What kind
of noun is čët? What is its relationship to our hypothetical verb root? One
cannot avoid asking such questions when proposing an etymology. A word is more
than a root; it has a derivational history. If you add an affix to a word, you
may alter its lexical category and its meaning of the base. We already know a good
deal about morphological processes in the Indo-European languages, which means
that we can tell plausible relationships between possibly related words from
unlikely ones.
Let R be a
root morpheme. In Proto-Indo-European (and in many of the languages descended
from it), a root consists of a consonantal skeleton with a slot where a vowel can
be inserted. For example, the verb root *{w_rǵ} ‘make, work’ is normally quoted
in the form *werǵ-, called its e-grade, symbolised as R(e). Here, the slot is occupied
by the vowel *e. The same root also forms an o-grade, R(o), realised as *worǵ-,
and a zero grade, R(z), in which the vowel slot remains empty. In that case,
the liquid *r, sandwiched between two other consonants, has to play the role of a
syllable nucleus, and the root becomes phonetically *wr̥ǵ- (in the traditional
Indo-Europeanist notation, a tiny subscipt ring marks a syllabic consonant).
One of the largest
and most productive classes of PIE nominals (nouns/adjectives) were the
so-called thematic nouns (also known as o-stems). Their stem ended in the vowel
*-o-, to which inflectional endings were attached. In the simplest case, the
vowel was added directly to the root; in more complex cases it was part of a
suffix (such as *-to-, *-no-, *-tero-, *-tlo-, etc.). Somewhat surprisingly, “simple
thematic” nouns of the shape R(e)-o-
were pretty rare in the protolanguage. The neuter action noun *wérǵ-o-m ‘work,
activity’ is well supported by the agreement between Germanic *werka- (Old
English weorc, German Werk) and Greek érgon; we also have Iranian (Avestan) varəza-, with
the same stem (and meaning) but with masculine inflections. Very few such nouns,
however, are truly old. More typically, the suffix *-o- was added to R(o), as
in *wóiḱ-o- ‘house, dwelling’ (root *weiḱ- ‘enter, occupy’) and sometimes to R(z),
as in *jug-ó- ‘yoke’ (root *jeug-, already mentioned in earlier posts).
Marc
Greenber (2001) doesn’t define the morphological status of his reconstruction
*kʷet- (‘two’ > ‘pair, partner’). In some places in the article he treats it
as if it were a root noun (with no suffixes), but the simplest form we actually
find in Slavic is represented by Russ. čët (cf. dialectal Polish cot), which appears to reflect a thematic masculine noun
*kʷet-o-s ‘even number’. How could it have originated? If *kʷet- was once a
verb root (with the approximate meaning of ‘arrange in pairs, pair up’), *kʷet-o-
makes sense as a kind of action noun that has acquired a resultative interpretation:
by pairing objects together, you end up with an even number of them. (By the
way, the verb root is not entirely conjectural: we can see it in Russian četáť ‘form
pairs’.) The problem with *kʷet-o- is
that it represents a rare type of stem, at least in terms of PIE morphology. Is
it legitimate to posit it just like that?
On the
other hand, *kʷet-o- needn’t go all the way back to PIE. The deverbal formation R(e)-o- has enjoyed increased productivity in Slavic. We even
have doublets like R(o)-o- and R(e)-o-, where the o-grade variant is more
conservative (and has more external cognates), while the e-grade seems to be a younger innovation (with a more restricted distribution). Thus, the root *tekʷ- ‘run, flow’ has produced
Slavic *tekъ (as if from *tekʷ-o-s) ‘waterflow, leak, source’, which coexists
with *tokъ (< *tokʷ-o-s) ‘stream, current, flux; (figuratively) course, sequence
of events’. The former is an innovation directly connected with the Slavic verb
*tekti ‘leak, flow’ (3sg. *tečetь > *tékʷ-e-ti), whereas the latter is a relict form
which has drifted away from its etymological base, also semantically. Therefore,
if *četъ is a relatively recent derivative of a Proto-Slavic verb, it wouldn’t
be surprising if it had an o-grade cousin (possibly with a more “evolved”
meaning).
As a matter
of fact, Greenberg mentions *kotъ ‘offspring (of animals), litter’ and *kotiti
(sę) ‘have young’ as possible members of the same word-family. A connection
with the homophonous noun *kotъ ‘domestic cat’ (a European Wanderwort which spread with the introduction
of cats) is folk-etymological: the verb may be used of cats, but also of mice,
sheep, goats, roe deer, and a variety of other animals. It is used even in those
Slavic languages that have a different word for ‘cat’ (e.g. Serbo-Croatian mačka). The verb *kotiti could
be an “iterative/causative” built to the root *kʷet-. The structure of such secondary
verbs is R(o)-éje/o- (the final vowel of the stem alternates depending on which
conjugational ending is added). For example, the Slavic verb *gъnati (3sg. *ženetь)
‘drive on, drive away, rush’ has a corresponding o-grade iterative, *goniti (3sg. *gonitь) ‘chase,
run after’. These forms ultimately reflect PIE *gʷʰén-/*gʷʰn- ‘slay, kill with blows’ (a root verb, somewhat restructured in Slavic) and its PIE iterative *gʷʰon-éje/o-.
The verb *tekti (< *tékʷ-e/o-), mentioned above, forms a pair with the
causative *točiti ‘cause to flow, (cause to) roll’ (< *tokʷ-éje/o-). Note also such English
pairs as lie vs. lay, or sit vs. set, where the first member is a primary verb
and the second is its causative (e.g. ‘lay’ = ‘cause to lie’).
 |
| The consequences of forming a pair. [source; © gerald reiner] |
The
feminine *četa can hardly be a collective (at any rate in the meaning ‘pair’).
Not only because it refers to just two things, but also because collectives in
*-ah₂ to o-stem masculines are an archaic formation in Indo-European (as
opposed to neuter collectives, co-opted as ordinary plurals of neuter nouns and adjectives), and *četъ is
unlikely to be sufficiently ancient. But Indo-European *-(a)h₂ was not only a
collective suffix and a marker of femininity; it was also employed to coin (formally feminine) abstracts, including action nouns. Quite a few deverbal masculines in
Slavic (and more generally in Balto-Slavic) have feminine synonyms like *čarъ
~ *čara ‘sorcery, enchantment’ or *-tokъ ~ *-toka ‘flow, course’, *-sěkъ ~ *-sěka ‘cutting’ (in compounds). Note the familiar
morphological formations represented by Greek tómos ‘slice’ (result of cutting) versus
tomḗ ‘cut’ (an instance of cutting) – a nice parallel to *četъ (resultative)
vs. *četa (an individual instance of pairing).
In the
first post of this series I suggested that the stem *kʷet-w(o)r- was originally
a deverbal neuter of a familiar type. Before I develop this idea, let me briefly
suggest one other possible trace of the root *kʷet-: the second member of the Latin
compound triquetrus ‘triangular’. The next post will be about it.
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