After some discussion with +Ekin Gören , I thought of reconstruct a word for "berry", (or maybe rather "berries") *pigin, with CE root PIK, common with peg "dot, small spot" and pigen adj. "tiny". That there would be no distinction between singular and plural of "berry/berries" isn't so bad, since you seldom have one singular of them, and the homonymity with plural of "tiny" is in my opinion a beauty rather than a fault. But what do you people think?
+Remi Korben If we are going that route, we ought to Sindarize one of the attested Gnomish words for "berry": piog or pibin.
piog seems to be a cognate of piucca, probably from a primitive like *piuka, so in Sindarin pyg. The Sindarin form could still be related to the root PIK "tiny", but the Gnomish/Early Qenya form it derived from the early root PIWI instead of PIKI.
pibin seems to derived from the early root PINI, a variant of PIKI, with primitive form like *pipine, perhaps with reduplication of the initial syllable. Using the same pattern with the later root PIK "tiny", we would get primitive *pipike > S. pibig.
Yeah, that's my main problem with pyg. I can't think of a mechanism whereby the medial u would be introduced to produce the diphthong iu. If I were forced to choose, I'd probably go with pibig for that reason.
Alternately, maybe just use G. pibin unchanged, but derived from a reduplication on an inverted form PIN of the later root NIP "small" seen in S. niben.
So, maybe your re-construction of G pibin into S pibin is solid enough, and my *pigin not very needed any more? Someone asked me for this word, and I'm more into a good answer than the prestige of having recreated a word of my own.
Paul Strack Aug 02, 2015 (00:02)
Remy Corbin Aug 02, 2015 (16:37)
Paul Strack Aug 02, 2015 (19:32)
piog seems to be a cognate of piucca, probably from a primitive like *piuka, so in Sindarin pyg. The Sindarin form could still be related to the root PIK "tiny", but the Gnomish/Early Qenya form it derived from the early root PIWI instead of PIKI.
pibin seems to derived from the early root PINI, a variant of PIKI, with primitive form like *pipine, perhaps with reduplication of the initial syllable. Using the same pattern with the later root PIK "tiny", we would get primitive *pipike > S. pibig.
Hjalmar Holm Aug 02, 2015 (22:28)
Paul Strack Aug 02, 2015 (22:43)
Alternately, maybe just use G. pibin unchanged, but derived from a reduplication on an inverted form PIN of the later root NIP "small" seen in S. niben.
Hjalmar Holm Aug 06, 2015 (15:42)
Paul Strack Aug 06, 2015 (16:12)
I was imagining only re duplication in the first two letters: NIP > pin > pipin > pibin.
Hjalmar Holm Aug 06, 2015 (17:02)