Re: [tied] Germanic decads

From: Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
Message: 6793
Date: 2001-03-27

On Tue, 27 Mar 2001 01:41:56 +0200, "Piotr Gasiorowski"
<gpiotr@...> wrote:

>A similar use of <hund> in decad names is found in West Germanic (most consistently in Old English), but there <hund> comes first:
>
> 70 hund-seofontig
> 80 hund-eahtatig
> 90 hund-nigontig
>100 hund-têontig (= hund)
>110 hund-aendlaeftig
>120 hund-twelftig

As a curiosity, it should be noted that Dutch

70 zeventig (/sev@...@x/, not /zev@...@x/)
80 tachtig
90 negentig,

derive from t-seventigh, t-achtigh, t-neeghentigh (<zestig> "60"
(/sEst@.../) is analogical after <zeventig>), where the t- originates in
a much reduced *hund-.

>The correspondence <sibuntêhund> = <hund-seofontig> suggests that the correct division of <sibuntêhund> is <sibuntê-hund>, where <-tê> corresponds to <-tig>. Since <-tê> can hardly derive from Goth. *-tigjus, we can hypothesise that the more archaic neuter variant *-texu < *-téxu: survives here:
>
>*sibuntexuxunda- > *sibunte:xunda (haplology combined with compensatory lengthening)
>
>I don't think this dialectal use of <hund> in upper decad names has anything to do with the original function of PIE *dk^mtóm as a Gen.pl. form ("of sets of ten").

There is one thing that *does* say "Gen.pl." to me, and that is the
correspondence Goth -e: ~ OHG -o, as in Goth. sibunte:-hund, OHG
sibun-zo (< *<hund sibun-zo> ?). According to Szemerényi, OHG
<sibunzo>, <ahtozo> and <niunzo> are older than the forms <sibunzug>
etc. (analogical after 20-60).

So what could -te:/-zo be a Gpl. of? The parallel with Indo-Iranian
s.as.-tí, ..., nava-tí- "60..90", made with a fem. collective *-ti-,
however attractive, is impossible because of Grimm-Verner (we would
expect Goth. *sibunde:-hund and OHG *[hund-]sibundeo), and there
exists no collective suffix *-di-, as far as I know. Supposing an
ad-hoc lenition of *t > *d would maybe be too ad-hoc, even given the
lenitions that IE numerals are prone to (Lat. -ginta, Grk. hebdomos,
ogdoos etc.).

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...