From: stlatos
Message: 59138
Date: 2008-06-09
>/a/,
> On 2008-06-08 22:25, tgpedersen wrote:
>
> > Actually I thought of casting the net wider and get all the "four,
> > square" words on board too. No one has explained the /a/ of Latin
> > quattuor...
>
> It's a "schwa secundum", i.e. a prop vowel inserted to break up a
> hard-to-pronounce cluster. Its characteristic reflexes include Lat.
> Gk. /i/, OCS /I/. The pattern was m. pl. *kWetwores, n. (coll.)*kWtwo:r
> --> *kW&two:r, compositional *kW(&)twr.- ~ *kW(&)tru-.I'm more partial to an explanation including:
>
> Piotr
--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, mkapovic@... wrote:
> Lat. far and faba are not very conviencing in proving an IE *a since in
> Latin a/o difference is not very stabile after labials, that is *o tends
> to change to /a/ (mare, ca:seus, canis, parie:s, margo: etc.), cf.
> Schrijver 1991.
>
> Mate
That is, first e>o opt. by KW. Much later o>a as above. In Slavic
and Greek there are words that can be securely regarded as having e>i
for some reason (in cases in which, even if 0 instead of e somehow
existed, could not be explained by breaking a difficult cluster with
schwa). Without a complete understanding of the reasons for e>i it
can't be stated that it couldn't occur in 'four'.
In any event, I think the *kWe in '4, 5' are the result of 'and' in
counting 1-10 being analyzed as part of the numbers. If so, no
*kWtru+, etc., existed.