Miguel:
>*-n is _not_ an inanimate suffix. Animate n-stems are extremely
>common (*-o:n/*-e:n, *-nos; pl. *-ones). The neuter n-stems come in
>two variants: stems in *-men, and *-r/*-n- stems, as a result of a
>soundlaw *-n > *-r, except after *m.
Let me explain. Mid IE *-n appears very much to be an _inanimate_
suffix and is the source for the heteroclitic declension (an
_inanimate_ paradigm). The thematic extension of *-n for animates
is a later innovation developed in Late-Mid IE to Early-Late IE.
Thematization occurs only in Late IE and is the period that we
see the development of *-nos, *-o:n and acrostatic stems.
>In general, I maintain that an */r/ is an */r/, except when it
>alternates with */n/, in which case it's an */n/, historically. In
>the word *kWetwores, the */r/ does never show a variant */n/, so the
>null hypothesis is that it represents earlier */r/.
A good point. However, I meditated on the numeral yesterday and I
think I understand better what's going on. First of all, I'd like
to shoot myself in the head for forgetting that *-sor is found in
*swesor (and Latin /uxor/) and thus MUST be a common IE suffix.
This is precisely the reason why I shouldn't be allowed to operate
machinery without supervision. I also now realize that the ancestor
of *-sor is likely to be a Mid IE stem *esare meaning "lady,
woman, girl".
Hence: *kWetWe-esare "four ladies" (> *kWet(w)esor)
The above brings us to an interesting thought about early IE
numerals and how they functioned. I've already found that
MIE *t:eu "one" and *t:Wei "two" have unstressed counterparts,
*t:e and *t:Wa (> *dwo-), respectively. This is similar to
English "one" versus "a, an".
So, *t:eu was used on its own to denote "one", whereas *t:e was
used as a complement to another stem and also in compounds (eg:
*t:e-kem "one ten"). I assumed that unstressed variants only
existed for "one" and "two". I never considered that they might
exist for "three" or "four" as well, and yet, the example
of *kWetWe-esare exposes such a variant, together with
MIE *kWetW�-xe "eight". Thus, we might reconstruct
Mid IE numerals as they existed between 5500-5000 BCE as follows:
stressed unstressed
--------------------------------
1 *t:eu *t:e
2 *t:Weixe/*t:Waxe *t:Wa
3 *kWel�ies *kWelei-
4 *kWetW�res *kWetWe-
Ironically, Miguel, *kWetesor shows no *-n NOR *-r. It suggests
strongly that the *-r in *kWetwor-es is indeed a suffix that
fails to be attached to the unstressed variant *kWetWe-.
Of course, you may agree that *-r is a suffix but will avoid the
idea that *-r < *-n. Alright. However, is there truely such
a suffix *-r < *-r? Unless the stem is animate, there seems to
always be an alternation between *-r and *-n-, showing clearly that
*-r < *-n. How do you support a suffix *-r < *-r. Where is it?
- love gLeN
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