Re: [tied] Re: IE right & 10

> > Quite often the have fingercounting which ranges up to 5, 10 or 20.
> > Extremely seldom, if at all, are there monomorphemic numerals up to
> > exactly 6.
>
> I think this is an incorrect way of thinking about language. If you
> really wrap your head around what it would be like to draw out a
> linguistic map of languages during the neolithic, you'd realize that
> you'd end up with a pattern like a continuum where there aren't any
> hard edges. What does that have to do with anything? Well, if you take
> one dialect of a particular language, they may indeed have numbers up
> to "ten". You take another dialect and they may also have numbers up
> to "ten".

The point is that it's highly unlikely that they had numerals up to
exactly 6. If you look at the world's huntre-gatherer languages and
their dialects you will not find a great variety in the cutoff point of
their numeral systems. The cutoff point will almost invariably be 2-4,
(which has a perfect explanation in the subitizing limit) or based to
5, 10, body parts etc. There is no continuum of dialects with numerals up
to 6, 7, 8, 10 or whatever.

> But what if the two dialects of that language have different number
> sets? What if the higher numbers differ in the two dialects? This is
> what we'd expect since higher numbers would tend to be replaced more
> often than lower ones, particularly in a neolithic environment where
> we have nothing but hunter-gatherer bands roaming the wilderness for
> good hunting grounds. All the speakers of a particular language
> aren't going to band together, have a meeting and decide how to say
> 'eight' but that doesn't mean that they didn't have their own local
> word.

Sure, but this is a different question than the one we were discussing.

/H