Re: Greek kitharis

At 2:56:30 AM on Friday, January 2, 2009, stlatos wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "bmscotttg" <BMScott@...>
> wrote:

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

>>> I don't agree with your definition of PW. Even if it
>>> were true, and a supposed PW reconstructed correctly
>>> using sound methodology, the discovery of a previously
>>> unknown language could require the reconstruction of an
>>> earlier language ancestral to both it and the previous
>>> group, which, by definition, would be PW (the previous
>>> rec. called PW would be a sub-group of the real PW).

>> So? The same is true mutatis mutandis of any other
>> proto-language.

> PIE would

You mean 'might' or 'could'.

> be redefined if a new IE language were discovered, not if
> a non-IE were. PW would

And again here.

> be changed by any.

Obviously. So?

>>> By my theory, PIE isn't ancestral by definition, but by
>>> happenstance.

>> Obviously. So what?

> The reconstruction of PIE isn't affected by the evidence
> of a non-IE language. Therefore, PIE wouldn't be PW even
> if it were the ancestor of all known l. (as I say).

Of course it would, by the definition of PW that I'm using:
the terms 'Proto-World' and 'Proto-Indo-European', while of
course intensionally distinct, would have exactly the same
extension and so would denote exactly the same set of
languages.