Re: [tied] Re: IE right & 10

Petusek:

> As for *de-, A. Erhart also thought IE "10" < *de-k^(o)mt "1x10", where
> the original meaning of *k^omt was "Gesamheit der Finger".

It's fun to reinvent the wheel, I always say.

> The first component (*de) was identified by Erhart in the numeral "2",
> too (oh, that sounds good :-)). He reconstructed IE "2" as *deHw =
> "1x2".

Ugh, well that's where we apparently depart then. I find myself
reconstructing Mid IE *t:Wa-he (> eLIE *dwa: > *dwo:u) with an enclitic
form *t:Wa. (All numbers below five appear to me to have had simpler
enclitic forms in Mid IE, probably used when modifying a noun rather
than in isolation.) The *-he ending is for later collective *-x.

The pattern I see in the IE numbers is that "two" is etymologically the
plural of "one" and "eight" is the plural of "four" (kWetwor-/okto:u <
*kWátWan/*kWatWáhe). Funny enough, this is similar to the pattern
observable in Japanese numbers (hitotsu/futatsu, yotsu/yatsu) except
that the plurality is conveyed by means of ablaut rather than suffixing.

> He thought it had originally been no numeral at all, but rather a
> deictic particle

Sounds too contrived... unless we reinterpret his 'deictic particle'
for 'collective', in which case our analyses are one and the same in
the end.

> But if you were interested...

It's definitely interesting. Ya learn something new every day.


= gLeN