From: Rob
Message: 34084
Date: 2004-09-08
--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, enlil@... wrote:
"I know that it's a very popular view to add *d's where they are
never ever attested, but I like to deal with the facts... The facts
are that *d- is NEVER found in the plural decad ending *-komt-/*-kmt-
. We've discussed this before and all that people can come up with is
the preceding lengthening seen before the *k in some later languages
which many presume to be compensatory for a theorized loss of former
*-d-."
From a phonological point of view, how likely is it that a /d/ would
remain in a form like dkmtóm?
"In reality, this lengthening is not standardized amongst the
cognates that show this length and further we all can see how
lengthening can be caused by a lot of things, more frequently by a
loss of _laryngeal_. While compensatory lengthening caused by a bona
fide loss of *d is completely rare if not absent altogether from the
extensive records we have, it's hard not to study IE for any length
of time without tripping upon compensatory length caused by loss of
any of *h1, *h2 or *h3. That I believe is the origin of the
lengthening that has then spread to other decads out of textbook
assimilation seen in most of the world's number systems. Namely, the
preceding lengthening is either caused by *-x (the collective *-h2)
or *-h (the dual *-h1) which was suffixed to the preceding numeral
before the decad ending, thereby causing the length."
(Again, playing Devil's Advocate.)
Why would */d/ necessarily survive in derivatives such as *dkmtóm, *-
dkmtáx?
"Not good enough for you? Need more facts? Another fact is that while
we not only NEVER see **-dkmt-/**-dkomt-, we also coincidentally NEVER
see **dkmtom. Why? We can either conclude based on absolutely nothing
that *d assuredly exists, which amounts to nothing more than the
trappings of a linguistic cult, or we can accept that *d isn't there
in any of the non-singular forms and never was. The actual attested
form *kmtom is *komt- plus the genitive plural *-om. Like other words
like *yugom and *pedom, *kmtom signified a collection of 'tens' (note
PLURAL 'tens', not singular *dekm). Some think that it is a shortened
form of a phrase "(tens) of tens" but I don't this is necessary.
Regardless, both of these etymologies suggest the development 'a
group of many tens' => 'a hundred'.
How are *yugóm and *pedóm collections? I thought *yugóm meant "a
yoke"?
Perhaps we should try to find out how much we agree on right now.
The constituent morphemes, for example. Were they like this:
*(d)km-t-om
Is the *-t suffix here related to the so-called "t-extension" found
in words like *yekWr(t) and (perhaps) in verbal adjectives (*-t-ós)?
"What we in fact see if we open our eyes to the facts, rather than
assumptions, is that there are _two_ forms of "ten", one singular
(*dekm) and the other non-singular or dual-plural (*komt-). As I
alluded to in a previous post, one is from a fossilized phrase
meaning "(one) ten" and the other from the plural form with former
plural *-it (> IE *-es). The *t is preserved in *-kmt- because the *t
is never in final position to be sibilantized in any of these "tens"
words."
One would think that there would be more evidence of a prefixal *de-
than just in the word for "ten." Furthermore, are you saying here
that the *-t in *dekm(t) is different from the *-t in *(d)kmtóm?
- Rob