[tied] Re: 'Dog' revisited

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "ehlsmith" <ehlsmith@...> wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...>

wrote:

> > Ehrm, probably yes. I think my language center is asleep, I still
> > have problems with understanding what you are saying. I seems
> you're
> > saying that if we assume the dog had no kwon tag, and instead we
> > ascribe all the the *k-n-, *k-r-, *k-l- and *k-t- roots arose
> > indepently by chance, then there's no problem anymore?
>
> Hi Torsten- Yes, that is one possibility, but there are several
> others too.
> (1) the roots may reflect a proto-world term for a wild canine,
> predating the domestication of dogs (not that I am really

advocating

> this solution)
> (2) the roots in PAA, PIE and PFU may reflect a common Nostratic
> root, or early borrowing; examples from other languages may be
> coincidence.

Why not the other way around? Why the tendency to dismiss things
outside the sphere of order that we constructed for ourselves as
noise?

> (3) most of the proposed roots from other language groups may

simply

> be cherry-picking or forced reconstructions by theorists who are
> trying to fit their proposals to the few well-established
> reconstructions.

What exactly _is_ cherry-picking, and why is it inadmissible? The way
I see it used is as a reproach that the other did not account for non-
cognates in similar language, or didn't account for other words in
the same language. I'd like to hear a definition. Until then, I'll
keep ignoring reproaches using that term. As to forced
reconstructions, most glosses used by mass-comparisoners are not
reconstructions.

> Now,
> > if crossing the river (and I assume that was done in boats, pace
> Glen
> > Gordon) is a significant social act for the Austronesian

speakers,

> > then as the land sank and rivers got wider, they would have had

to

> > learn the hard way how to do long-distance sailing.
>
>
> I see now- a conjectural etymology

As opposed to what kind of etymology?

>+ unproven sociological speculation +

As opposed to what kind of sociological speculation?

>the theoretical possibility of 100 mile canoe trips =
> evidence that Austronesian sailors traded dogs from Taiwan to

Europe

> c. 10,000-12,500 BCE

That would have been Sundaland then.

>(and came back to drop off pigs c. 8,000 years
> later) ;-)
>
> "Long" is a relative term. In relation to the distance from SE Asia
> to North Africa or Europe, the trip across the Strait of Formosa is
> not long-distance. (And has it even been established that there

were

> voyages between the mainland and Taiwan until the Neolithic? Could
> earlier occupations have resulted from crossings when sealevels
> allowed travel by foot?)

Look at your Atlas. Just about every sea in those parts is light
blue, less than 100 m deep.

But even when the Strait of Taiwan was supposedly dry land, there
would have been a large river in the middle.

> > >
> >
> > As to a Nostratic hypothesis, how would you then reconcile all

the

> > different forms in Afro-Asiatic? Besides, I don't think it's an
> > either-or.
> >
>
>
> How does your hypothesis account for them? And how accepted are

they

> by other researchers?

How accepted are Orël & Stolbova? Some disagree strongly with their
reconstructions. But I were to do the same, there would still be
their data, and I've seen it, and there _are_ -n-'s, -r-'s, and -l-'s
all over the place.

>As for the "either-or" I don't disagree (I'm
> sure that on occasion dogs were bartered, even if not
> transcontinentally) but the question is what does your hypothesis
> explain which cannot be explained by the Nostratic hypothesis?
>

British colononial administrator:
"Oh Spot, have you been following me all the way?"

For one thing, how an article that was invented outside the area of
Nostratic came to have a name in Nostratic similar to the names used
outside it.

Torsten