Re: Not "catching the wind " , or, what ARE we discussing?

On 2008-04-15 16:13, fournet.arnaud wrote:

> Comparative evidence from PAA, eskimo-aleut, PU, ST shows *kuH1on? is not
> guess-work.
> But you are sealed off into your tower of orthodoxy.

No, they don't show "*kuH1on". It's your private reconstruction done
according to idiosyncratic rules, on the basis of fanciful comparisons.
In other words, _you_ are sealed off in one man's Cloud-cuckoo-land,
playing with your own figments. Even if all those families had a common
ancestor younger than dog domestication, the comparison would not yield
a PIE reconstruction.

> My ockham's razor is one more step to get rid of useless correspondances.
> I keep :
> *g^ to be distinguished into *g and *k?
> *k^ < *k
> *gh
> *gh^ (partly phonotactic g+H2)
> *kw (the same as k+w)
> *gw (idem)
> *ghw (idem)
> *gh^w (idem)
>
> *kh is *k+H1
> *k^w is *k+H1+w
>
> You are on the inflationist side.
> I use 30% less velar proto-phonemes than you.

One has to use as many phonemes as are required to explain systematic
correspondences, no fewer and no more, ideally. You gain nothing by
inflating reconstructions to reduce the number of phonemes (in your
analysis of *k^w, the introduction of *h1 becomes just a notational
trick that serves no other useful purpose; in fact *h1 becomes just a
different way of writing *^ in this context), and you fall foul of
Ockham's Razor by proposing arbitrary complications (*g^H is partly
phonotactic [?] and partly what else? -- etc.). On the other hand, your
proposals are nit even descriptively adequete. Not only *kW and *k^w,
but also *kW and *kw yield different reflexes in the Satem languages.

> ===========
> > Why don't you
> > go the whole hog and explain _every_ *k^ as *kh1? Shall we have *dekh1m.
> > for 'ten' as of today? All you need is plenty of otherwise unmotivated
> > *h1's in places where no same linguist has put them before.
> > Piotr
> ==========
> This is not what I'm saying but your own caricature.

Yes, that's what it was meant to be.

> I gave you four examples of semantically identical roots that display
> K+H1+w
> = k^w.
> I will probably find more, because it fits into the picture.
> Intensive t+H1 > th (sanscrit)
> Intensive p+H1 > ph (germanic fall)
> Intensive kH1(w) > k^w
>
> I can explain satem and intensive with the same idea,
> Ockham's razor again.
> In fact, the zero degree is the major cause of phonological unbalance of IE
> languages.
> I haven't looked at North caucasic yet, but I'm confident.

Overconfident. I don't know any certain cases of pre-laryngeal
aspiration in Indo-Iranian if the laryngeal is not *h2. I know it
contradicts your favoured phonetic reconstruction of the laryngeals, but
it's you who should worry.

> >> Hence zero grade kH1wn > k^wn.
> >> It's a fourth example of kH1w > k^w.
> >
> > Since when is the zero grade of *CRHVC realised as *CHRC? If anything,
> > we have examples of metathesis working in the opposite direction, as the
> > structure *CRHC is less marked and easier to syllabify.
> > Piotr
> ========
> The structure of *kuH1on- is not *CRHVC
> Please explain.

By *R, I mean any sonorant (including semivowels).

Piotr