Re: Why there is t- in German tausend "thousand"?

From: Bhrihskwobhloukstroy
Message: 71588
Date: 2013-11-13

2013/11/13, gprosti <gprosti@...>:
>
>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Bhrihskwobhloukstroy
> <bhrihstlobhrouzghdhroy@...> wrote:
>>
>> 2013/11/13, johnvertical@... <johnvertical@...>:
>> >> ---In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, <gprosti@> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> I'm not sure what you mean by "regular system of diatopic variation",
>> >> but
>> >> if you have a
>> >> set of words with a sufficient amount of shared phonetic material,
>> >> plus
>> >> matching
>> >> semantics, this overrides the criterion of regular phonetic
>> >> correspondence
>> >> when drawing
>> >> a connection between two or more forms.
>> >
>> > Which itself can be overriden if the similarities can be shown to have
>> > divergent origins, of course. In this case that'd require a whole bunch
>> > of
>> > corroborating evidence for the model of forming numerals as "largest
>> > numeral
>> > not yet named", though. The best precedent I can think for anything
>> > along
>> > these lines is from the set-theoretical construction of ordinal numbers,
>> > a
>> > bit advanced for a supposed pre-HG origin :)
>> > (...)
>> >
>> > _j.
>>
>> *Bhr.: I concede a motivation "everything possible" isn't particularly
>> sharp, but what about current þūsundī-etyma like "blow-hundred" (not
>> "great-", precisely "blow") or "widening feminine entity"?
>>
>
> Whatever the original semantics of "thousand" were, there is a semantic
> match and (if I'm not mistaken) a regular phonemic correspondence between
> the modern-day reflexes of this stem -- this is what supports the
> reconstruction of such a stem in the first place.
>
> In the case of your etymology for "tausend", the plausibility of the
> proto-form beginning in *dh- rests (as far as I can see) on the semantic
> motivation that you concede above isn't particularly strong.
>
>
*Bhr.: No, the difference is:
1) du^sunt has a sure PIE etymology (let me state again: the etymology
of du^sunt is SURE; I hope it's definitely clear), nevertheless with
very vague semantics (not weakening the etymology, anyway)
2) tu^sunt can have a regular PIE etymology (whose plausibility isn't
in its semantics, but in its diachronic phonology and in its
regularity at word-formative level), with neither sharp nor so vague
semantics
2)