Mate:
>I admit, this kind of system with the unmarked velar being rarer than the
>marked one is "strange" but it is not impossible.
This is a manner of thinking that I find unbearably frustrating to deal
with.
It makes my Vulcan brow twitch upwards and my Klingon blood boil :P
Over and over again, we confuse probability with possibility. It's strange
but not impossible to be struck by lightning, so everybody go inside and
hide your children! It'll strike one day... Hunh? C'mon, people! The point
is that I can admit, you can admit, and everybody can admit that the
palatal idea, violating markedness, is thus _UNLIKELY_. We shouldn't care
whether it is "possible" because we are only concerned with the _optimal_
theory. That's how the evolution of any theory works. Otherwise no
theory would improve. In programming, we call it the "genetic algorithm"
that does the same thing by arriving at a solution through increasingly
accurate appoximation. That's what theory is. We're doing the genetic
algorithm right now together on this forum.
So why side with an unlikely theory when there is a theory already
provided for that is MORE likely and that can't be argued against? It's
mad to continue the palatal theory if it is a weaker theory than the
new conclusions reached by markedness.
And yes, you are quite right -- Nothing in the world is "impossible". But
what's your point? If somebody says they see extraterrestrials at night,
are you going to say "Well, what he says is strange, but, oh heck, it's not
impossible. Let's hide the children, John! The aliens are out there, ready
to abduct us at any moment!"? Unless you're ready for the looniebin
yourself, chances are you gonna say "That guy's off his rocker". Why?
Because there is a difference between what is possible and what is
_probable_. I suppose you could say for arguement's sake that it's
"possible" to be abducted by aliens, if you are so inclined... but I pray
that you can grasp how unlikely that is... right? Mate? Are you there??
Omg! Mate's been abducted by aliens! >:P
The uvular theory as far as I've seen so far is more probable than the
typologically weak palatal theory. If I'm wrong, somebody say something.
If not, let's can the palatal bs once and for all. This has nothing to do
with me being categorical. Logic is logic and the palatal theory is
weaker according to markedness.
I defy somebody to oppose me. Please?
>We have all kinds of strange things in PIE
Yes, I know. But since it is merely a theory in the end and unattested,
many of the strange things are probably due to human error. I don't
care about what could be. Just what is most likely. If we followed your
logic, we'd have reconstructed click sounds into IE too, just because
they exist in other languages, albeit rarely. The point is that click sounds
ARE rare and we don't need them in IE to explain anything that can't
be explained with more common phonemes. It's the economy of theory
idea (aka Occam's Razor). We don't theorize anything more than we
have to...
Ergo, we don't theorize palatals if they violate strong linguistic
tendencies like markedness. Unless you don't like Occam's Razor?
>Albanian has preserved three series (and one Anatolian language as
>well supposedly?) which have to be reconstructed from *k, *kw and *k'.
>The easiest solution then is to project this to PIE.
No, only satem dialects show palatalization. Anatolian languages like
Hittite,
being centum, don't show palatalization in IE, nor do any of the other
branches that are not satem.
So if it can only be attributed to satem, and not to IE as a whole, then
is it logical to reconstruct palatal velars in IE itself? No. It is
especially illogical
if the resultant system completely violates markedness. By reconstructing
uvulars for the "plain" velars, we alleviate the anti-markedness in IE and
restrict it to a brief post-IE period in satem development. We then arrive
at a logical system which shows a typologically sound phonemic system
which has a brief unstable period when it violates markedness, only to be
quickly resolved in the various satem dialects, albeit with different
solutions
in Albanian and Armenian. Yadayada.
This all makes sense and is most optimal to explain IE and post-IE.
So why resist it, Mate? What reasons are there to not side with this idea
aside from desperate pleas to the effect of "But it's not impossible"?
That's
not a logical arguement and if you've been following Jens has used that
catchphrase many times on this list to no avail. There must be something
better that one can come up with to support the dying palatal camp :)
Further, on a Nostratic point of view, the lack of palatals is
unproblematical
but rather opens the doors for better correlations with language groups
like Uralic or Tyrrhenian.
= gLeN
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