From: dgkilday57
Message: 71365
Date: 2013-10-09
---In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, <cybalist@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
[Previous criticism:]
Using the Addenda et Corrigenda which you [Gianfranco] 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.
[New criticism:]
Etymology 93 involves an arbitrary addition to a root, PIE *pod-en- 'foot', and must be discarded. Soundlaw set #8 is now supported only by etymology 110, making it an ad-hoc set, and 110 must be discarded also.
219 involves irregular *-el- > *-il-, for *-el- should become *-al- by #16e. Discarding 219 makes #9a ad hoc and jettisons 207 (which should be discarded anyway, since there is no formal justification for a bare feminine thematic stem acquiring the locative sense of the conjunction 'if').
115 involves an arbitrary vowel inserted between the PIE root *dHebH- (M-A 471) and the nasal extension of Skt. _dabhnóti_, which then surfaces as -i- in Bq. _min_. Since this vowel was merely pulled out of thin air, the etymology must be discarded, making #10a ad hoc, and 31 must also go. This in turn makes #12b ad hoc, and 32 must also go, which in turn makes #15l ad hoc, and 78 must also go.
47 is one of the worst etymologies in the paper. It entails irregular acquisition of accent by an initial pre-obstruent laryngeal, thus *ódn.ts (against Att. _odoús_, Ion. _odó:n_, gen. _odóntos_, ktl.) followed by arbitrary rhotacism, syncope, and nasal loss (*odints > *orints > *ornts > (h)ortz). Discarding it makes #12c ad hoc, and 22 must also go.
11, involving Bq. _beltz_ 'black', is necessarily irregular since *bel- should have become *bal- by #16e, and simple *bel should have become *bil by #16f. Discarding 11 makes #13d ad hoc, and 106 must also go, which in turn makes #16f itself ad hoc, and 16 must go. The house of cards meets the domino effect!
150 is ad hoc by direct admission (*ges- > *gos-); discarding it makes #14c ad hoc, and 209 must go.
The primary sense of PIE *h2erk- is 'hold back, contain' as in Lat. _arceo:_, _arx_, _Lupercus_. Hitt. _hark-_ 'hold, have' is a secondary development and there is no plausible way to get from this to the sense of Bq. _hartu_ 'take, receive, get' without at least an inceptive affix. Thus 46 must go, #15b becomes ad hoc, and 98 must also go.
54 involves arbitrary syncope and cluster simplification with irregular retention of pre-tonic *e, contradicting #22c, so 54 must go, making #15k ad hoc, and 123 must also go.
The final -u of Bq. _alu_ is unexplained, so 94 must be discarded, making #16e ad hoc, and 223 must also go.
There is no evidence for Bq. *nu 'we', and the notion that speakers would have created a new 1sg. *ni from the anlaut of the 1pl. and the ambiguous 1sg. *i (while leaving the equally ambiguous 2sg. *i alone, and then discarding the 1pl. *nu itself) is "del tutto campata nell'aria" and 69 must bite the dust. With #16h ad hoc, 89 must also go.
114 involves arbitrary syncope and the -e of the Basque word is unexplained, so it must go, making #17d ad hoc, and 158 must also go.
86 involves irregular loss of *-u in going from *zuru to _zur_. Moreover the combining form _zun-_ (evident in the compound _zuhaitz_) is unexplained. Discarding 86 makes #18a ad hoc, and 84 must also go.
99 involves improper assignment since the rhotic must be syllabic in *atr.so, thus it should have yielded *atraso by #13b, not *atso by #23b. Of course, this is moot because #13b, otherwise supported only by 108 and 144, has already been discounted. This is what happens when a house of cards is built upon a string of dominoes. Anyhow, removing 99 due to improper assignment makes #23b ad hoc, so 73 must also go.
The etymologies which have so far been discredited are those numbered 1, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 29, 30, 31, 32, 36, 38, 39, 40, 44, 46, 47, 48, 53, 54, 55, 64, 67, 68, 69, 71, 73, 74, 76, 78, 81, 84, 85, 86, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 96, 97, 98, 99, 104, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 118, 119, 120, 122, 123, 126, 133, 135, 137, 143, 144, 146, 149, 150, 154, 156, 158, 163, 165, 166, 202, 203, 206, 207, 208, 209, 219, 223, 224, 228, 230, 234, 235, and 236. I will return to this point in the next installment of my criticism.