Horse Sense (was: [tied] Re: Hachmann versus Kossack?)

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Patrick Ryan" <proto-language@...>
wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "david_russell_watson"

<liberty@...> wrote:

>
> > No, there's no steady association. Pokorny lists only
> > *k^e:ibh- and *k^e:igh- beginning with that sequence
> > and meaning 'quick', but no *k^(H)e-.

- edit -

> Of course, there is a steady association between *k(^)e:-

Now you write 'k(^)e:' when previously you claimed only
'k^(h)e', thus giving yourself the freedom now to work
with any of 'k^e:', 'ke:', 'k^He:', or 'khe:'. How wide
is your net going to get before it's all over with?

> (also *k(^)e:i-) and 'fast' as Latin 'citus' might possibly
> suggest - from Pokorny's *ke:i-, 'set into motion'.

No, there are only _two_ associations, with the common
element being 'k^e:i', not 'k^e', not 'k^He', not 'ke',
and not 'kHe'. You're not free to just throw in *ke:i-,
which begins with a plain velar not a palato-velar, and
which doesn't mean anything like 'fast' in any case, as
motion can be slow just as well as it can be fast.

Moreover you may not even claim 'fast' for *k^e:i-, for
we don't know that it yields any such meaning without
the addition of 'bh' or 'gh', as we find it. If it did,
Pokorny would already have made a separate entry of it,
as he wasn't shy about that sort of thing.

> I believe this is properly reconstructed as *k^(h)e:i-; and
> without going into Nostratic data to support the point, the
> semantic connections alone with *k^e:i-bh- and *k^e:i-gh-
> should suggest the possibility of an initial palatal *k^ for
> Pokorny's *ke:i-.

So you feel free to change one construction to make it
more like another to which you, and you alone, are sure
it is related? It was reconstructed with a plain velar
for a reason, and you're not entitled to reassign it to
force it to fit your personal theory.

*ke:i- begins with a different sound than *k^e:ibh- and
*k^e:igh-, and has a different meaning, and that is all
there is to that.

There is no "steady association" between *k^(H)e and the
meaning 'fast'.

> As for it being an unvoiced aspirate, *k^h rather than
> *k, anyone who has read Pokorny will be familiar with
> reconstructions like 1. and 2. *(s)p(h)el- where the
> notation indicates that the root occurs with or without
> *s-mobile, and without or without *(h).

Pokorny often has a legitimate reason for such a lumping,
and for which he offers real cognates as proof. You have
nothing comparable for your 'k(^)(h)e(:)(i)', which is no
more than a way to secure as many escape routes as you
possibly can.

> Thus, I think the the possibility of an unpreserved aspirated
> voiceless stop in *ke:i- is measurable; and I reconstruct
> *k^He:i-. The root extension -*i is what transforms *k^he-,
> '*deer', into 'fast.

There is no *k^he- meaning 'deer' upon which to make such
a transformation.

> I propose that early PIE words for 'deer', like our 'hind',
> contained the segment *k^(h)e- so that *k^em-, 'hornless',
> should be regarded as a generalization of 'hind' rather than
> 'hind' being derived from 'hornless'.
>
> The sense 'fast' is the characterization of any 'deer'; it
> can be augmented by derivative -*y as in *k^he:i- but is
> unaugmented in words like *ken-, 'exert one's self', where
> both palatalization and aspiration have not been
> reconstructed: properly *k^(h)e(:)n-.

'k^(h)e(:)n' means 'k^he:n', or 'k^hen', or 'k^e:n', or
'k^en'. Again you try to secure as much wiggle room for
yourself as possible.

> > This is your semantic-chain game again, this time going
> > from 'fast' to 'deer' to 'hind' to 'hornless'.
>
> As usual, you twist my words to serve your own rhetoric.

Twisting words isn't something I _ever_ do, so you are
lying when you say 'as usual'.

> I _do_ suggest a semantic connection between 'deer' and 'fast';
> the connection with 'hornless' is through *k^(h)e(:)m-, 'hind',

There is no *k^hem-, *k^he:m-, or *k^e:m- meaning 'hind',
only *k^em-.

> not *k^he:-, 'deer'.

There is no *k^he:- 'deer', or do you derive that from
Pokorny's *k^ei- 'to lie down', on the basis that deer
lie down at least once a day, or do you derive that from
Pokorny's *k^ei- 'a k. of dark colour', on the basis that
some deer are dark, or do you derive that from Pokorny's
*k^e, for which see *ak^- 'to eat', on the basis that deer
eat?

> Do we not sometimes say: 'he's as fast as a deer!'?

Well I don't, but I'm sure somebody does. I am likewise
fully convinced that deer lie down, that some deer are
dark colored, and that all deer eat, but so what?

It's a neat trick yours: when one of your roots is shown
to be fabricated, you just create three more to "prove" it
real, and when each of those is exposed in its turn, you
invent still more.

There's nothing as neat, tidy, compact, and so beautifully
self-contained as a perfectly circular argument, is there?

> > As I pointed out before, one can derive any meaning he
> > wishes from any other meaning whatsoever by means of
> > this "method", and so it has no probative value at all.
>
> You cannot be expected to understand the method without
> looking at it more closely.

Oh, but I understand it perfectly, as surely do all your
readers by now. It's just a game, and, as you use it
here, a means to cheat in argument, and nothing more.

Your response here did nothing to answer the charge that
it can connect _any_ two points at will and hence has no
probative value.

I wonder where and from whom you learned your comparative
linguistics? Can you honestly tell us that _any_ book or
teacher of that subject teaches this semantic-chain game
as a legitimate method? Can you name even one recognized
linguist who subscribes to such a method?

> > I believe that *ek^(-)wo-s is compounded of of the initial
> > segments *e- (cf. *ai-ra:, 'kind of grass'),
>
> There's no P.I.E. *e- meaning 'grass', so by what novel
> method do you convert 'aira:' into 'e'?
>
> Again, rhetorical devices to prove your point.

Not at all. You claimed that you could give the meaning
'grass' to 'e' on the basis of 'aira:'. That is surely a
trick requiring some explanation.

> I did _not_ say *ai-ra:, the segmentation of which you (in)
> advertently omitted, is relatable to *e- in *e-k^(h)-wo-s;
> but perhaps you just misunderstood.

How is it relatable? 'e' has no connection to 'grass',
and 'aira:' has such a connection solely in its complete
form.

> It is the element *a(:)i- that I relate to the *e-; it is this
> element which carries the notion of 'grass' (and probably 'green'
> as well).

No, we have no reason to believe 'a(:)i-' meant grass.
That meaning is reconstructed solely for 'air-', in its
entirety. Even if 'ai' truly is a separate element, we
still have no way of knowing what it meant without the
the addition of 'r'. Now you add the meaning 'green' to
it as well, on the basis that grass is green of course,
thus, again, building speculation upon speculation upon
speculation.

> As for the interchangeability of *a(:)i- and *a(:)- to carry the
> notion of 'grass', compare *a(:)g^-, 'billy-goat', and *a(:)ig^-,
> 'goat'.
>
> This is semantically where we would hope to be able to see it.
>
> Thus, 'goat' is *a(:)(i)-, 'grass' + *g^-, which represents *gy-,
> 'chewer',

No, there is no root *gy- meaning 'chewer'.

> and which is the first segment of *g(y)eu-/*g^(y)eu-, 'chew'.
> Here, an unpreserved **gei-, 'chew',

Unpreserved, or never existing? The burden of proof is
yours.

> has been supplanted by *gyeu-, 'chew up'.

Meaning that all we have in fact to go by is *gyeu-,
not *gy-.

> When *a: lost its length for any reason (stress-accent, etal.),
> and reverted to *a, it would subject to the rule which makes all
> short vowel into *A, the Ablaut vowel, which manifests itself
> variously as *é/*ò [from *è]/*°/*Ø.
>
> Hence, *é-k^h-w-o-s could be an unexpected development. The
> -*w- element here represents a the 'deer' as a family group in
> contrast to the usual herds of horses. I am sure you will be
> quick to want to point this terminology gaffe out so I will say
> beforehand, it was a linguistic error made long ago.

Oh yes, I forgot about your ability to leave your body
and travel into the past to witness human events nowhere
else recorded. Without it we'd still be foolishly basing
our ideas about Mitra's earliest function on his earliest
attestation.

I guess we should all be thankful that you're so gracious
to share your psychic visions with us.

> > If you're going to be allowed to invent your own roots,
> > as you've done with *k^(h)e- 'fast' and *e- 'grass',
> > I would think you could come up with a vastly superior
> > explanation for 'horse' than 'grass deer'.
>
> I believe I have demonstrated above the possibility of both
> roots.

No, all you've demonstrated is that you can draw a straight
line between any two dots, but then so can anybody else.

You've given us nothing remotely like proof for your invented
roots and meanings.

> > I believe the term makes immanent sense if we assume the
> > people who spoke the language in which it originated were
> > forest-dwellers, familiar with deer but not with horses;
> > horses eat 'grass'; deer eat leaves and twigs as well as
> > other fruits of the forest.
>
> If I have a Labrador, I might loosely term a Rothweiler a
> 'black Labrador'.

Surely, and at least a hundred more such suggestions could be
offered, but none of them would constitute proof of anything.

> > Moreover, why not follow the shorter route available to
> > you, from *k^em- in its properly reconstructed meaning
> > 'hornless'? Horses are similiar to cattle and deer in
> > many ways, yet always hornless, and the insertion of an
> > 'e' and the elimination (or conversion to 'w'?) of 'm'
> > surely involves much less voodoo than converting 'aira'
> > to 'e'.
>
> If your data was correct, yes. But GIGO, from 'aira' the route is
> tortuous; from *ai-ra:, as II have demonstrated above, it is far
> less problematical.

No, because we have 'aira:' alone, or 'ai-ra:' if you prefer,
with the meaning 'grass', not 'ai'.

P.I.E. had no *e- for grass, and no *k(^)(h)e(:)(i)- for 'deer'.
Case closed; argument over.

> > It would be a very bad idea to try to build any further
> > extrapolation on such a poor basis as this 'grass deer'
> > explanation.
>
> Sorry you think so.

The fact is that most rational people are going to think the
same.

> > Speculation built upon speculation built upon speculation
> > a fragile structure makes.
>
> Informed speculation is a fact of life and science.

No, sir. You clearly don't understand what science is or how
it works.

> There is nothing wrong at all about it if other speculation is
> supportive, and, above all consistent.

"Other speculation is supportive"?! One fantasy isn't supported
by a second, even wilder, fantasy.

Zero plus zero is still zero. Reiterate any number of times you
wish, and the result is still zero.

> It is like when we propose *d in Language A -> *t in Language B.
> The first step is pure speculation. Additional speculation either
> confirms or denies the original speculation,

It's not additional speculation that confirms the first. That's
ridiculous. It is sets of systematic sound correspondences in
numbers larger than likely to occur by random chance. See the
article 'How likely are chance resemblances between languages?'
at http://www.zompist.com/chance.htm .

> and transforms it into a working theory because of the overall
> Gestalt.

Oh, so this is what you call your large, elaborate, and self-
contained circular argument: "the overall Gestalt".

Sorry, but that is not how it works in fact. Please read some
books on comparative linguistics written by recognized experts,
and then try again.

You also desperately need to study logic and probability theory,
as does your friend Arnaud.

> > > Old habits die hard.
>
> > So we see.
>
> It is so like you to end in a slight.

It's not as much fun when you're on the receiving end of one,
is it, Patrick?

David