/82, is a late survival of the OE feminine plural dda; compare dædes already in the Peterborough Chronicle, 1/53. Words already ending in ‐s in the singular may be unchanged in the plural: kindenes, ‘kindnesses’, 6/209.