Re: [tied] All them nasty rules

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 18228
Date: 2003-01-28

----- Original Message -----
From: "alex_lycos" <altamix@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2003 6:34 AM
Subject: Re: [tied] Re: Green


> Richard, I don't have any set of rules. I just see that there are words which derive more easy from the PIE roots and that there are words who needs many rules how you say. From the level of knowledge I have now I cannot show a set of rules since I never tried to make any.

Alex, if you don't like the idea of applying "many rules" in order to derive something, how can you speak of PIE roots in the first place? The PIE reconstruction has been arrived at by carefully examining the systematic correspondences between words in different IE languages, that is, by discovering sequences of rules that relate them to one another via a common protolanguage. Without working out all those rules of sound change you can't have reconstructible PIE! And once you accept the reconstruction, you've got to keep playing according the the rules (pun intended).

Piotr