>Actually, I wasn't quite sure which reconstruction to give, except
>that Klimov's one (*eks'w-) doesn't seem quite right.
Hmmm...
>Georgian ekvs-; Old Georgian ekus-
>Megrelian ams^v-
>Laz a(n)s^-
>Svan usgwa, usk.wa
"The phonetic shape of the lexeme reflects its non-Kartvelian origin. It
undoubtedly derives from continuants of PIE *weks- 'six'."
It's obvious that the Kartvelian word is foreign of course. I also see how
it's tempting to connect it with IE through a hypothetical variant *weks.
Yet, if we look at the overall pattern, numbers above "five" seem to all
have Semitoid origins in Kartvelian. Why should "six" be any different?
Think for a moment here. What would be a really valid reason for the loss of
*s- within IE when speaking of *sweks? Some use the process of dissimilation
but I don't know of many words that work like this in IE - it sounds suspect
to me. Is it possible that the forms without *s- in IE are a unique
dialectal confusion with the similar and neighbouring Semitoid-derived
Kartvelian numeral that lacked an initial and expected *s'- already due its
own phonological changes. This IE dialect area, perhaps from which languages
like Armenian have derived, would have thus lossed the *s- through
Kartvelian contamination of the word.
Klimov: "However, an Armenian source is excluded for chronological reasons"
Let's take that as a reasonable view.
>>The initial sibilant is gone.
>
>And this is characteristic of the IE words for "six". It would be
>highly unlikely that such a peculiar development would have occurred
>both in IE and in Kartvelian independently. Therefore, PK borrowed it
>from IE.
This is largely _not_ characteristic of the IE words for "six" which more
often contain the *s-, as expected based on the Semitic form. Yes, clearly,
the loss of *s- is _not_ independent within IE and Kartvelian. There was
some kind of mutual interference for sure, but I would say that it was
Kartvelian's doing - certain neighbouring IE dialects borrowed it from
Kartvelian.
>Svan doesn't, not really. The development *s'w > sgw ~ sk.w is
>regular, and the velar *g/*k. here developed out of *w (cf. Armenian
>*w > g). Contrary to Klimov, I think Armenian is the most likely
>source for the Kartvelian numeral, and Armenian has <vec`>, which must
>come from *uCec` (a putative PIE *wek^s would have given Arm. *gec`),
Honestly. It would seem more appropriate that it was Armenian that was
affected by one of the Kartvelian languages by your very own analysis. There
is absolutely no logical motivation or process for IE *sweks to have changed
to *usweks on its own accord. Is this honestly typical of IE behaviour?
Nothing you are saying here seems reasonable.
>> Kartv PreKartv
>>5. *xwicte *xawi'cte <= Semitish *xabistu
>
>Nothing "Semitish" here. Plain old Akkadian (Assyrian) xamis^t- >
>xawis^t- -> PK *xwis't-/*xu(s')t-
Why must it be Akkadian? Is a change of -m- to -w- attested in Akkadian or
Assyrian?
- gLeN
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