Re: Various loose thoughts

From: willemvermeer
Message: 36302
Date: 2005-02-14

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Mate Kapovic" <mkapovic@...> wrote:

> If you
> take starting *gor'U and *zen'U (after Dybo's Law) you can easily
get *go~rU
> and *ze~nU by assuming again a simple analogy to long-vowel stems
like
> *gol~lvU or *tra~vU. The long neo-acute has just become a marker of
the gen.
> pl. of a. p. b and c, even if the root vowel is elsewhere short.



What any theory has to account for is the length alternation that is
a marker of the genitive plural: length in the Gpl vs. brevity in the
remainder of the paradigm. Genitive plurals like *gol~lvU or *tra~vU
cannot serve as the source of the analogy because they are just
rising tones in paradigms that have a falling tone in other forms.
They do not function in length alternations, hence cannot be
analogically imported in that function.


Kortlandt does not use terms like "the long neo-acute" in the sense
intended here (to the extent that he uses it it has a different
sense). One should try to understand a theory in its own terms before
criticizing it. That is the only way of avoiding a build-up of
unnecessary misunderstandings.


> ...
> Vrgada forms with the ~ in 3. sg. can be explained by a simple
analogy to 3.
> pl.


I'm sorry but I find that a pretty far-fetched analogy. What on earth
was it motivated by?


> Also, you adduce in your 1984 article examples from Jurkovo Selo
> (Zumberak): pli:je^s, pli:je^, but pli:je``mo, pli:je``te which has
the
> original length distribution according to you.


You are misquoting me. I was talking about length in endings and had
nothing to say about the length of stem vowels. About the latter
subject you write:


> if
> the length is original in 2. and 3. sg., we would not expect a long
root
> vowel (it would have to be shortened).


Who says so? Certainly not Kortlandt, who posits entirely different
mechanisms to account for vowel length in stems.


I can't help suspecting that (like Johnson) you are importing foreign
elements into Kortlandt's theory and criticizing the mix, which,
rather unsurprisingly, is then found to be inconsistent. That is a
very ineffectual way of conducting a debate. The same holds for the
continuation of you text about the length of the thematic vowel,
after which you conclude:


> All the cases of length on the thematic -e- can be easily
> explained separately.


I'm not prepared to be convinced without a detailed blow-by-blow
demonstration of every single case. Analogies in order to be
acceptable have to be proved to have suitable models and motivations.
And on that score you track record is patchy. Your analogy by which
the length of Gpl *górU is imported from cases like Gpl *trávU fails
to provide a model. Your analogy by which the length in the thematic
vowel of the Vrgada 3sg was imported from the 3pl ending lacks a
motivation. So I hope you'll forgive me for being sceptical about the
analogies by which you are prepared to account for the remainder of
the material. Have they been published somewhere?


[I'll come back to the problem of the so-called neoacute of *poN~tI
and similar cases because I have to look up the references.]


Finally you write:

> assuming the Croatian/Serbian nom.
> rúka must be analogical to the acc. sg. ru^ku totally unnecessary.


You really have to view this in the context of the theory as a whole.
Picking out single elements one doesn't like is just about the worst
way of criticizing a theory.


Sorry for the bad news,


Willem