Re: Basque, Etruscan and Common Sound Changes (was: Finnish KASKA)

At 5:40:32 PM on Friday, February 29, 2008, Richard
Wordingham wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "fournet.arnaud"
> <fournet.arnaud@...> wrote:

[>>>> Brian Scott wrote:]

>>>>> "if the existence of that common ancestor *could* be
>>>>> demonstrated, it wouldn't matter whether Basque and
>>>>> Etruscan shared phonological developments."
> ('Statement 2')

[>>> Arnaud Fournet wrote:]

>>>> I think Statement 2 is stupid.

[>> Brian Scott wrote:]

>>> Then in all likelihood you simply don't understand
>>> Statement 2. Since it's both straightforward and rather
>>> obvious, I'm at a loss to know what I might say to make
>>> it any clearer, but I will try once more. The existence
>>> of a common ancestor of Albanian and French has been
>>> demonstrated. The fact that these two languages show
>>> very different phonological developments does not affect
>>> that demonstration or put that relationship in doubt.

>> French is also related to Iranian and Indic.

>> I think the fact that Iranian and Indic are satem but
>> French is not matters when you want to classify PIE
>> languages.

Yes, it does. So what? This has nothing to do with what I
wrote.

>> Shared phonetic developments matter.

> And this seems to be where the confusion comes from.
> Arnaud believes that Basque and Etruscan share common
> developments of common ancestral material. Brian does not
> believe there is sound evidence of common ancestral
> material.

This is the underlying point of fundamental disagreement;
I'm not sure where the confusion is coming from, because the
point that I've been making is a general one that has
nothing specifically to do with Etruscan and Basque.

> Without such common material, common sound changes would
> not appear to be evidence of relatedness.

And with sufficient other evidence of relatedness, they are
unnecessary.

> As to the significance of common sound changes, it may be
> worth pondering the case of Greek, Armenian and Indic.

Brian