Re: PIE six and seven: questions

From: Joao S. Lopes
Message: 71658
Date: 2013-12-13

Could Proto-Semitic and Proto-IE borrow their words from a third language as common source?

JS Lopes



Em , Joao S. Lopes <josimo70@...> escreveu:
How about the primary meaning? If 7 is *septm, the most plausible compounds would be 5+2, 10-3 or 4+3. How could we split the word: *se-ptm, *sep-tm, *set-pm (with metathesis), *s-eptm  ?

JS Lopes


Em Sexta-feira, 13 de Dezembro de 2013 0:01, "dgkilday57@..." <dgkilday57@...> escreveu:
 



---In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, <josimo70@...> wrote:

[DGK:]
In my view, both 'six' and 'seven' are thus analyzable within Indo-European and not borrowed from Semitic.  If any borrowing has occurred, these numerals have gone from IE to Semitic, along with the words for 'horn', 'bull', and 'tower' characterizing tribes who bred large cattle, used them for draught and as currency, and built defensive towers.
"

1) If Semitic borrowed these words from PIE, where did the contact happen?

DGK:  Presumably any contact between early IE-speakers and Semitic-speakers occurred somewhere in Southwest Asia.  Looking at the Babylonian numerals, however, I must admit that '6' and '7' do not look like particularly good candidates for IE loanwords.
 
No.  Masc.      Fem.
1    is^te:n    is^teat
2    s^ina      s^itta
3    s^ala:s^   s^ala:s^at
4    erba       erbet
5    hamis^     hams^at
6    s^edis^    s^es^s^et
7    sebe       sebet
8    sama:ne    sama:nat
9    tis^e      tis^i:t
10   es^er      es^(e)ret
 
By a quirk of Semitic syntax, feminine numerals from 3 on up are used with masculine objects, and vice versa.  I suspect the feminines were originally collectives used in apposition with nouns, which were more commonly (unmarked) masculine than feminine.  Using (demarked) masculine numerals with (mostly marked) feminine nouns probably originated as reciprocal analogy.
 
Hebrew '7' and '8' begin with /s^/ not /s/, apparently by analogy with '2', '3', and '6'.  On the other hand Hebrew retains root-final pharyngeals, so its masc. _s^éba¿_, fem. _s^ib¿a:h_ '7' show that an original pharyngeal has been lost in Babylonian.  The triliteral {sb¿} is not at all what we should expect if PIE *septm.´ had been borrowed into Semitic; a quadriliteral *{sptm} (possibly with a different sibilant) would be reasonable.  Nor does borrowing from Semitic to PIE (championed by Luján Martínez among others) make any principled sense.  Pharyngeals might very well be phonetically close to one or more PIE laryngeals, but substituting one for syllabic /m./ (or vice versa) in borrowing is merely an ad-hoc flight of fancy.
 
The Bab. forms of '6' show that both Heb. masc. _s^e:s^_ and fem. _s^is^s^a:h_ have undergone the assimilation *ds^ > s^s^ (> -s^ in Heb. masc. word-final position).  Had Semitic borrowed *swek^s from PIE, one might expect Bab. masc. *suekis or at best *s^uekis^ (on the basis of _S^uanna_, a poetic name for Babylon which is likely Pre-Semitic because it is indeclinable).  But again, interchanging an unvoiced dorsal stop with a voiced dental one makes no principled sense.
 
On the basis of these considerations, it appears that the resemblance between Semitic and PIE '6' and '7' is no more than that, a mere resemblance.
 

2) Could *swek^s < older *usek^s?

DGK:  I cannot think of any other examples which would make such a metathesis plausible.