Re: [tied] One.

----- Original Message -----

From: Piotr Gasiorowski

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Saturday, November 03, 2001 12:15 PM

Subject: Re: [tied] One.

The actual Slavic reflex of PIE "one" is *inU, recycled semantically as "another, diferent". The original meaning survives in a couple of old compounds -- *ino-rogU 'unicorn' and *ino-xodU 'amble, lateral gait'. It may be contained (as *-in-) in *edinU 'one' > *jedinU (with the variant *jedInU), East Slavic *odinU, though I don't know of a really convincing interpretation of *ed- (a locative particle like *e-dH(i)-?).

 

I don't know where the initial *v- in the East Baltic reflex comes from. Such prothesis is unusual in that branch; perhaps Sergei knows more about it. Apart from this irregularity, OPrus. ains, Slavic *inU and East Baltic *[w]ienas can be reconstructed as Proto-BSl *ainas, with an acute accent on the diphthong evidenced throughout Balto-Slavic. The accent suggests that there is something amiss about the traditional IE reconstruction *oi-no-. My personal preference is for *oi-h1n-o-, with a variant of the suffix *-h1on-. I think the same suffix may account for Latin distributive numerals (bi:n-, tri:n-/tern- 'two/three at a time') and for a few other IE formations involving numeral roots.

 

A by-form of *inorogU (*inUrogU > *inrog > *indrok?) is probably the prototype of Indrik, a fabulous animal in Russian folklore, commemorated by palaeontologists in the name of the indricothere (Paraceratherium (Indricotherium]), an Oligocene/Miocene relative of rhinos, believed to be the largest land animal of all time.

 

Piotr

 

 

 

----- Original Message -----

From: Yves Deroubaix

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Saturday, November 03, 2001 2:26 AM

Subject: [tied] One.

Can someone explain the word Old Church Slavonic word jedinu (one)? I cannot see PIE *oi-n-os in it.

Why is there a v in Lithuanian vienas?

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