Re: [tied] IE numbers

From: Glen Gordon
Message: 10120
Date: 2001-10-10

Miguel says:
>As it is, I can find not a shred of evidence for a form *kWetwVn-,
>which seems peculiar in a paradigm that should have started out
>something like: [sg.m. *kWetwo:n(s), f. *kWeturih2, n. *kWetwr.] pl. m.
>*kWetwones, n. *kWetwo:r(h2), ord. *kWtun-[t]�-. Besides
>the fact that there is no verbal root *kWet-, as you say.

Yes, slowly, little by little, you are playing right into my
etymologizing hands... Of course, I don't think there was
ever a word like **kWetwo:n, either, so there's no need to find it.
The addition of plural *-es to the stem seems to have occured early
in Mid IE in order to explain the placement of accent using the
penultimate theory (Late Mid IE *kWetW�r-es). The addition of
redundant plural suffixes to numerals also affected *treies and
*wixkmtix as well. This phenomenon of redundant plurals may have
been also responsible for the genesis of *dwo:u (as well as the
whole dual *-u thing that derived from this). The word *dwo:u
appears to derive from *t:Wa-xe with yet another redundant suffix
*-xe (Late IE *-x), thereby substantiating my hypothesis even more
and making me giddy with arrogant glee.

>An alternative hypothesis, that *wor- in *kWet-wor-es is somehow
>related to *wi(:)r- "man", is rendered attractive by the existence
>of f. *kWete-sor- / *kWeto-sr-, [...] It does have an Ablaut problem,
>though (wor ~ wi(:)r is not a standard alternation).

This can never be made attractive because of the bizarre and
unexplainable change of vocalism that you yourself mention. It's
best to accept *-sor as a postIE phenomenon and that *-wr was
*never* tacked to some stem **kWet-, unless you can support the
_IndoEuropean_ usage (as opposed to an isoglossic usage) of *-sor
and are able support the existence of a numeral stem **kWet-.

- love gLeN



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