Re: Finnish KASKA

----- Original Message -----
From: "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2008 11:06 AM
Subject: Re: [tied] Re: Finnish KASKA


> On 2008-02-21 14:56, Patrick Ryan wrote:
>
> > So, on *dwo:u-, the bottom like for me is I think the final -*u is this
> > 'number'-element miraculously surviving. This has applications for
> > *ok^to:u-
> > as well. No dual!
>
> And of course it's pure coincidence that *dwo:(u) is declined like a
> thematic animate _dual_, not at all like a singular or a plural, and
> that it's only animate, its inanimate counterpart being *dwo-ih1, again
> declined like any thematic neuter dual. By contrast, '1' is declined
> like a _singular_, '3' and '4' like ordinary _plurals_, and the basic
> cardinal numerals from '5' to '10' are indeclinable ('10' behaves like a
> declinable noun only when it forms complex numerals).
>
> Piotr

***

I am sure you would concede that words are treated not according to their
origins but how people perceive their origins.

It is certainly _not_ coincidence that *dwo:(u) is declined as a dual; it
fit the outward pattern set by genuine duals and was treated as what it was
perceived (in my opinion, wrongly) to be.

Not really anything surprising in all this except that this is one of the
few instances, I think, where pre-PIE *dWA from *do brought the glide with
it into PIE: *dWo:(u).

Piotr, do you have any thoughts on why we have *o here rather than *e?

Patrick