Re: [tied] *kW- "?"

Patrick Ryan wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Grzegorz Jagodziński" <grzegorj2000@...>
> To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Friday, September 23, 2005 3:50 PM
> Subject: Re: [tied] *kW- "?"
>
>
>
> <snip>
>
>> Quandrangular systems are much less popular than triangular, so the
>> typological problems remain. And especially, t - th - d - dh _is_
>> rare (is there another one, apart from Indic?). And the system t. -
>> th - t: - d is also little spread (some Caucassian lgs; t. =
>> abruptive = ejective).
>
> ***
> Patrick:
>
> So now PIE reconstruction should be the result of a popularity
> contest. Where do we vote?

But it is you who sees typological problems with t - d - dh. So, you are
voting and searching for popular reconstructions, not I.

> Patrick:
>
> I have explained this so many times, I despair. No one has, IMHO,
> succeeded in formulating an acceptable reconstruction for AA.

And what inacceptable have you found among those 2788 reconstructions in
EHL?

> Unfortunately, it is necessary to make direct comparisons with PIE
> and Egyptian and Arabic.

And why Arabic and not Proto-Semitic? Do you think that PS reconstructions
accessible on EHL and based or some tens of languages are worse than yours
Arabic comparisons?

But enough about Semitic, it is not the right place to discuss about it. But
it is the right place to point out that IE-Arabic or IE-Egyptian
reconstructions just cannot be correct. many IE-Semitic similarities are the
result of mutual influence in the past and not of genetic relations. If you
are curious of a little sample of it, look at my private page
http://www.aries.com.pl/grzegorzj/lingwen/iesem1.html
So, in order to find IE-AA links we must first reconstruct AA itself. All
IE-Arabic comparisons are worth nothing without it.

>
> ***
>
>> As for me, the abundant lexical material on EHL
>> (http://ehl.santafe.edu/), collected from many languages and with
>> observing the genetic tree of languages, is much more convincing
>> than your trial, a little chaotic. Btw. according to the EHL
>> material, Egyptian and other AA languages are much farther from IE
>> than it was thought in Illich-Svitych's times and Afro-Asiatic seems
>> to be a sister rather than daughter group towards to Nostratic.
>
> ***
> Patrick:
>
> Regardless of the degree of separation, they are still comparable. Or
> do you deny that?

AA and IE - yes, they are (but Arabic and English - hardly), but only when
you take closer Nostratic families into consideration in order to avoid
errors and finding genetic relations where we have borrowings. And of
course, there is more IE-Altaic correspondences (for example) than IE-AA.
Haven't you found them yet?

> ***
> Patrick:
>
> I do not see a close relationship between Uralic and PIE

How many Uralic examples have you analyzed? From how many Uralic languages?

> - rather the
> adoption of some PIE features by Uralic speakers. With PIE and AA, I
> see common descent.

How many lexical units have you analysed? More than in EHL project? And how
many languages? More than they have analysed?

> Whom do you know who reconstructs PAA with *t., *t, and *d?

And have you looked at EHL or not? Just do it and you'll learn names.

> Ehret, for example, reconstructs *d, *dz, *dl, *t, *ts, *tl', and *t'.

Oh no, you should write: d, t and t' - so you have the answer. You simply
mix dental stops with dental affricates and even other sounds.

> In my reconstruction of PIE, *dh is the heir to pre-PIE *dz; and *th
> to pre-PIE *ts.

But there were not *th in PIE, it is commonly known. So you should first
prove that it was. Write your own IE etymological dictionary and prove the
existence of th, and especially that your examples are not just *tH = stop +
laryngeal. How many examples and from how many languages have you analyzed
to prove the existence of *th _different_ from *tH?

> So, according to me, the pre-PIE lineup was *d, *dz, *t, *ts.
>
> From what I can see from the vantage point of Egyptian and Arabic,
> PAA would do well with *d, *dz, *t, and *ts. The emphatics are, I
> believe, a mere allophonic variation of these four coronals before
> *[o].

Yes, I know your hypotheses but I do not think they are reliable, for some
reasons. Have you ever compared the state in Semitic with Kushitic and
Chadic where emphatics or glottalic are present as well? Have you ever
compared PIE with Kartvelian which has preserved the triangular system of
stops and affricates? Have you found three rows of stops in Altaic and in
Uralic?

The etymologic dictionary of Altaic languages
(http://ehl.santafe.edu/cgi-bin/response.cgi?root=config&morpho=0&basename=/data/alt/altet&first=1)
has 2804 entries and it is based on many languages. How many Altaic
languages have you analysed and how many words? And if your opinion is other
than the opinion of EHL, why should I believe you and not them?

And summing it up... what is your basis for reconstructing IE *th and why
should the basis be more reliable than e.g. the basis of EHL?

Grzegorz J.





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