On Wed, 04 Jun 2003 01:46:55 +0200 (MET DST), Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen
<
jer@...> wrote:
>On Tue, 3 Jun 2003, Miguel Carrasquer wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 03 Jun 2003 20:00:23 +0000, Glen Gordon <glengordon01@...>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >Please support this conviction of yours that
>> >Kart *otxo- derives from IE *okto:u with something more substantial.
>>
>> The Svan form is wo(:)s^tx(w), which suggests a borrowing from *o:k^toh3
>> with *h3 still /xW/ and perhaps stressed /o/ still long. The fact that the
>> word is Pan-Kartvelian and not just Georgian-Zan also suggests an ancient
>> date of borrowing.
>
>I take it that you consider the IE *-h3 a dual marker. What is that doing
>here if the word means 'four' which according to the whole point should be
>the meaning of the lost singular? In what way is this sensibly related to
>the borrowed word that means 'eight' in Kartvelian, but 'four' in Semitic?
>Can you borrow foreign numerals and still not care about counting?
It depends on the way of borrowing. How familiar were the borrowers with
the language they were borrowing from? Which manner of counting did the
new numerals replace? We don't know. All we know is that all the numerals
from 4 to 10 were apparently borrowed from IE and Semitic, apparently at
different times, and in the case of 4 and 8 with strange inversion.
4 *o:s^txw
5 *xwis^d
6 Svan /usgwa/, Geo. /ekws-/
7 *s^wid
8 *rwa
9 *cxr(w)a
10 *es^d
*o:s^txw "4" must be from PIE *ok^toh3 "8", and *rwa "8" must be from
Semitic *rba3- "4".
*c(^)xra "9" < Proto-Semitic *tis(^)3a-.
Svan usgwa < pre-Armenian *usWeks > vec`, metathesized in Georgian-Zan
(ekvs-i, ams^v-i, ans < *eksW- ~ *ekusW-)?
*xwis^d "5" < Assyrian xamis^tu /xawis^tu/
*s^wid "7" < Assyrian sebettu /sewettu/
*es^d "10" < Assysrian es^ertu /es^ettu/
It seems then that 4, 8 and 9 were borrowed at a very early stage (Akk/Ass
for "4" is erbettu, "9" is tis^i:tu, which would not have given PKartv.
*rwa and *c(^)xra), while pre-Armenian *owtu: > ut` "8" would not have
given *o:s^txw. Likewise, 5, 6, 7 and 10 must have been borrowed late, as
they show probable Assyrianisms and Armenianisms.
As to why "4" and "8" were switched, I don't think it was because the
Proto-Kartvelians knew for a fact that PIE *ok^toh3 was a dual. Semitic
"8" is *Tama:nu, which is not the dual of *rba3- (although it is the plural
of something: an old word for "hand", most likely, given that <tamun> means
"10" in Beja, with similar forms elsewhere in Cushitic). Given the
antiquity of both borrowings, it seems likely that the new words for "4"
and "8" replaced older expressions in Proto-Kartvelian which meant
something along the lines of "the hand" and "the two hands", or "the ring
finger" and "the other ring finger". I too sometimes forget on which hand,
the Polish or the Dutch one, to put my wedding ring.
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...