On Sat, 29 Nov 2003 09:41:30 +0000, Glen Gordon <
glengordon01@...>
wrote:
>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.
>
>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.
>
>At any rate, you have not yet established reasonable logical grounds
>for a phonetic change. As a result, the idea of these suffixes being
>etymologically seperate but interchangeable in function is the most
>optimum solution so far.
I think I see now why Jens was so pissed off by "functional theories".
What you're stating is merely an unsupported and unfalsifiable assertion.
For two reasons.
If Jens were to adopt solution #3, I would expect him to specify exactly
*what* the semantic connection between *-u and *-ro was [Newsflash: as it
happens, and as I suspected, he *has* opted for solution #3, with semantic
content "zero", but I'll leave my comments to that for another message].
Otherwise, I would have to ask him to provide such a semantic connection,
to make the theory testable at least in theory (semantics are harder to put
to the test than phonetics).
In your case, not only do you assert that such a semantic connection
existed, without stating what it was, but you also fail to supply a reason
_why_ *-u and *-ro had similar semantics in the first place (for Jens and
me, there is nothing to explain there, becuase we agree that *-u and *-ro
are etymologically connected).
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...