--- Rick McCallister <
gabaroo6958@...> wrote:
> Is it true that three is related to throng and
> thorp? I've seen this bandied about.
> If this is so, could these be related to various
> *tr-, *tVr- roots meaning "through, beyond, etc"
Many people have tried to show connections to
various roots. They're usually full of problems with
sound changes and meanings. For example, why say
*ter- not *trei- for "three"? It's possible that
adding *-y would cause that change, but there's no
evidence that *trei- comes from _that_ *ter- anyway.
If there's already a "root" reconstructed *trei-, why
not look at that first?
The main problem is that people try to identify
notions like "more" and "next" or numerical forms
instead of applying the names to the fingers
themselves. With this in mind a correspondence that
looks too good to be coincidental appears:
*sem- (in *smei-, *smeu-, *smel-) bend
*dwei- (in *dweis-, dweik^-) shake
*trei- scratch
*twer- cut
Still, this couldn't be certain unless the meanings
of the affixes were understood and other sound changes
and unexplained correspondences reconstructed with
certainty. I've already done this, so I have no
doubts.
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