Peter:
> Did they? Can you give me some examples? Not that I object to it, but
> I have read recently that, perhaps, FU *ku(u)t(t)i or *kotti "6" and
> Sm *mËktut "6" (probably unrelated to each other) both were formed on
> the same semantical basis - that "six" equals to "beyond five" (U
> *kuttE "a back" > MaN Xu:täI "behind"; U *mukA "back" > Selkup Taz
> moqoqIt "behind") I am no expert as far as Uralic languages are
> concerned, but this seems logical to me.
Maybe but I had an idea that /hutH/, which must mean "four" not "six"
in Etruscan because of the Ytte:nia-Tetrapolis connection and other
/hutH/ derivatives suggesting "four", would be related to IE *kWetwores.
The IE form is clearly just *kWetwor- plus *-es with accent placed on
the second syllable via former QAR of Mid IE. This observation yields
*kWatWan with final *-n that later becomes *-r by the Heteroclitic rule
before Syncope. This *-n is simply functioning here as a singulative
in opposition to *kWatWa-ha "eight" > eLIE *aktwa: > *okto:u and is the
same suffix seen in other uncountable words like *wat:an "water" > *wodr.
So, I feel the urge to reconstruct IndoTyrrhenian *kWatWan so that it
nicely deteriorates to Tyrrhenian *xota without fuss. Now, if *kWatWan
can be established as an old word for "four", then a relationship with
Uralic *kutte is tempting although we'd have to explain the deviance
of the semantics. The way I see it *penkWe is the culprit for this,
having been introduced to serve as the new word for "five" in IndoTyr,
thereby demoting *kWatWan to "four". In Proto-Boreal however, I think
that its cognate *kutti remained "five" for a while before being
bumped up in Uralic, in the opposite direction than ITyr, to "six".
It's interesting that Proto-Eskimo has *citamat "four" which I also
think might be related if Boreal *k is palatalized before front vowels.
I think that the original Proto-Steppe numerals underlying IE and Uralic
were as follows:
one *t?u (seen in Tyr, Drav; fossilized in IE & Alt)
two *t?Wi (seen in IE, Tyr, Drav)
three *kulu (seen in Ur, Alt)
four *nilu (seen in Ur, Alt, Drav)
five *kut?u (seen in Ur, EA, Alt, IE, Tyr)
Please note that I'm not suggesting that Dravidian is part of the
Proto-Steppe but rather lies just outside the grouping. I believe that
Dravidian preserves some interesting things that Nostraticists aren't
aware of yet.
= gLeN