--- gprosti <
gprosti@...> wrote:
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Sean Whalen
> <stlatos@...> wrote:
> > I have ten, but some are repeats. I understand
> that
> > it may not "sound right" in some languages besides
> > English, but saying "one, two and three, four and
> > five" doesn't seem odd; it's not only on the final
> > word of the chant that "and" can appear.
> >
>
> If *kWe was an enclitic, it seems odd to me that it
> would be
> analyzed as part of a following word rather than as
> part of a
> preceding one.
This kind of reanalysis is always odd to the people
who haven't done it. If it was fairly late then
*treyeskWe but *trins, etc., wouldn't be as acceptable
as *kWetwores (since PIE changed the endings; the
beginning remained). The evidence that *kWe isn't
original includes:
*sem-
*dwoi-
*trei-
*twor-
*pen-
that we get by removing all *kWe from the number
reconstructions. It's almost impossible to think that
they're all monosyllables except for the _same_
syllable in two that is exactly the same as an
enclitic used to link series (like counting).
There are also some forms for "four" and "fourth"
that could be from plain *tur-. Though these could be
explained by *kWtur- the sound changes don't seem
consistent with more certain examples of *Kt-.
In my reconstructions of PIE I have high, mid, and
low tone (needed for various alternations) on vowels
which give o, e, e. The numbers go e-o-e-o-e. The
number chant then would become a wave of
mid-high-mid-high-mid or mid-high-mid-low-high-mid-low
(kWe is low).
And the meaning of most of the numbers can be
explained if they're looked at as from roots.
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