Re: [tied] Re: Short and long vowels

----- Original Message -----
From: "P&G" <G&P@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, July 27, 2005 2:52 AM
Subject: Re: [tied] Re: Short and long vowels


> >> If the two reconstructions are both possible, then neither is
> > convincing.
> >
> > Even PIE suffers from this. The consonants ... the Laryngeal
>
> A very different type of uncertainty. The correspondences between
> attested
> IE languages, which we signal by the symbol *h1 or *dH or whatever, are
> largely beyond dispute in PIE. The disagreements you mention are over the
> nature of the original phoneme. That is why PIE is convincing.
> What I see with nostratic is a lack of agreement about which words, or
> which
> attested phonemes, correspond. That is why it is not convincing.
>
> Peter

***
Patrick:

As between Bomhard and myself, the disagreements are "over the nature of the
original phoneme", a la what we have now and Glottalic Theory, etal.

Bomhard constructed a system by working up from the individual languages.

I constructed a full system theoreticaly based on Anttila, and worked down.

That should be why the Nostatic idea is "convincing".

There is virtually _*NO*_ disagreement about which words or which attested
phonemes correspond in which attested words, or which attested languages. I
will even take his word for Eskimo though I know absolutely nothing about
Eskimo languages.

That is why it is "convincing".