I said:
> I did actually. I suggested my own alternate theory
> that *okto:u is indeed "fours" (plural rather than
> dual though) and was Mid IE *kWetWa-xe
Sorry, I must update this to my new phonetics *kWatWáxa
where unstressed *a = [&] and an unstressed allophone
of *e existed, being pronounced as [I] as in *pet:asa
[pI't:as@] "of the foot" (> *pedos). So *a is dropped
during syncope but unstressed *e remains, lowering to
early Late IE *&, or raising to *i before stress accent
as in *Ci-CeC- reduplication and compounding. That new
eLIE schwa in turn becomes either *e or *o in PIE
depending on the vocalism of the following consonant.
The PIE schwa has no bearing on the earlier schwas.
Got it? Good. Cuz I don't <:(
= gLeN