Reconstruction talk:Proto-Indo-European/kʷetwóres

There is no Tokharian descendant ? --Fsojic (talk) 16:20, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

śtwer (B) and śtwar (A), probably. --Fsojic (talk) 16:55, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Here it is. I add it. --Fsojic (talk) 16:56, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

There may be a further etymology behind it. cet (which I have just created) means "pair", "even number" in Slavic languages, see also my entry in Wikipedia for the cognates and further sources. Some etymological dictionaries claim that this cet originates from PIE *kʷet... Zezen (talk) 12:22, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Not "cet" in PSl, either *četъ, *četь or *četa. However ЭССЯ authors consider this version (connection to "four") improbable. 178.46.90.91 17:03, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Combination of *kʷe- + *twer-

I think a possible explanation for this word may be a combination of the interrogative stem *kʷe- and the stem *twer- which means "to enclose/to create". If so, the word translates as "that which encloses" - a reflection of the fact that the front four fingers are able to "enclose" the palm of the hand. I don't think that *kʷet- is the actual root of the word, because the ablaut happens at the second syllable (and respectively *kʷe- acts as a prefix).

I don't think so, because I have a different idea. I don't know where else to leave my epiphany that it might be from *dwo. Perhaps in a reduplication (with some more going on) not as a mere frequentative but literally: twotwo=2+2=2*2. The french build numbers in a similar manner: quatre-vingt-dix-neuf=4*20+10+9.

I can't explain the different consonants, but there's etwó right in there, what more do you need?

I would even go one further and stipulate that *twer- relates to *dwo, too. 94.134.128.125 13:36, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

This is all wrong. None of those are normal PIE sound changes and that's not how ablaut works. —Aryaman^{A (मुझसे बात करें • योगदान)} 17:09, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Etymology

Some theory sees a primitive series of three numbers: oi, du, ter-kwe ("one, two and three"); Proto-Indo-European *-kʷe (“and”); later it was added the 4: oi, du, ter-kwe; tur » oi, du, ter, kwetur. Note that in Sanskrit, albeit the root for 4 is चतुर् (catur), "fourth" is तुरीय/turīya (Avestan 𐬙𐬏𐬌𐬭𐬌𐬌𐬀‎/tūiriia). (Los indoeuropeos y los orígenes de Europa, Francisco Villar Liébana, 1991.) In Hittite, 4 is me(y)u-, Luwian mauwa-, from Proto-Anatolian *meiu (great number, a lot), coincidentally with primitive countings such as "one, two, three, many". So, Anatolian would have remained out of the innovation tur. Later was added the 5: pen-kwe ("and five"); perhaps related to Greek root παν- (pan-), "all", meaning "the whole hand"? In some moment, the plural ending -es was added to 3 and 4, but I do not know how to account for the intervening changes ter - terey - tereyes - treyes and kwetur - kwetwor - kwetwores.--Manfariel (talk) 14:57, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

This is all extremely speculative, and leaves a lot unexplained, especially morphologically. Whose theory is this, anyway? As for तुरीय (turīya), it is generally thought that the consonant cluster at the beginning was reduced in Sanskrit, as in Avestan, and that this form is not a trace of a more "primitive" or archaic variant of the numeral. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 10:47, 5 November 2022 (UTC)