The Cardinal Numerals in Pre-and Proto-Germanic

Author(s): Joseph Voyles

Source: The Journal of English and Germanic Philology , Oct., 1987, Vol. 86, No. 4 (Oct.,
1987), pp. 487-495
Published by: University of Illinois Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/27709904

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Journal of English and Germanic Philology?October
? 1987 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

THE CARDINAL NUMERALS IN PRE- AND

PROTO-GERMANIC

Joseph Voyles, University of Washington

In the following article I shall reconstruct what I shall argue are the
most probable forms of the late Indo-European or immediately pre
Germanic cardinal numerals. My reconstructions will be based on the
forms of these numerals as they occur in the earliest attested Ger
manic languages, namely Gothic, Old Icelandic, Old English, Old Fri
sian, Old Saxon, and Old High German.1 As my methodological
framework for reconstructing the pre-Germanic forms of these nu
merals I make the following three basic assumptions.
First, I assume that cardinals can influence other cardinals in the
series by a kind of frequently observed paradigmatic pressure. Ex
amples of this type of change are found in many Indo-European lan
guages, such as Russian devjat' '9' with its initial [d] replacing earlier
[n] (*nevjat') on the model of desjaf '10'. Another and perhaps more
familiar example of such paradigmatic change?but here in the or
dinal series?is the pronunciation by some American speakers of sec
ond as [sek^nt] with word-final [t] carried over from first.
Next, I assume that cardinals usually?and apparently invariably as
far as the Germanic languages are concerned?determine the form
of the ordinal numerals and not the other way around. This seems to
have been always the case in the attested instances found among the
Germanic languages: e.g., ModEng. tenth instead of the phonologi
cally regular and earlier tithe (whence tithe) from the cardinal ten +
the ordinal suffix -th; and ModHG zweit '2nd' instead of earlier ander
from the cardinal zwei + the ordinal suffix -t. There exists to my
knowledge no clear instance in the history of any of the Germanic
languages of an ordinal numeral determining the form of a cardinal.2
1 Any of the standard handbooks suffice for the attestations. I have relied for Gothic
on Wolfgang Krause, Handbuch des Gotischen (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1953); for Old Ice
landic on Adolf Noreen, Altnordische Grammatik (University: Univ. of Alabama Press,
1970); for Old English on Alistair Campbell, Old English Grammar (London: Oxford
Univ. Press, 1964); for Old Frisian on Walther Steller, Abriss der Altfriesischen Grammatik
(Halle [Saale]: Max Niemeyer, 1928); for Old Saxon on Ferdinand Holthausen, Alt
s?chsisches Elementarbuch (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1900); and for Old High German on
Wilhelm Braune, Althochdeutsche Grammatik, ed. Hans Eggers, 13th ed. (T?bingen: Max
Niemeyer, 1975).
2 This includes the case of OI fern '5' instead of the phonologically regular but non
occurring fif. The form/<?m is often considered derived from the earlier ordinal *ftmft

487

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488 Voyles
Third, I assume the usual and familiar phonological changes from
Indo-European into Germanic, most of which I shall not need to for
mulate here. These are the following: the First Sound Shift (hereafter
abbreviated ist ss), whereby the Indo-European obstruent consonants
became their Germanic reflexes (p, bh, b?> f, b, p, etc.); Verner's Law
(hereafter verner), whereby voiceless obstruents are voiced if imme
diately preceded by an (Indo-European) unstressed syllable; the shift
from Indo-European to Germanic stress (str shift), and the deletion
of word-final nasal consonants if preceded by a Germanic unstressed
syllable (which I abbreviate as nas dele). Examples of this latter
change are the IE ace. sg. * dh?ghwom 'day', eventually Gmc. * daga and
the IE gen. pi. * dhoghw?m, Gmc. * dag?. Another of these changes is
that of the Indo-European syllabic r?sonants [1, m, n, r] to Germanic
[ul, urn, un, ur] (which I shall label syl res). And another change
often referred to in the literature but rarely explicitly formulated is
the deletion of the coronal and nonstrident consonants [d, d, t, 6]
word-finally after a Germanic unstressed syllable. Examples of this
change (hereafter cor c dele) are the IE 3 sg. pst. sub. * bh?r?t 'carry',
Gmc. * b?r?, or the IE 3 pi. sub. * hh?r?nt, Gmc. * b?r?n. This latter form
shows that nas dele cannot precede cor c dele but must either follow
or be contemporaneous with it. Another of these changes is that of
[gw] (from IE [kw] by verner or from [ghw] by the ist ss) to [w] in some
environments and to [g] and [gw] in others. The precise conditioning
of the change need not concern us here;3 I shall refer to it as gw-to
w. Finally, I shall assume a rule of nasal assimilation (nas assim) for
both Indo-European and Germanic, whereby a nasal consonant was
assimilated to the place of articulation of a following obstruent conso
nant within a morpheme, i.e., if not immediately followed by a mor
pheme boundary. Instances of this rule are the occurrence of forms
like IE *bhendh- 'tie' and Gmc. * bind- 'tie', forms like *bhemdh- or
* bimd- being impossible.

Given the above assumptions on reconstructing and the changes

from Indo-European to Germanic?and keeping in mind the numer
als as they are attested in the Germanic and in the other Indo

with subsequent reduction of the consonant cluster to *fimt-. But this is not necessarily
the correct account since the consonant cluster could also and just as easily have been
simplified from the cardinal *fimftehan '15', later fimt?n.
3 Varying versions are found in Joseph Voyles, "Simplicity, Ordered Rules, and the
First Sound Shift," Language, 43 (1967), 636-60; and in Elmar Seebold, "Die Ver
tretung idg. gvh im Germanischen," Zeitschrift f?r vergleichende Sprachforschung, 81
(1967), 104-33.

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 The Cardinal Numerals in Pre- and Proto-Germanic 489

European languages?I posit the following as the most likely forms of

the pre-Germanic cardinals. I cite alongside my reconstructed forms
the corresponding ones of Gothic, the earliest extensively attested
Germanic language. In some instances where Gothic may not reflect
some particular aspect of the earlier stage, I shall cite forms from one
of the other early Germanic languages:
V * ?inos with sg. adj. endings, Go. ains.
'2' * dw?i with pi. adj. endings, Go. twai.
'3 * tr?jes with pi. i-class noun endings, Go. preis; possibly also with
pi. adj. endings as in the OE mase. nom. pi. prie.
'4' *pekw?r and * petw?r, probably in free variation, and the ablaut
ing * pet?r-, which last allomorph seems to have occurred only in com
pounds. The latter two occur by the ist ss and verner as Go. fidwor
and in the Go. compound adj. fidur-dogs '4-day'. (Another reflex of
* pet?r- is probably the Old Icelandic inflected numeral fj?rir '4', which
took on pi. adj. endings.) The other Germanic languages show re
flexes of*pekw?r, which by the ist ss and verner would appear at first
as *fegw?r and then later by gw-to-w and str shift as *f?w?r, even
tually as OE f?ower, OF fiower and for, OS fiuwar and later for, and
OHG feor.
'5' * p?mpe, Go. fimf
'6' * s?ks, Go. saihs.
'7' * sepnt, Go. sihun. The historical derivation is as follows: * sepnt
(ist ss, verner, syl res) ?-? * seb?nd (str shift) ?? *s?bund (cor c
dele) ?? * s??un (eventually) ?> Go. sihun.
'8' * okt?u, Go. ahtau.
'9' * newnt, Go. niun.
'10' * d?knt, from which Go. taihun; and possibly in free variation
*d?kont, from which OS tehan (not **tehuri) and OHG zehan (not
**zehuri)?where the double asterisk does not mean a reconstructed
form, but an incorrect or nonoccurring one. The derivation of the
suffix -un is like that on '7': * d?knt (ist ss, verner, syl res) ?? * t?hund
(cor c dele) ?? * t?hun. The suffix *-ont, which we assume was taken
from '11', may not have occurred on '10' until Germanic times.4
'11' * oin '1' + the verb * lip- 'remain'.5 The verb could optionally
take its pr?s. part, ending * -ont, or the *-nt from '10', or no ending at
all. Hence three forms for '11' are attested: OE endlefan from the ante

4 Another possibility suggested by Oswald Szemer?nyi, Studies in the Indo-European

System of Numbers (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, i960), p. 101, is that *-ont came from the
suffix in what he posits as '30' * trlkonta, '40' * kwetwfkonta, etc.
5 Listed under * leip- in Julius Pokorny, Indogermanisches Etymologisches W?rterbuch
(Berne and Munich: Franke, 1959). The ablaut form of the verb which I posit here is an
"aorist-present."

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 49? Voyles
c?dent with * -ont, O? ellifu from that with * -nt, and OHG einlif from
* oin + lip with no ending. The stress configuration was, in view of the
OHG form, probably * ?in + lip, i.e., the typical compound pattern
with primary stress on the first constituent and secondary on the sec
ond. This is then why verner did not apply to produce OHG * * einlib.
'12' * dw? '2' + * lip, Go. twalif.6
'13' through '19', the respective numeral + *d?knt or *d?kont 'io',
Go. pritaihun '13', OHG dr?zehan '13'.
'20' through '60', the respective numeral followed by the mase,
noun * dek-'io' (either an i-class or a u-class noun, it is not clear which;
perhaps the class membership was in free variation between the two).
E.g., late pre-Gmc. IE * dwoi * dekewes '2 10s, i.e., 20', early Gmc. * twai
* tegewez, Go. twai tigjus (the noun here in the u-class), OE tw?ntig,
OHG zweinzig or zweinzog.7 A similar formation is OI prir tigir '30' (the
noun here in the i-class). Szemer?nyi notes that these particular for
mations do not appear to correspond to the original Indo-European
system.8 This would mean that this construction was later, pre
Germanic Indo-European or perhaps not formed until early Ger
manic times.
'70' through '90', this construction is formed from a numeral nomi
nalized into an i-class noun with the frequently occurring IE suffix
*-t. This i-class noun was in the gen. pi. and was followed by the neut.
sg. noun *kntom. The latter noun means 'a basic 10-ness', i.e., 'a
10-ness of 10s = 100' in a decimal system or 'a 10-ness of 12s = 120' in
a duodecimal system?of which more directly. An instance of this
construction would be '70', * sepnt -f * t + gen. pi. *-ora.9 Some attested
reflexes are Go. sibuntehund and, with some modifications which we
shall consider later, OE hundsiofontig, OS antsibunta, and OHG sibunzo.
The 7o-through"90 construction, like that of 20-through-6o noted
above, does not appear to correspond to the original Indo-European
6The Go. dat. pi. twalibim, which has undergone verner, instead of **twalifim
probably indicates that the stress had shifted to the initial syllable in East Germanic
earlier than elsewhere in Germanic. This suggestion has been previously made by
scholars such as Hermann Hirt and Eduard Prokosch.
7 The OHG suffix -zog was formed by contamination from -zig with -zo, the latter
from forms like OHG sibunzo '70' discussed below.
8Szemer?nyi, Studies in the Indo-European System of Numbers, p. 27.
9The gen. pi. of Gothic nouns of this class is -e [-?] from a putative *-?m instead of
the expected -0 [-0] which occurs in the other Germanic languages, hence Go. dage 'of
days' versus OS dago 'of days'. The provenience of the Gothic ending has long consti
tuted a problem in historical Germanic linguistics, which, however, is only peripheral to
our concerns here. We shall assume that the Indo-European ending was *-?m, that of
Germanic *-?, and that Go. -e represents an innovation. See on this question Asbury
Wesley Jones, "Gothic Final Syllables" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill, 1979), pp. 64?73.

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 The Cardinal Numerals in Pre- and Proto-Germanic 491

system. Hence it was either late pre-Germanic Indo-European or per

haps not even formed until Germanic times.10
'ioo' *kntom, a neut. o-class noun meaning 'a basic 10-ness', which
would mean 'a 10-ness of 10s or 100' in a decimal system or 'a 10-ness
of 12s or 120' in a duodecimal one. Both types of systems seem to have
existed in the early Germanic, indications of which being OS hund 'a
10-ness of 10s = 100' in a decimal system and OI hundrap 'a 10-ness of
12s = 120' in a duodecimal one. A further indication of the potential
ambiguity of *hund between '100' and '120' is attested in the Gothic
Bible in the construction fimf hundam taihuntewjam bropre (I Cor.
15:6), i.e., '5 hundreds, ten-based, of brothers' = '500 brothers'. Here
the compound adj. taihun + tewjam modifying hundam (both in the
dat. pi.) means '10-ordered' or '10-based' and is added to disambigu
ate between that and 12-based hundam, which would presumably have
been described in Gothic with the adj. * twaliftewjam.
'200' through '900', the respective numeral followed by * kntom in
the neut. pi., i.e., * knt?; Go. twa hunda '200'. Of course in a 12-base
system as in Old Icelandic, tvau hundrup means '240'.
'?ooo', *t?s + *knt + j?-class noun endings, Go. pusundi.

The reconstructions given above differ in a least four major re

spects from those usually found in the literature.11 Here I shall argue
that these differences constitute more reasonable hypotheses than
those proposed up to now.
The first of these differences concerns the numerals '4' and '5'.
They are usually reconstructed as something like *kwetw?r and
*penkwe.12 These forms may well have occurred as such in earlier
10 In view of the familiar Indo-European morphophonemic rule whereby the se
quence lal was realized as [ss] as in the past part. *wit+t+os 'known' ?> *wissos, even
tually ModHG (ge)wiss 'certain', a sequence like * sepnt+t+?m would probably have been
realized in late Indo-European times as *sepnss?m, eventually Gmc. * sebuns? instead of
* sebunt?. The exclusive occurrence of forms obviously derived from the latter possibil
ity may well indicate that the 7o-through~90 construction was formed in early Germanic
times and as such after the cor c dele change, i.e., as Gmc. *sebun+1+ ?.
11 Most of these are summarized in Chapter 2 of Szemer?nyi, Studies in the Indo
European System of Numbers. Two more recent studies, which in my opinion have added
little to the discussion, are Gernot Schmidt, "Zum Problem der germanischen Dekaden
bildung," Zeitschrift f?r vergleichende Sprachforschung, 84 (1970), 98?136; and Rosemarie
L?hr, "Die Dekaden '70-120' im Germanischen," M?nchner Studien zur Sprachwissen
schaft, 36 (1979), 59~73- Schmidt (p. 119) posits a Gmc. *-t?-hun?a from an IE *-kmte
followed by a mysterious *-de- which was purportedly "eingef?hrt im Zuge einer Ver
deutlichung des Dekadensystems," while L?hr (p. 64) maintains ". . . so l??t sich
got. -te- . . . m?helos auf den Instrumental der Erstreckung uridg. *deh{ (lat. de 'von
weg . . .') zur?ckf?hren. . . ." Since neither of these theories seems to have found much
resonance, I shall below confine my attention to Szemer?nyi's views.
12 As in Szemer?nyi, Studies in the Indo-European System of Numbers, p. 92.

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492 Voy les
Indo-European. But the reconstructive axioms enumerated above
have led me to posit as the immediately pre-Germanic forms the free
variants *pekw?r and * petw?r '4' and *p?mpe '5'. These latter three
forms probably arose from the former in accordance with the first
assumption above of the possibility of paradigmatic pressure among
numerals in a series. Thus the word-initial *p of * p?nkwe was transmit
ted to * kwetw?r to give * petw?r. The word-internal * kw of * p?nkwe was
taken on optionally by * petw?r to give *pekw?r alongside earlier and
still extant * petw?r. And still later the * kw in * p?nkwe was replaced by
its word-initial *p to give * p?mpe, whence eventually Gmc. *femf.15
The second difference concerns the forms for '7' and '9', which are
usually reconstructed as IE * septm and *newm.14 Given such well
established changes from Indo-European into Germanic as the ist ss,
SYL res, and nas dele referred to earlier, these two forms would have
to have become Gmc. * * seftu and * * newu and Go. * * sift and * * niwu
instead of sibun and niun. Szemer?nyi, in addition to others, recognizes
the problem in the case of'7', though not of '9'.15 He reconstructs the
former as derived from the Indo-European ordinal * septmtos '7th'.
According to this theory, * septmtos first became * sepmtos by a dissimila
tory loss of the first * t in the sequence, which latter form then devel
oped regularly into Gmc. *sebundaz by the ist ss and verner. Finally,
this Germanic ordinal * sebun+daz constituted the analogical basis for
the reformation of the new cardinal number * sebun.
There are at least two reasons why this account is suspect. First, a
dissimilatory loss of the first of two Indo-European * ?'s in a sequence
is otherwise unattested as a development into Germanic. Hence a
Gothic form like gamaindups 'community' is attested, the suffix being
from an IE *-tut with two consecutive * ?'s. Second, in accordance with
the second axiom on reconstructing given above, cardinal numerals
seem invariably in the history of the Germanic languages to have in
fluenced the form of the ordinals and not the other way around.
Hence I reject this account and posit the late Indo-European proto
forms as * sepnt and * newrit. As in the case of '4' and '5' discussed
above, these may well have developed by paradigmatic pressure from
the earlier forms * septm and * newm. That is, the *-nt on * d?knt '10'
was also affixed to * newm to give * newnt; and these forms then pres
sured a change from * septm to * sepnt. These forms then developed
15 Another possibility of accounting for the Germanic form for '5' would be to posit
as its immediate antecedent in fact *p?nkwe, which by the ist ss became *f?mxwe and
ended up as Gmc. *f?mfe by some sort of phonological change by which *xw became */
in this?and perhaps other?environments.
14 As in Szemer?nyi, Studies in the Indo-European System of Numbers, p. 92.
15Szemer?nyi's discussion is in Studies in the Indo-European System of Numbers, p. 35.
See also Eric Hamp, "The Anomaly of Gmc. '7'," Word, 8 (1952), 136-40.

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 The Cardinal Numerals in Pre- and Proto-Germanic 493

regularly into Gmc. *sebun and * newun by the ist ss, verner, str
shift, syl res, and finally cor c dele and nas dele?the latter two
changes in the order given.
The third difference of my reconstructions from the traditional
ones constitutes only a minor innovation in that I pattern the '10' after
some suggestions of Szemer?nyi: "The fact that '10' appears, in some
areas at any rate, to derive from * dekm is easily explained on the as
sumption that * dekm is the preconsonantal sandhi-variant of * dekmt
[the original form]. . . ,"16 I modify Szemer?nyi's reconstruction to
* d?knt with * n instead of * m by dint of the IE nas assim rule noted ear
lier. This form then developed to Gmc. * tehun regularly and by much
the same route as '7' and '9' described in the preceding paragraph.
The fourth difference is the reconstruction of the formations for
'70' through '90' as they occurred in early Germanic and perhaps in
pre-Germanic as well. I have reconstructed them as consisting of an
abstract noun formed with the suffix *-t and in the gen. pi. This noun
was followed in turn by a noun meaning 'a basic 10-ness', e.g., Gmc.
* sebunt? * hunda = 'of 7s a 10-ness' = 'a 10-ness of 7s' = '70'. This
diverges totally from Szemer?nyi's account, whereby forms like IE
*penkw?kont- '50' and * okt?kont- '80' developed into Gmc. * femf?xanp
and *axt?xanp-.17 Then, according to Szemer?nyi, "The divergence
between E Gmc. [as in Go. sihuntehund '70'] and W Gmc. [as in OHG
sihunzo '70'] is merely due to the fact that the inherited system, with
-?- in '50' but -?- in '80', and no other juncture vowel between '40' and
'90', gave two possible ways of realization: either the extension of -?
(Gothic) or that of -0- (W Gmc.)"18?which difference, it should be
noted, is only coincidentally paralleled by the vowels of the gen. pi.:
Go. dage 'of days' versus OHG tago 'of days'. This striking coincidence
alone renders Szemer?nyi's account suspicious.
Szemer?nyi himself realizes first, that there are severe problems
with his theory and second, that the most likely competitor is one like
mine wherein the first constituent of the construction is a gen. pi.
noun. Accordingly, Szemer?nyi defends his own account while at the
same time attempting to discredit any possible "gen. pi." theory.
It should at this point be noted that a version of a gen. pi. theory
different from mine has already been proposed by Brugmann.19 His
theory differs from mine, however, in that he posits as the Indo
16 Szemer?nyi, Studies in the Indo-European System of Numbers, p. 68.
17 As outlined in Szemer?nyi, Studies in the Indo-European System of Numbers, esp.
PP- 33-44
18 Szemer?nyi, Studies in the Indo-European System of Numbers, p. 36.
19 Karl Brugmann, "Die Bildung der zehner und der hunderter in den indo
germanischen sprachen," Morphologische Untersuchungen, 5 (1890), 1?61 (Nachtrag
138-44), Leipzig.

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 494 Voyles
European antecedent of the Germanic suffix *-t a *-d as in Gk. dekad
'decade', which has been justifiably rejected since the *-d in this func
tion does not seem to occur anywhere in Indo-European outside of
Greek. But a *-d would have occurred as Gmc. *-t by the ist ss. Under
my theory, the Germanic nominalizer *-? was inherited unchanged
from the frequently attested IE *-?. The suffix came unchanged into
Germanic probably because of its occurrence in environments such as
Gmc. *geft- 'gift' (from IE *ghebh + t) or * anst- 'favor' (from IE
*ons+t), where it would not have been affected by the ist ss. This
suffix is otherwise frequently attested in Germanic in its unshifted
form as an i-class nominalizer (e.g., Go. andanum-\-1+s 'act of taking
up') and in other Indo-European languages as well, such as Gk. krisis
'crisis, decision' from earlier *kri+t+is. The suffix was also used in
other Indo-European languages to form i-class nouns derived from
numerals such as Skt. naviti 'a 9-ness'. And it is clearly productive in
Old Icelandic to form numerical nouns like tylft '12-ness, a dozen' or
fimmt 'a 5-ness'.20
One argument Szemer?nyi adduces against the gen. pi. theory is
that the word-final -a in a form like OS sibunta '70', under my theory
from earlier * sibunto and still earlier * sibunto (*hund), could not be
the remnant of a gen. pi. ending because that would be -0 in Old
Saxon as in dago 'of days'.21 Szemer?nyi's view is wrong here, since
word-final and unstressed OS loi could, particularly if the immedi
ately preceding syllable was unstressed as in a form like * sibunto,
often be realized as [a].22
A particularly troublesome phenomenon for Szemer?nyi's theory is
the occurrence of forms like OS antsibunta '70' and OE hundseofontig
'70' in which the first syllables ant- and hund- are clearly reflexes of
*hund, which in these words has been preposed. This preposing of
* hund needs explaining. Szemer?nyi tries to account for it as an at
tempt by speakers to disambiguate '70'?* sefonta * hund according to
him?from '70 hundreds', i.e., '7000'.23 This is improbable, first be
cause the two numbers are far enough apart so that no ambiguity was
ever likely to arise, and second, because any such attempt to resolve

20 Szemer?nyi (Studies in the Indo-European System of Numbers, p. 106) in an attempt to

argue against the productivity of this suffix as a numerical nominalizer in Germanic
notes that Old Icelandic fimmt ". . . does not mean 'a group of five' but only 'summons
(with a notice of five days)'. . . ." This of course only shows that these numerical nouns
formed with the / suffix could, like any other nouns, be used metaphorically and not
that the formation was nonproductive.
21 Szemer?nyi, Studies in the Indo-European System of Numbers, p. 31.
22 See on this Joseph Voyles, "The Phonology of Old Saxon," Parts 1 and 2, Glossa, 4
(1970), 123-60, and 5 (1971), 3-31.
23 Szemer?nyi, Studies the in Indo-European System of Numbers, p. 38.

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 The Cardinal Numerals in Pre- and Proto-Germanic 495

the ambiguity by preposing * hund to form *hund *sefonta would have

brought it close to ambiguity with '170'. A more likely resolution of
such a purported ambiguity would have been the total deletion and
not the preposing of *hund.
Yet such preposing is easily accounted for under a gen. pi. theory. A
genitive construction like *sebunto~ * hunda '70' could easily occur, as
do other genitive constructions, with its genitive constituent post
posed as * hunda * sebunt?, whence the later Old Saxon and Old En
glish forms.
Finally, under any gen. pi. theory a question of semantics arises as
to how Gmc. *hund could come to mean 'a basic 10-ness', i.e., in a
decimal system 'a 10-ness of 10s or 100' as opposed to simply '100'. On
this, two observations. First, this same type of semantic connection
between '10' and '100' is mentioned by Szemer?nyi as a reasonable and
a generally accepted hypothesis for earlier Indo-European: ". . . '100'
was not only conceived, but also expressed as 'ten tens' or 'a decad of
decads'. The primitive form was thus * dekmt dekmt?m [the latter con
stituent a gen. pi.] or * (d)kmtmt?m. . . ."24 Second, if one keeps in
mind the phonological changes from Indo-European to Germanic
registered above, then there must have been a stage within early Ger
manic after the ist ss and before the cor c dele change when the
morphemes for '10' and for '100' were close to homophonous: IE
* d?knt '10' and * knt- '100' ?? early Gmc. * t?hund and * h?nd-. Hence
even if the earlier semantic connection between '10' and '100' should
have become obscured, it could in view of this homophony easily have
been reinstated in Germanic times.
In conclusion, the pre-Germanic ordinals listed above and recon
structed on the basis of the axioms listed at the outset seem to evince a
number of advantages over those produced by earlier suggestions,
and few if any of their weaknesses. Pending the discovery of new data
or new principles of reconstruction, the system of cardinal numerals
posited here constitutes the most likely reconstruction for late, pre
Germanic Indo-European and early Proto-Germanic as well.
24 Szemer?nyi, Studies in the Indo-European System of Numbers, pp. 139?40.

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