Re: [tied] five and four [was: celtic]

05-10-03 00:58, Miguel Carrasquer wrote:

> On Sat, 04 Oct 2003 20:56:49 +0200, Davius Sanctex <gruposdavius@...>
> wrote:
>
>>Just a question:
>>Can be the germanic forms /*fimf/ and /*feDwor/ loanwords from p-celtic forms
>>/*pemp-/ and /*petuora/? [rather than a remodelled forms?]
>
> Phonetically, I can't think of a reason why not. However, it doesn't seem
> compatible with Gmc. finger < *penkWró-, and the NWGmc. words for "4" going
> back to *figwar- (ON fio:rer, fio:rar, fiogor etc.), for which there is no
> Celtic prototype that I know of.

Well, one could imagine *petwor- to have developed the by-form *pekwor-
in pre-Germanic _after_ being borrowed, or NWGmc. *fedwar- > *fegwar-,
so no Celtic prototype for this secondary form is really needed. But onn
the other hand I wouldn't like to separate *fimf- and *fedwar- from
cases like *wulfa- (with a labiovelar preserved in fem. *wl.kW-íh2 >
*wulgWi- > ON ylgr 'she-wolf'), which can't be Celtic. If a sporadic
Germanic change of *xW > *f must be posited anyway (note that a similar
but more recent sporadic change is responsible for Mod.E /f/ in <rough>,
<tough>, <enough>, <laugh>, <trough> and <cough>), there's no need to
assume Celtic influence in *fedwo:r and *fimf.

> An interesting word is Dutch/Frisian/English pink (pinkie) "little finger",
> the fifth finger (depending on how you count): if this has to do with
> *penkWe, then it can't be Germanic, nor Celtic, nor Latin/Romance in
> origin.

The earliest attestation of <pink(ie)> 'tiny, small; little finger' is
rather recent (15th-16th c.). Is there any evidence that the meaning
'little finger' is historically primary? In English, the most
characteristic collocation before the 19th c. was <pink eyes> (or <pink
nyes>, <pinkeny>, Sc. <pinkie een>, with parallel expressions in Dutch),
where <pink> means 'narrowed, half-shut'.

Piotr