Companion Terms for 7 and 8 (Re: 'eight' some more)

[Koontz John E]

On Sun, 2 May 2004, R. Rankin wrote:
> Chiwere (Ioway), on the other hand, lacks not only the putative
> source-word for 'eight'; it also lacks any trace of the companion term
> for 'seven'.

This is quite true, IO and Winnebago as attested both lack not only all
trace of a *hpa- or *hpe-based 'eight' term, but also all trace of a
comparably based companion term for 'seven'.  On the other hand, so do
Tutelo and Ofo, right?  The only languages with companion 'seven' and
'eight' terms are Omaha-Ponca, Kaw, and Quapaw (with *hpe-forms) and
Biloxi, which has an idosyncratic construction based on (a)hudi, which
Dorsey (or Swanton?) explain as "on the other hand?"  It might also be
'... (more) come'.  Osage lacks the 'eight' form typical in Dhegiha,
having replaced it with hki'etoNpa, which looks like a sort of reciprocal
of 'four'.  The old word hpedhabriN was "archaic" in LaFlesche's time.

The forms from my earlier posting, perhaps open to some corrections, are
repeated below:

           Tu           Bi           Of
'two'      noNoN'paa    noN'pa       nuN'pha
'three'    laa'ni(N)    da'ni(N)     ta'ni(N)
'seven'    saakoo'miNiN noN'pahudi   fa'kumi(N)
'eight'    palaa'ni(N)  dan'hudi'    pa'tani(N)

           Te            OP            IO            Wi
'two'      nuN'pa        naNba'        nuN(uN)'we    nuNuN'p
'three'    ya'mni(N)     dha'bdhiN     da(a)'<ny>i   daani'
'seven'    s^ako'wiN     ppe'dhaNba    sa(a)'hmaN    s^aagoo'wiN
'eight'    s^aglo'gha    ppe'dhabdhiN  greeraa'briN  harumaN'k

Things in Mandan and Crow-Hidatsa, as I recall it, are quite different.

The reconstructions supported by these forms are:

'two'      *nuNuN'pa
'three'    *raa'priN
'seven'    *s^aako'wiN
'eight'    ???

In IO 'seven' looks like it comes from *s^aakwaN (= *s^aak + waN ?),
which, if *s^aakowiN is essentially *s^aak(V) + owiN, might be some sort
of analogical revision of it.  Forms like -wiN and -waN suggest 'one', of
course, though it's not clear to me what 'one' might be in connection with
'seven'.  As I mentioned before in passing, since Winnebago usually agrees
closely with IO in lexical shifts like this, Winnebago s^aagoo'wiN seems
so close to the reconstructed form as attested in Dakotan that I rather
wonder if might even be a Dakotan loan.

The interesting thing to notice about Tutelo's and Ofo's lack of a
companion 'seven' term is that they have instead reflexes of the
non-companionate *s^aako'wiN.  One might suppose that the 'eight' form or
forms develop first and the companion 'seven' forms are created by analogy
with them, but it seems to me more likely that the non-companionate and
some form of companionate forms existed in parallel, and that the
companionate series involved a complete set of forms for 'six' to 'nine'
or even 'ten'.  Or one might imagine for 'ten' in the companionate series
a 'two fives' form like *saa'ptaN nuN'pa.  This is entirely hypothetical,
of course; no companion forms for other than 'seven' and 'eight' are
attested and no 'two fives' form, either, though, as we have seen, Osage
as a sort of 'pair of fours' form for 'eight' and Omaha-Ponca use a 'two
sixes' form for 'twelve' instead of the regular agdhiN' + N 'sitting on it
+ N' teen form.  The 'two Ns' construction recurs in Siouan, though it
always looks quite secondary.

Also interesting in light of Osage *hkieto'pa 'eight' is P(MV)S *kyee'praN
'ten'.  Perhaps *kyee'- is a contraction of *hki-e-, though *praN doesn't
look like *saa'ptaN 'five' at all and this sort of contraction doesn't
seem especially likely to me at the moment.

If the companionate and non-companionate 'higher digits' existed in
parallel, then the present series in many cases are a mixture of the two
sets, with some substitutions of new forms, especially alternate
companionate forms and descriptive innovations for 'nine'.  It might be
more proper to refer to the non-companionate and companionate series as
'decimal' and 'quinary'.  The companionate or quinary terms might also be
essentially descriptions of hand motions in counting.