Re: [tied] IE numbers

On Wed, 17 Oct 2001 00:17:01, "Glen Gordon" <glengordon01@...>
wrote:

>Miguel, who's hellbent on giving me a run for my money...
>> >1. *sem- *same "heap" *same "heap" --
>>
>>Why "heap"?
>
>Why? Since that coincides with the meaning found in Circassian,
>a branch of NWC. I don't see why the development of "heap"
>=> "entirety, whole" is a hard one to grasp. Further, I see no
>reasonable Steppe cognates and so I favour the NWC loan
>hypothesis for this root.

You see no cognates so it must be borrowed?
A "heap of stones" -> "one stone"?

>> > *dus- "bad" *t:ëu *t:ëu *t:ëu
>>
>>What has "1" to do with "bad"? What is this <t:> anyway?

What's this <t:> anyway?

>Yes, I knew you'd fight this one. Here's how this works:
>
> *dus- "bad"
> < *deu-s- "to be abandoned"
> < *deu-s- "to be alone"
> < *t:ëu "one"

Any reason why we should believe this?

>I mentioned this before.
>
>> >3. *treies *kWëlëiës *kWëlëi *k:Wël
>>
>>?
>
>I don't like odd developments such as this, but it is the best
>explanation I have so far. It would be the result of contamination
>with "four" which ends in *-twor- afterall.

This is so lame.

>Assimilation within
>systems such as a numeral system is not strange at all and there
>are many examples of this sort of thing happening over and over,
>in case you're unaware of how number systems evolve. Irregular
>developments, as unordered as they are, are to be expected
>... to a limit, that is.
>
>>>8. *ok^to:u *kWëtWaxë *kWëtWaxë (?)
>>
>>Where does the o- (*h3o-, *h1o-...?) come from? Why not **kWVt -> *kWt as
>>in *nokWt- "night"?
>
>For the obvious reason that *k^tw- is a mouthful, especially for
>a simple numeral. The initial *? (*H1) is automatic. I've already
>explained this numeral in previous posts but here is the development
>with FULL explanation for the drowsy. Note the following explanations
>are not ad hoc but rather are there to explain the development of
>other stems from Mid to Late IE. Examine this carefully:
>
> Early Mid IE *kWëtWa-xë "eight"
>
> Late Mid IE (5500-5000 BCE)
> > *këtWaxë - dissimilation of *kW from *tW
> and disassociation from
> *kWetWares
> > *k^tWax - Late Mid IE loss of
> unstressed schwa
> - *k^ = "nonuvular *k" since velar
> was next to *ë and not *a
> > *k^twax - *tW > *tw
> > *ak^twax - prothetic vowel *a- to break up
> initial *CCC- pattern
>
> Late IE (5000-4000 BCE)
> > *ok^t(w)ox - Late IE vowel shift
> - loss of *-w- before *o and
> simplification of -CCC- to -CC-
> > *ok^to: - *-ox > *-o: (compens.length.)
> > *ok^to:u - *-o: > *-o:u (labial closure)
>
>
>> >9. *neun *nëurë *nëurë (?)
>>
>>-r > -n ???? You gotta be joking.
>
>How is this so strange? It beats *k- > *p- in your etymology of
>*penkWe which still lacks full explanation.
>
>Again, this is an irregular change but fully explanable. First,
>we must note Etruscan nurph "nine" with /nur-/. This validates
>*nëurë. From there, *nëurë first became *neur after loss of
>unstressed schwa, however, the final *-r was assimilated with
>initial *n-, producing *neun. Further *dek^m ends in a nasal as
>well and could have supplied further pressure on the numeral's
>evolution.

Why not reconstruct *newm then? The reason one often finds
reconstructed *newn instead of *newm is that we find -n- in ordinals
like Latin <no:nus> "ninth". The root was *neun- and in the case of a
normal noun, it should have yielded *newr. It's possible that *newm
for *newr was created by analogy with *septm and *dek^m. Another
explanation is that the numerals preserved the old nominative in *-u,
**nu:nu > **neunw > *newm (-nw > -m), acc. **nu:na > *neun > *newr (-n

> -r).

>> >20. *wi:k^mtix *këmtëixë *kamës(kamët-) *kamët
>>
>>Where does the *wi: come from?
>
>Whatever. However you want to reconstruct the beginning.

Ah so you had parentheses or questionmarks there after all, just
didn't bother to write them...

>> >How *penkWe derives from *kem(t)kwe and how that makes much sense
>> >semantically is beyond me.
>>
>>*kemt-/*komt- is "hand". "One, two, three, four, and the hand..."
>
>... Which is ludricrous. I can't believe you're trying to
>claim that *penkWe somehow means "And the hand"?? From *kemt-???

The *-kwe part is certainly the same as *-kwe "and". There are no PIE
nouns ending in -e. The first part, *pen- (or *pem-, or *peNC-, if
there was some kind of cluster simplification), I can't find a source
for (sorry, I haven't checked the Circassian for "dungheap"). The
hypothesis that it may be from *kemt-, with (a) assimilation *kemt-kwe

> *kenkwe > (a) kwenkwe, as in Italo-Celtic-Germanic; or (b)

dissimilation *kemt-kwe > *kenkwe > *penkwe, as in most PIE branches,
seems like a nice idea. I'm certainly not claiming it's the only
possibility (whence the questionmark). Just a thought.

>> >Why does *r in *treies derive from *l
>> >in this instance but not others?
>>
>>Seems to me you're suggesting the same thing [blah, blah, blah]
>
>Children copy others. You need not copy me if you think that you're
>mature enough to know better. Please state a specific sound rule,
>not statistics on general sound changes that occur in a group of
>languages. Do you have rules? Have you bothered to develop any?
>
>For me, Steppe *r > *r and Steppe *l > *l unless other forces such
>as analogy come into play. You need to explain why we have *tl- >
>*tr- here... or is this the rule, in which case, can you find
>other examples? Justify *tl-. Etc, etc, etc! Start talking, Mig!

The rule is **tl- > *tr-. There are no PIE roots starting with *tl-.
The only apparent exception is a form *tleh2- (if not *tl.h2-) from
the root *telh2- "to lift", where paradigmatic levelling blocked the
soundlaw.

>>Grimm had rules and that's why people like him.
>>
>>I prefer Verner.
>
>Thereby exposing your fetish for "exceptions" rather than founding
>rules... Thanks for sharing. Your words are priceless, they really
>are.

If you prefer Grimm over Verner, you don't know a lot about IE
linguistics.