Re: Is Basque IE?

From: dgkilday57
Message: 71341
Date: 2013-09-26


[GF:]


Dear group members,

 

let me try and summarize what's been going on with this topic so far. Since I posted my first message over two weeks ago, I received few replies. The most frequent ones are fairly weak criticisms, by D. G. Kilday, mostly based on:

- a rejection of key parts of Michelena's and Trask's commonly accepted internal reconstruction of Pre-Basque (it would be interesting to be pointed to some published material where such rejection is supported by some systematic evidence);

- an analysis of a very small percentage of my etymologies, which are either refuted on various grounds (incl. the critic's unorthodox reconstruction of Pre-Basque), or dismissed as "loans" when the similarity with other IE terms is too evident to be otherwise dismissed.

 

Comments by other fellow linguists would be very welcome.

 

[DGK:]


My detailed criticism of your individual etymologies does not depend on my theory of the prehistory of Basque, which is no more unorthodox than those of Menéndez Pidal or Tovar; at worst it is an "idiosyncratic" theory.  I have used this theory only on occasion to suggest simple alternatives to your etymologies.  My linguistic views are far more orthodox than Larry Trask's, who imagined not only words but whole languages as arising spontaneously ex nihilo.

 

Using the Addenda et Corrigenda which you recently posted to academia.edu, I find that many of your individual soundlaws are supported by only one etymology, and are thus by definition ad hoc.  All etymologies involving ad-hoc soundlaws should be discarded on general principles.  These are the etymologies numbered 1, 4, 14, 17, 18, 19, 23, 26, 27, 36, 39, 44, 48, 53, 55, 64, 67, 68, 74, 76, 81, 85, 92, 97, 104, 109, 111, 113, 119, 120, 122, 133, 146, 163, 206, 208, 228, 234, and 235.

 

Optional soundlaws are unacceptable unless you change your name to Seanfranco.  Your anaptyctic vowel comes out whatever you want, so set #5 amounts to an optional soundlaw, and 38, 40, 90, 91, 118, 126, 144, 154, and 224 must be discarded.  Your treatment of *-VtV- as yielding *-t- or *-d- is another, so 10, 29, and 30 must be discarded.  Likewise your *-m- > *-u- under unspecified conditions eliminates 137 and 165.

 

When all the etymologies above are stricken, other soundlaws become supported by only one etymology, and this second group of ad-hoc etymologies must be discarded:  8, 9, 21, 24, 96, 107, 108, 112, 135, 143, 230, and 236.  Since 71 and 149 involve an implicit optional soundlaw (retention or loss of *b-, of whatever source, before *o), they must both be discarded, stranding 15 as ad hoc, which must also go.  Similarly 5, 166, and 203 involve optional behavior of intervocalic *-n- and must be discarded, stranding 202, which must go.

 

Striking all the additional etymologies above strands only 156 as an ad-hoc etymology to be rejected in the third run.  However, the entire soundlaw set #8 is now supported by only 93 and 110.  Many individual soundlaws are also supported by only two etymologies.  These are #9a (only 207 and 219), #10a (31, 115), #12b (31, 32), #12c (22, 47), #13d (11, 106), #14c (150, 209), #15b (46, 98), #15k (54, 123), #15l (32, 78), #16e (94, 223), #16f (16, 106), #16h (69, 89), #17d (114, 158), #18a (84, 86), and #23b (73, 99).  So far today I have been operating with general principles only.  If any of the etymologies listed above in parentheses is questionable for any reason, not only it but its partner in parentheses must be discarded, for the partner will become an ad-hoc etymology.  I will return to this point in the next installment of my criticism.