The higher numerals in Ossetic
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Publication date: 30.05.2022
Studia Linguistica Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis, 2022, Volume 139, Issue 2, pp. 71 - 89
https://doi.org/10.4467/20834624SL.22.005.15629Authors
The higher numerals in Ossetic
This paper examines the formal prehistory of the cardinal numerals above “ten” from Proto-Iranian to Ossetic. Despite the widespread adoption in Ossetic of a vigesimal system of counting and semantic shift of “thousand” and “ten thousand” to generalized terms for large amounts, the evolution of these numerals may be reconstructed in detail. Noteworthy features are the general conservatism of the teens; retention of the nasal from Proto-Indo-Iranian in Digor insæj ‘twenty’, ærtin ‘thirty’ (cf. Vedic viṁśatí-, triṁśát-); survival of an older variant of ‘forty’ in Digor cæppors*, Iron cyppurs ‘Christmas’ < ‘(festival) of forty (days)’; and extension of Proto-Iranian *-āti from ‘seventy’ and ‘eighty’ to ‘fifty’ and ‘sixty’. Digor be(u)ræ, Iron biræ ‘many, much; very’ continues a thematized plural *baiwar-ai of Proto-Iranian *baiwar / n- ‘ten thousand’; if sædæ ‘hundred’ and ærzæ (ærʒæ) ‘countless number, myriad’ < ‘thousand’ also go back to preforms in *-ai, they were either remodeled after *baiwar-ai or generalized from duals, e.g. *duwai ćatai ‘two hundred’. The limited evidence for earlier stages of the language is given full consideration, including Sarmatian onomastics, word lists in early modern European sources, and the testimony of loanwords.
The research for this article has been supported by grant no. 2019/35/B/HS2/01273: “Ossetic historical grammar and the dialectology of early Iranian” from the Polish National Science Centre (NCN).
Information: Studia Linguistica Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis, 2022, Volume 139, Issue 2, pp. 71 - 89
Article type: Original article
Titles:
The higher numerals in Ossetic
The higher numerals in Ossetic
Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań
Published at: 30.05.2022
Article status: Open
Licence: CC BY
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