<According to German grammar, the 1. casus, Nominativ, undefined
pluralis ("any"), is "Bordune". 1. casus Nominativ defined pluralis
("these") is "Die Bordunen".
Can you refer me to any authority you are quoting here?
And what would the terminology be if you stuck to one language rather than a
mixture of Latin, English and German/Scandinavian (nominativ)?
Nominative plurals of *adjectives* not preceded by an article (indefinite
(sic)) end in "e" while those preceded by the definite (sic) article (die =
"the") end in "en". "these" is the demonstrative adjective in English,
corresponding to the German "diese").
"Bordun" is not, however, an adjective. It's a noun, hence the above rule is
irrelevant.
Chirs
Hartwig
Den 24. apr. 2007 kl. 10.23 skrev <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> Hartvig Körner wrote:
>
> < Theoretically,
> the plural form would be "die Bordunen"
>
> According to which theory? According to both Wildhagen and Harraps
> (the only German dictionaries I happen to have at hand), Brockhaus
> and bagpipe.de it's Bordune (except in the dative. All German
> plurals end in "n" in the dative.)
>
> at http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bordun we find "Bordun" defined as:
>
> 1) an organ stop, 2) the lowest pitched in a set of bells,
>
> and
>
> "3) einen während der gesamten Melodie oder signifikanter Teile
> eines Musikstücks ausgehaltenen Begleitklang gleicher Tonhöhe" [An
> accompanying sound of constant pitch sustained throughout the
> entire melody or significant parts of a piece of music] (in other
> words, a drone)
>
> and last but not least:
>
>
> "4) umgangssprachlich auch die Bordunpfeifen und Bordunsaiten
> (siehe weiter unten)." [colloquially also the drone pipes and drone
> strings (see below for further information)]
>
> So, if we want to be pedantic, "Bordun" refers to the droning
> phenomenon and the bit(s) of the instrument producing it is one
> Bordunpfeife or several Bordunpfeifen (the "n" here is the plural
> in all grammatical cases, not just the dative (German is
> complicated)).
>
> I suppose strictly speaking it's the same in English ; "drone
> pipes" produce the "drone". So we call them "drones" for short.
>
> To further complicate matters, some nouns in German can, but need
> not, add an "e" in the dative singular - so we can find, at http://
> www.mittelalter.de/shop/produktkatalog/
> Sackpfeifen,Sackpfeifen_32_produktkatalog_liste.html , for example
> - "mit 1 [einem] Bordune" (dative after "mit") [with one drone].
> Very confusing, but correct.
>
> So, to sum up:
>
> It's "one 'Bordun'" (but can - but doesn't have to - be "with,
> from, to etc. one 'Bordune'") and "more than one 'Bordune'" (but
> *must* be "with, from, to etc. more than one 'Bordunen'").
>
> And colloquially the word can be used to mean "drone (hardware)"
>
> No prizes for guessing what I've been doing for a living since
> 1974 ;-)
>
> HTH.
>
> chirs
>
>
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