German and Latin-derived nouns

[pne]

The other day, I saw a headline in the newspaper along the lines of Bank-Manager bekommen dieses Jahr hohe Boni, and it made me think.

The word Bonus is borrowed into German from Latin, and the (nominative) plural Boni is sometimes borrowed along with it. However, those are the only two cases that are borrowed; other cases are formed on the German model (i.e., typically without endings on the noun).

What would things be like, though, if the comple inflection model were borrowed?

Hey, hab' ich dir schon von meinem Bono erzählt? - Ach, lass mich doch mit der Höhe deines Boni in Ruhe. Du findest deinen Bonum wohl besonders toll, was. - Ha! Warte bloß, bis du hörst, dass ich dieses Jahr gleich drei Bonos bekommen habe! - Drei Boni? Nicht schlecht. Und was ist der Betrag deiner Bonorum? - Ach, verglichen mit den Bonis, die ich vorletztes Jahr bekam, nicht so dolle.

Comments

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

You've also missed an important diachronic rule, Spak: The deletion of medial /w/. Cf. PGmc. *saiwiz > OHG sêo (dat. sêwe) > NHG See. (The one common exception is Löwe, which may represent a spelling pronunciation; cf. Lemberg "L'viv" from MHG Lewenberg.) Your proposed coinage would become a homophone of NHG Zehn.

[darth-spacey.livejournal.com]

Okay. Suppose a zero-grade form of the PIE root: *dueno- instead of *deueno-, leading to ~ *das Zwenn (-es, -e).

How's that?

[pne.livejournal.com]

Looks like a plausible German word to me (though I'd be more likely to form the genitive simply in -s; the "full" -es sounds a bit formal or old-fashioned to me in such a word-form, about like forming the dative with -e in forms such as "dem Mann(e)") -- just one that doesn't, to my knowledge, exist.

I shall have to introduce it! It's likely to be neuter, you say?

"Ich habe dieses Jahr wieder ein besonders hohes Zwenn bekommen!"