Re: PIE *triplos and *tripleks

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 530
Date: 1999-12-10

 
----- Original Message -----
From: Gwydionash@...
To: cybalist@egroups.com
Sent: Friday, December 10, 1999 3:08 AM
Subject: [cybalist] PIE *triplos and *tripleks

Chad asks:
PIE *triplos yields the Latin triplus and the Greek triploos/triplous, while 
PIE *tripleks yields the Latin triplex and the Greek triplax.  Both forms 
mean "triple, threefold", but is there a semantic difference between the two 
forms?
Chad,
 
They were roughly synonymous, though some division of labour did take place, esp. in Latin, with forms in -plus emphasizing size or quantity ('N-tuple, N times as big') and forms in -plex the number of component parts or features (e.g. 'N-lobed, N-faced, having N aspects'). This works best if N=2 (duplus vs. duplex). But triplus was rarer than triplex and tended to be replaced by it, quadruplus was (I think) synonymous wit quadruplex, and simplex can only be paired with the neuter noun simplum 'single or simple thing/number'.
 
As for the origin of such multiplicatives, not all of them go back to PIE. Latin -plex and Greek -plaks are relatively late formations and can't be reduced to a common protoform (even if both derive from *plek-). Forms involving *plo- are more archaic and have isolated cognates in Celtic and Germanic, possibly also in Anatolian (Lycian). Notwithstanding the morphological difficulties we may reconstruct something like *pl-ó- (with language-specific variants like *pl-t-jó-, as in Greek -plasios, *plóh-wo- [?] as in Greek -ploos/-plous beside the rarer -plos), an adjectival derivative of the root *pel- 'fold'. This element was combined with the composition-form of a cardinal numeral (with reduced vocalism):
*sm-plós
*dwi-plós
*tri-plós
*kwetwr-plós (often with *-twr developing irregularly into *-tr, *-tur, or *-tru).
The same principle (forming a compound by adding an adjective, adverb or noun to *sm-, *dwi-, *tri-, *kwetwr-) was widely employed e.g. in Indo-Iranian, where several types of multiplicatives are attested. Indic has compounds with dha:, vrt, vart(t)u-; both Indic and Iranian have adverbial compounds in krt (trikrt etc.), an element once associated with the Balto-Slavic *kortos 'a time' and with the root *ker- 'cut', but now reinterpreted as involving a form of *kwel- 'go round'.
 
While the principle itself is a common IE phenomenon, its concrete applications are branch-specific. But one type of multiplicative adverb is certainly PIE. This formation involves the composition form of a numeral plus *-s:
*dwi-s 'twice' (Latin bis, Greek dis), *tri-s 'thrice', *kwetwr-s 'four times'.
I suspect this may be a truncated locative: *tri-su > *tris in unstressed position; *dwis would be analogical to the higher numerals (the expected Loc. du. would have been *dwous). No similar form meaning 'once' is attested anywhere -- which squares well with *-s being the Loc. pl. ending. Different languages add different (and sometimes quite mysterious) extensions to *sm- to form an adverb: Skt sa-krt, Gk. ha-paks, Lat. sem-el. The original form of 'once' was probably the Loc. sg. of *sem-, most likely just the endingless *sem.
 
Piotr