Re: [tied] Demonstratives

Glen:

> I see this all the time with theories. That's the trouble > with them... It's rare when a theory can be proven > conclusively beyond a shadow of a doubt to be false. Why, > look at the Out-Of-India hypothesis that still clings for > dear life and, yes, it's probably true here too in the > end that there's nothing to really show that it "must > be necessarily wrong" no matter how absurd the theory > often becomes. What you're asking for, absolute proof, > is not possible. > Note that word "absurd"? That's why, in the end, despite > all the reasons you think something should have existed, > it has to be tested against Occam's Razor as I point at > a nauseating amount of times already. Is it the simplest, > most efficient solution or is there something less > involved that can explain this and other things a > heckuvalot better? > If you keep waiting for something to be proven absolutely > false, you'll be clinging to weak theories till your heart > finally gives in from old age and it won't get you very > far. It's like being stuck on a crossword puzzle for > hours because you refused to think of the questions that > stump you in a simpler way.

Well, I'm completely agree with you in what you say about methodology. But is your solution really the most efficient? As a matter of fact, I see that there exists at least one point where Miguel's one works better. In Greek the feminine ending commonly is *-a: (long), and the neutral ending is *-a (short). I can easily explain it inside Miguel's hypothesis as *-a: < *-eyh2, and *-a < *-eh2. But if the both are derived from the same original *-eh2, how can we explain this difference?

>>> The interrogative pronouns would suggest that IE *kW >>> corresponds to Altaic *k. Therefore if IE *wlkWo- >>> were to exist in Altaic, one would expect *k in it. >> >> Only if IE *-kWo- is not a suffix here. > > If you wish, although I think a de-adjectival noun makes > more sense. >> Why necessarily adjective? And why necessarily descriptive? > This is what we see elsewhere with florofauna. For example, > we have *gWohWus "cow" (*gWo:us) (*gWehW- "to graze"), > *peku "herd" (*pek- "to comb (wool)"), *bHibHru- "beaver" > and Germanic *bero: (*bHer- "brown"), *su:xs "swine" (*seux- > "to suckle"), *bHerxgos "birch" (*bHerxg- "be white, bright", > "otter" from *udro-/*wedro- "wet", etc. I could swear there > was even an old post on this somewhere in the archives, listing > such words, possibly 6 months to a year old now.

I don't believe that PIE had almost no names of animals and plants that would not be derived from adjectives or verbs. It is just impossible, I think! Perhaps in a number of such cases we really have nothing but accidental similarities, and the rest had developed for a very long time: such descriptive names could sometimes replace the original names that were not descriptive not only in PIE, but yet in Proto-Nostratic and even before that as well, and I don't think that we can establish when such a development had place (if really had).

>> In Uralic *wete "water". So there's no reason to propose the >> primary meaning "to moisten" in IE. It is true that IE *w >> <=> Ural. *w. > Actually there is. The stem *wed- is used to form other words > like *wedro- "wet". It seems easier to call *wed- a verb, > rather than a noun. Afterall, we never see a noun **we:ds so > why would *wedro- be anything other than a verbal derivative > like *sedto- "seated" is from *sed- "to sit"? It's hard to > see a noun in Celtic *udskio- "water". Looks like a verbal > derivative to me. In fact, since the vowel changes from *e > to *o in these various formations based on *wed- like so > many other verbs, I can't conceive of it as a noun without > *-r or some other nominalizing suffix at the end of it.

In *bhardha:-to- "bearded" the suffix is the same as in *sed-to-. Will you say that *bhardha: was a verb? > Another thing I've noticed is that an old layer of IE (the > layer known as "Old IE" in my books) often attaches *-an > (> *-r/*-n-) to stems, sometimes for no real reason. Oddly, we > see this same prolific-but-pointless extensions in Mandarin > (eg: *dian "a bit", sometimes *dian-r) and there are the > l-diminutives attached onto Latin words where there weren't > any in Common IE (eg: oculus "eye" < IE *hWo:kWs, stella < > *xste:r "star").

In both Chinese and Latin original words that have no suffixes are replaced by deminutives that are more expressive (but further loose their expressiveness). It is a common tendency in many languages... As I understand, just this was a reason for attaching suffixes for many IE (and not only IE) words without any visible shifts in meaning.

>> Where do you find Alt. *b <=> IE *m? > IE 1ps *me and Altaic *bi (I've seen *ben reconstructed as > it's found in Turkish, but whatever.) We can't relate a 1ps > stem with a 1pp stem in IE without having to explain why > there was such a switch. Since we don't need to when a > solution *m <=> *b suffices, this latter idea becomes the > optimal theory.

We need not relate Altaic 1ps with IE 1pp because IE 1ps exists as well. :-) Cf. Luvian verbal 1ps. -wi, Lydian -v. At last, Hittite uk, ukka "I" (hardly compatible with *ego: ~ *e/o:ghom) can be explained from *we-ko with the stress on the second syllable. >> but Alt. *b <=> IE *w exists as well. Note that Altaic has >> no *w at all. What is then the correspondence for IE/Uralic >> *w? I think that surely *b-. > I think it can just as easily be *w <=> Altaic ZERO.

No examples.

> All you seem

> to have is Alt *bol- <=> Uralic *wole- "be"

although

> I'm not sure what the basis for the *w- in Uralic is,

other

> than to make it look more Altaic-ish than it really

is.

Initial *w of Proto-Finno-Ugric *wole no doubt existed, as it is seen from Hungarian vol-, Komi vo"l-, Udmurt val, Khanty woL-.

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Vadim Ponaryadov