Re: [tied] Nominative: A hybrid view

On Tue, 3 Jun 2003, Glen Gordon wrote:

> Jens:
> >Why would a dual-looking word meaning 'eight' correspond to a singular
> >candidate-for-borrowing meaning exactly 'four' by accident?
>
> The real question is "Why are you leaping so far ahead of the game?" Who
> said *otxo- was conclusively borrowed from IE? Even if so, it's highly
> possible
> that the word would have been borrowed late in IE when the dual had
> already taken hold and when "eight" was seen as containing a dual ending.

So *(h)ok^to:(w) was made in a hurry in non-Anatolian Indo-European before
the split-off of the next branch, say Tocharian? And it was falsely
interpreted by foreigners as a dual allowing them to backform a sg. with
the meaning 'four'? And such backformation was never undertaken by the
speakers of any of the truly IE languages, even though they would have
been better informed about the possible analysis of the form as a dual? Do
you honestly expect anybody to believe that story?

> >You may believe it to be accidental, but you cannot demand that I follow
> >you in that.
>
> What I demand is that if you're going to make imaginative assertions, you
> better damn well back it up. Please support this conviction of yours that
> Kart *otxo- derives from IE *okto:u with something more substantial.
>
>
> >If the borrowing means 'four' it must have been taken before the creation
> >of the numeral *kWet-wor-es, fem. *kWete-sr-es which is as old as anything
> >we can even begin to analyze (and then some).
>
> Yes, but my thoughts on the early form of *kWetwores are different.
> Certainly, *-es is the plural, leaving *kWetwor-. The "feminine" form is
> nothing
> but *kWet(w)e- plus the same feminine ending seen in *swesor (which doesn't
> suggest that early IE had a feminine any more than English marks feminine
> gender with /-ette/). I think that these two forms show that there was
> once a Mid IE modifying form of the numeral, *kWetWe, used alongside
> *kWetWen (later *kWetWer), just as a modifying form *t:We (> *dwo-) was
> used alongside *t:Wa-xe (> *dwo:u).
>
>
> >On what grounds? How can the "bh-case" take the shape -bhya:m [...]
>
> Read my lips: The dual was at most a _thousand_ years old BY THE TIME of
> Reconstructed IE... which means that I accept a limited dual system by the
> time IE dissolved. But my point is that it wasn't fully developped because
> it
> didn't have sufficient time to resolve itself out. This is why, if there is
> secure
> links between the dual of Anatolian languages and those of other IE
> languages,
> the links are expected to be few and far between. Anatolian represents an
> earlier stage of IE and it's no wonder that it should represent a weaker
> dual
> system as well.

Read my text, you're not replying to the point. You are actually making it
worse: How could such a very young dual inflection take such a silly turn?
Why was a newly-formed number category inflected with endings that are so
different from those of the other numbers? Why are the dual forms the
*least* transparent set we have? Surely that is unexpected if they are the
youngest set, and *very* young at that. And why do the dual endings look
so similar to dual forms outside Indo-European? I have no problem with
these questions: everything is as we expect it with archaic dual forms.

Jens