Re: Paleoasiatic (was: Favourite Language Group?)

Tim May scripsit:

> |Nivkh has specific sets of numerals for the enumeration of various
> |categories of objects - boats, people, animals, fishing-nets, small
> |round obj.cts, etc.  Panfilov (1962) lists 26 such sets.  For example,
> |`three' with reference to people is _t'aqr_; to animals, _t'3m_; to
> |sweep-nets, _t'for_; etc.  It is noteworthy that the palatalised t'
> |remains stable as initial in all variants, an the same stability
> |applies in other numbers.  Thus, _n'_ is the initial for the 26
> |variants of _n'im_ 1, and m is the initial for all variants of _mim_ 2.
Just so, and I don't see why Campbell (or his source) doesn't see it.
(I meant of course to write "numeral+classifier+noun", the Chinese-style
word order.)  t'for (3 nets) is simply the fused result of some original
numeral now represented by the t', and for is the classifier for netlike
things.  Since Nivkh is an isolate, there is no hope of reconstructing
the original forms, to be sure.  But this is not really strange.

--
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