Re: [tied] The centum-word.

On Wed, 28 Mar 2001 08:22:59 , "Glen Gordon"
<glengordon01@...> wrote:

>Old Japanese fitotu/futatu still counts as an example of the word for "two"
>being derived from the word for "one".

Except that Guillaume Jacques has just convincingly argued against
that.

>Whether it's strictly a "plural
>formation" or not is beside the point. There may also be Dravidian *oru/*iru
>as a similar example. Then there's this really obscure language known by
>only several million people where the word for "one" is /uno/ and the word
>for "some" is /uno-s/... but it's an obscure language and I don't expect you
>to know it :) So even here, there is a perfect example of the plural being
>applied to the numeral "one" to denote a higher number.

It was precisely because of <unos> that the thought of such a thing
meaning "two" was instinctively repugnant to me...


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