As a preamble, note that what appears to be
a cliticised *inU (and what may well be the "one" word) appears as a
singulative suffix in Slavic. It occurs usually, but not exclusively after
*-an-; it dissapears from this combination in the plural: *slove^n-inU
'Slav' : pl. *slove^n-e, *gordjan-inU 'town-dweller' : pl.
*gordjan-e.
We find it also without *-an- in nouns like
OCS blUgar-inU 'Bulgarian', evreinU 'Jew'. In Polish, where this pattern
survived quite well, we have archaic <Turczyn> 'Turk', <Greczyn>
'Greek', <We,grzyn> 'Hungarian' (variants of <Turek, Grek, We,gier>,
which are now normative). Still current forms include <Litwin>
'Lithuanian' (no shorter variant possible, since the name appears to be
back-derived from <Litwa> used collectively in the sense 'the
Lituanians'), <Rusin> and <Z.mudzin> (again from <Rus'>
and <Z.mudz'> treated as collectives). The analogical plurals
<Litwini> and <Rusini> have been common for centuries, but
otherwise plurals with -in- are rare or unattested, so the original usage
must have been something like sg. <Turczyn/Turek> (with or without the
singulative suffix) : pl. <Turcy>.
This is more or less how I imagine PIE
*-h1on-/*-h1(e)n- to have functioned -- a suffix used in nouns referring to
characteristic properties (e.g. *h2ju-h1o:n, gen. *h2ju-h1n-os 'a man
in his prime'), group membership, etc. Hence its great productivity in
anthroponymy and later "exaptation" as a diminutive suffix e.g. in Germanic. To
what extent it was singulative, I don't know (the plural *-h1on-es no doubt
existed, but then in English the plural of "a young one" is "young ones"). It
may have had other functions as well. Apart from the numeral system, we find
something similar to it in the middle participle (*-m-h1n-o-, as if a trace of
adjective-forming *-h1n-o- extending [quasi-]participles in
*-mo-).
*oi-h1n-o- is structured like (more
conjectural) *dwi-h1n-o- 'two at one time, two each' (Lat. bi:ni:), so
perhaps the original meaning was "one at a time, just one, taken separately". Of
course "little *oi-" appears in other combinations as well (Indo-Aryan ai-ka-,
Iranian *ai-va-); an independent meaning like "single, individual" can be
hypothesised for it. I wouldn't exclude a connection with deictic *ei- 'this',
since words meaning "one" tend to inhabit the buffer zone between pronouns and
adjectives.
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2001 4:42 AM
Subject: Re: [tied] One.
Just one question about the semantics: correct me if I'm
wrong, but *-h1en- is something like a diminutive suffix, what could "little
*oi-" have meant?