Re: [tied] Nostratic versus NonIE substrate: direct or not?

----- Original Message -----

From: Glen Gordon

To: cybalist@egroups.com

Sent: Thursday, August 17, 2000 10:55 PM

Subject: Re: [tied] Nostratic versus NonIE substrate: direct or not?

Oh, you apparently missed my very direct comments concerning your numeral list:

 

http://www.egroups.com/message/cybalist/3159

 

 

 

Let me repeat them here if you don't want to refer back to the original posting:

 

(1) Unless you want to propose a ternary system of counting at some point, why should the Japanese word for 'nine' have anything to do with the Proto-Steppe word for 'three'? Needless to point out, Classical Japanese mi 'three' doesn't match your protoform. For Altaic, you offer *kul/*gur. I don't know what your extra-Japanese evidence for *kul- is, but *gur- is definitely Mongolic rather than common Altaic. Likewise, you sell Finno-Ugric forms as Proto-Uralic. It's a well-known fact that common numeral protosystems (even in the 1-5 range) are only reconstructable for the subfamilies of Uralic and Altaic, and yet you boldly erect a Proto-Steppe reconstruction, complete with the decads.

 

(2) How did the original word for 'five' come to mean 'four' in Proto-Indo-Tyrrhenian and 'six' in Uralic? BTW, my Tyrrhenian is not very strong, but Etruscan huth is usually interpreted as 'six' rather than 'four' (pace McCallister's online glossary) on combinatorial evidence (for example, the arrangement of numerals on Etruscan dice implies that HUTH + THU = 7).

 

(3) Why are your sound correspondences so capricious? E.g., ITyrrh. *kWetWe > IE *kWetwores, but ITyrrh. *kWel > IE *tréjes (via *tWeréi-ec). Why doesn't your *t: in *kit:u/*kWut:u show up as (traditional) IE *d?

 

(4) What is the contrast (if any) between *kit:u and *kWut:u?

 

(5) What's your evidence for *ri, *ra, and *munri (the most mysterious of them all, for which I can't see a shred of support in the attested "Steppe" languages [or perhaps Nivkh is meant to be your sole witness, but why?])?

 

(6) Using Japanese to represent Altaic when other Altaic evidence is not given is highly questionable practice (an extreme form of "reaching down" or limited-scope comparison); using Japanese to stand for the whole putative Steppe family is the same error to a higher power.

 

Piotr

Glen wrote: Of course, you're allowed to criticize the results and these criticisms are
always helpful. It would be more helpful though when you do have criticisms to be more *direct*. I haven't heard any specifics yet on what is troubling you so far in this regard. You say, "you create criticise the results"? ...