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--- "Peter Collier" wrote: > > > Western Romance plurals derive from the accusative ending < -s>. This we > know. But I keep also reading about the "loss of final s" in VL, with > examples such as the singular <-us> ending becoming < -o>. This seems > contradictory. What am I missing / not understanding here? I don't pretend to have the answer - I'm eager to hear what others will say, but I'll chime in with what I know. I recently read a lengthy article on JSTOR (unfortunately, I can't remember the title or the author) which was a very thorough summary of the evolution from classical to vulgar and I did take notes. For one thing there was a certain bit of chaos in the evolution of the noun endings; sometimes even what case was borrowed varied from noun to noun and from singular to plural. In general the pattern seemed to be that the noun was borrowed in the accusative, losing that weak final m: amicum > amicu > amico > amigo, for example In my Post-classical Latin langauge I'm working on, the noun is usually borrowed like this: Direct Singular: Nominative Singular Direct Plural: Nominative Plural Oblique Singular: Ablative Singular (quomo sulunque l'Interlingua de Peano) Oblique Plural: Accusative Plural There are also a large body of nouns (as explained in this article I wish to God I could either find again or remember the title/author of) which are borrowed quite differently, usually taking the ablative for both cases. This occurs, for example, in nouns of the -x, -cis type which become -cis, -ce in the singular and -ces, -cis in the plural in my language. This pattern apparently was very common in real post-classical Latin for those third declension nouns I couldn't stand in high school. Cheers, Eamon