[tied] Re: Caland [was -m (-n)?]

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Glen Gordon" <glengordon01@...>
wrote:

>
> Jens:
> >I wonder if you have any basis for the last sentence, "It seems

more

> >like something analogical in this case." Could you explain how the
> >Caland alternations could possibly be analogical, and state the
> >reasons you have for believing that such a possibility is true?
>
> Language abounds with analogical changes. So having a particular
> obsession for sound changes over analogical ones cannot account
> for the real-world situation. It may be more "testable", as you

say,

> but the picture can only end up being distorted.

You are distorting what you have chosen to talk about. Language does
not abound with analogical changes that lend themselves to algebraic
analysis in terms of purely phonetic laws. Therefore, when you do
find that, the preferred solution would indeed be that the actual
change was one of phonetic regularity. I am not saying that such
phonetically regular change is more frequent than analogical change,
that is just a cheap insinuation made by people who should know
better.

>
> I believe that Miguel already mentioned his "Scenario #3". I quote:
> "At the time of the breakup of PIE, *-u and *-ro shared something
> _semantical_, which was not shared by any other adjectival

suffixes."

> The "analogy" I mention involves the interchangeable nature of
> these suffixes, of course.

That takes us back to a stage before the problem was formulated: Why
are the suffixes -u- and -ro- in almost completely complementary
distribution?

> At any rate, you have not yet established reasonable logical

grounds

> for a phonetic change.

What does that sentence mean? How can grounds for phonological
change be logical? The assumption of phonological regularity is the
default assumption, although I have never heard or seen anybody say
that flat out. Phonological regularity has all odds against it, so
when it is possible to suggest it, it seems wise to do so, and it is
generally done without reservation. I do it with explicit
reservations which are subsequently being used against me. Keep me
out of it, I am not interesting, the facts are - and they should be
given equal right to a proper analysis along the same lines as are
followed by when dealing with other problems.

Jens