I have Quirk's 2004 'impression' and on page 307 he talks
about "Animal names," as "normally having the regular plural"(cow-
cows, eagle-eagles, etc.). He also states that "many animal names
have two plurals: -s and zero plurals: eg. duck, herring," and draws
a distinction between the usage of these two plurals, that is, "zero
tends to be used partly by people who are especially concerned with
the animals, partly when the animals are referred to in the mass as a
game," and "the regular plural is used to denote different
individuals, species, etc." He probably doesn't intend to provide an
exclusive list of nouns which belong to the two plurals, so "bear" is
not one of the nouns listed. I have to say, though, that I never
heard or read "bear" used in a sentence like this:
*Bear live in the woods
I did a search in google.com and found a PDF file with a list of
nouns which the authors call "troublesome words," and the word "bear"
is listed there with both plurals. The web page is:
http://www.mms.gov/itd/pubs/1994/94-0049styleguide/Corel%20Ventura%20-
%20NEWPLUR.pdf
Unfortunately, I could not find any information about the author(s)of
the PDF file, and I don't know how reliable the information is. It
would be interesting to find out how many people use the zero plural
for "bear."
Eduard
Eduard
On Fri, 5 May 2006, Phil Bralich wrote...
>I have given enough. If you can't understand, it is your loss. I
personally suspect that most people who object to these humorous
little tidbits are more interested in making their bones as an
agressor than in making a point. I won't bother to poll anyone, but
I am sure that a lot of people, perhaps even you will be using the
sentence just as I have. Not only because it is a fine sentence of
English, but because it is humorous and not worth the sort of trouble
you are making over it.
>
>Phil
>
>-----Original Message-----
>>From: Karl Hagen <[log in to unmask]>
>>Sent: May 5, 2006 2:21 PM
>>To: [log in to unmask]
>>Subject: Re: A humorous note on "bear"
>>
>>Mere assertion isn't a persuasive form of argument, nor is your
appeal
>>to authority. Care to give some authentic examples that are
parallel?
>>
>>Phil Bralich wrote:
>>> Sorry, dead wrong again. I actually took a course with Greenbaum
when he was still teaching in Milwaukee, where I first learned this
sentence and the point about game animals. Greenbaum was actually my
advisor at the time. He did however point out that the game animal
interpretation is easier for Brits. I and many others have never had
a problem with it. The CGEL will have to be amended. This and the
buffalo sentence have been around for years because they are good.
The fact that some might object is not particularly telling in this
case.
>>>
>>> Phil Bralich
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: Karl Hagen <[log in to unmask]>
>>>> Sent: May 5, 2006 1:17 PM
>>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>>> Subject: Re: A humorous note on "bear"
>>>>
>>>> My copy of Quirk et al. is at home, but I do have the CGEL here
at the
>>>> office, and it reinforces my conviction that I'm right.
>>>>
>>>> You're taking my meat comment too literally. In constructions
like "I'm
>>>> hunting bear", we're thinking about the animal as food, even if
only in
>>>> potentiality. That usage is not collective (i.e., a group of
bears),
>>>> although it is non-count. But you have the animal as the actor
in the
>>>> sentence, and the food interpretation doesn't make sense in that
case.
>>>>
>>>> A sentence like
>>>>
>>>> *Bear live in the woods
>>>>
>>>> seems ill-formed to me. But even if we accept that a collective
use of
>>>> 'bear' with no determiner is possible for some varieties of
English,
>>>> nouns in non-count usage are virtually always singular, so it
would need
>>>> to be
>>>>
>>>> *Bear lives in the woods
>>>>
>>>> which is, if anything, worse.
>>>>
>>>> You can, of course, use 'bear' in a collective sense *if* you
use 'the'
>>>> ("The bear lives in the woods"), but here again, the verb is
singular.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Phil Bralich wrote:
>>>>> Simply not true. Game animals regularly admit of a collective
sense like this both before and after being turned into meat. See
Quirk and Greenbaum.
>>>>>
>>>>> Phil Bralich
>>>>>
>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>>
>>>>>> From: Karl Hagen <[log in to unmask]>
>>>>>> Sent: May 4, 2006 3:55 PM
>>>>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>>>>> Subject: Re: A humorous note on "bear"
>>>>>>
>>>>>> With apologies for dissecting the frog...
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Since we're talking of individual bears rather than meat, and
since
>>>>>> 'bear' doesn't admits a null plural (like sheep), you have a
>>>>>> subject-verb agreement problem. Also, the recursion seems a
little
>>>>>> problematic because when the null relative pronoun is in
subject
>>>>>> position, you can't omit 'that'.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Bare bear(s) bear bare bear(s) [that] bear bear(s)...
>>>>>>
>>>>>> However that reminds me of the sentence in Stephen Pinker's
The Language
>>>>>> Instinct (which IIRC he attributes to a grad student):
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo
buffalo.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> (= The bison from Buffalo that (other) bison from Buffalo
intimidate
>>>>>> (themselves) intimidate bison from Buffalo)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Karl
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Phil Bralich wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I am sure many of you are aware that the pronunciation [ba:r]
is capable of
>>>>>>> making a fully recursive sentence where all the words are
phonetically
>>>>>>> idenitical meaning, "naked bears give birth to naked bears
who in turn give
>>>>>>> birth to naked bears who then in turn give birth to naked
bears" and so on.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> to whit:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Bare bear bear bare bear
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Bare bear bear bare bear bare bear bear
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Bare bear bear bare bear bare bear bear bare bear bear ...
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> and so on ad infinitimus recursibus ursimus.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Phil
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>>>> From: Linda DiDesidero
>>>>>>> Sent: May 4, 2006 2:33 PM
>>>>>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>>>>>> Subject: Re: BEAR and time "I was born poor."
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> That's an interesting way of characterizing it, Craig
(acting/behaving). No
>>>>>>> matter how we characterize the verbs, though, we can see
that there seems to
>>>>>>> be some consistency between what the verbs mean and how
they behave
>>>>>>> grammatically. And that is really difficult to teach
second language students!
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Linda
>>>>>>> To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the
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select "Join or leave
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>>>>>>> Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>
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