O kilku możliwych śladach duale tantum w językach indoeuropejskich

Abstract

On Some Possible Traces of Duale Tantum in Indo-European Languages The paper is devoted to three selected Indo-European nouns that can be considered as dualia tantum. On the basis of lexical data preserved in historical Indo-European languages, I have reconstructed three probable archetypes: (1) IE. *ḱelī- (< PIE. *ḱel-ih1) f. duale tantum ‘two-component body of a human or animal’ is precisely attested in Avestan sairi f. du. tant. ‘two solid components of the human and animal body, i.e. the skin together with meat and bones; body, dead body, corpse’. The primitive dual form seems to appear in Old Indic (Vedic) śárīram n. ‘body, body frame, solid parts of the body, pl. bones’, also ‘a dead body’ (a derivative noun created by means of the suffix -ra- < IE. *-lo-), cf. also Pali sarīra- n. ‘body’, Prakrit sarira- n. ‘id.’; West Pahari sarīr, Old Gujarati saïra, sayara n. ‘body’. (2) IE. *agu̯ sī- f. sg. ‘axe’ (< PIE. *h2egu̯ s-ih1 f. du. tant. ‘double axe, two-edged battle-axe’) can be seen not only in the Germanic languages (e.g. Gothic aqisi f. ‘axe’, Old High German acchus ‘id.’, English axe ‘id.’), but also in some Greek-Latin derivatives (see Greek ἀξῑ́νη f. ‘double axe, twoedged battle-axe’, Modern Greek αξίνα f. ‘hoe, mattock, pickaxe’, Latin ascia f. ‘axe, trowel’). The original meaning ‘double axe, two-edged item’ is firmly confirmed by the Greek data. (3) IE. *oldhī- f. sg. ‘a kind of boat’ (< PIE. *h3eldh-ih1 f. du. tant. ‘a primitive boat built from two troughs’ ← *h3eldh- f. ‘trough’) is reflected in Tocharian AB olyi ‘boat’, Lithuanian eldijà f. ‘a canoe, a boat hollowed out from one trunk’, dial. aldijà f. ‘id.’, Old Church Slavic ladija f. ‘πλοῖον, σκάφη / navis, navicula’, also alъdija ‘id.’, Old Czech lodí f. ‘ship, boat’, Polish łódź f. ‘boat’ and so on. The basic noun *h3eldh- ‘trough’ is securely attested in the Germanic languages, cf. Norwegian alde f. ‘wooden trough’, Danish olde ‘id.’ (< Proto-Germanic *aldōn- f.).

Keywords

• Indo-European languages
• Indo-European vocabulary
• dual number
• word formation