How English-origin nouns (do not) pluralize in French

Abstract

While French and English share the same pluralization morpheme, a dictionary corpus sanctioned by press usage reveals that a small set of nominal anglicisms, particularly compounds, fail to receive inflection in French (e.g., des black-jack s , des happy end s , des beagle s vs. des black-out, des has been, des people). This study interprets patterns of inflectional variation and reveals inflection-inhibiting constraints for these bare borrowings and thus contributes to explaining the little-researched morphology of anglicisms in French. The findings clearly demonstrate that the absence of inflection, seemingly atypical, is systematically rooted in the parameters of French morphology. The analysis simultaneously though secondarily documents phases, mechanisms, and processes of integration for contemporary borrowing — e.g., patterns of simplification with regularization of irregularities, a well-attested contact phenomenon; borrowing as a non-homogeneous phenomenon (English loans vs. other-language loans); and anglicisms as tools for creative, playful language.