Hakan to me:
>I agree with your earlier posts (for example 26.8.) that the methods >of
>mathematics and natural sciences can't be applied to the humanities.
>[...]
>Trying to do humanistic science the way physics and maths are done >has, I
>believe, done a lot of harm. [...] My view is that the >scientific method
>of the hard sciences is a tool - it is not the Truth >or the Only Way,
>[...]
And I find myself agreeing completely with what you say here too. Some
interesting new angles too.
>But (yeah, here comes the big but, [...]
Oh-oh, this is where Hakan turns on me and goes for the throat :)
>I guess you've been waiting for it; please don't hit the ceiling now) >I
>can't help getting the impression that you started this linguistics >vs.
>hard science debate in an attempt to wriggle out of the demands >that
>should be made on linguistic work (which are different from the >demands
>that are made on physics or on a mathematical proof).
No I certainly did not. It appears to many people, because of methodological
differences of opinion, that the theory that I present online is finished
and without room for progress... it's not finished and it will be evolving.
>I've been looking at your Proto-Steppe web page while following this
> >discussion. For every numeral, you show us a different mix of >languages
>and reconstructed forms. Why don't you show what all the >numerals looked
>like in all the languages you are referring to?
You mean, the modern written languages? I will do that shortly actually and
I had begun doing that last week but I haven't posted it up yet.
>Now it looks as if you - for every numeral - have deliberately picked
> >those languages whose words for this numeral happen to resemble each
> >other.
Well, yeah! Of course I have. What do you want me to do? Pick the ones that
look completely unrelated??? Have to start somewhere.
>You use Etruscan as your evidence for one, two and three, but you >avoid
>the Etruscan word for four. Instead you give us Korean.
The word for four in Etruscan is /huth/ (some say /s'a/, which is more
likely to be the word for "six" in my view). My view is that /huth/ relates
to IndoEuropean *kwetwores - both terms mean "four". Thus, in the
IndoTyrrhenian branch itself, Steppe *kit:u would appear to have
semantically shifted to "four" early on while "five" was given another word.
Etruscan /mach/ "five" is best related to IE *meg(h)- and originally meant
"large, many" while IE contains *penkWe with very uncertain origin. I've
suggested already that this word is the original IndoTyrrhenian form that
was involved in the bringing about of the semantic shift in the first place,
a word borrowed from a PreNWC language.
>You want us to believe that *kit:u, five, turned into four in IE and >six
>in Uralic? And you're the one talking about Occam's razor. Time >for a
>shave, Glen.
The reason for Uralic's semantic shift is independant and possibly has
something to do with the phonetic similarities between the pairs one/two and
five/six. I suspect *vitte- "five" is simply a derivation from *ykte- "one"
by analogy with *kutte "six" and its low-number counterpart *kakte- "two".
Thus *ykte-/*kakte- versus *vitte-/*kutte-. We've already talked about a
similar case of numerical assimilation as with Japanese numeral pairs
(yo-/ya-, hito-/futa-, mi-/mu-), brought about by ancient vowel harmony.
I think _you_ should have a shave, Hakan, you're looking a little scraggly
there.
>You base your reconstructed Proto-Steppe on your own reconstructed
> >Indo-Tyrrhenian. A reconstructed family based on another reconstructed
> >family ain't worth much in my part of town.
Geez, sorry for making those nice pretty pages for you. You give and people
just take, take, take :P
>And some things you say are weird -
>
>Inanimate nouns need no ending to mark them as the object since >anything
>inanimate can never be anything other than a passive object >to an action
>anyways, for logical reasons. If there was no accusative >ending for
>inanimate nouns in Proto-Steppe that's fine by me, but when >you say that
>inanimate things can never be anything else than passive >objects, I've
>gotta ask: How about sentences like "The tornado turned >that city into a
>junk yard", "The sun shines", "That music made me >remember things that I
>had forgotten years ago".
You're getting mixed up here. But... Do you REALLY have to ask?? Okay, you
asked for it...
Steppe must have had the *-m accusative ending but only for _animate_ nouns
as it is in IE. Inanimate nouns were simply not allowed to be the subject of
a sentence. Check out Hittite which does exactly the same thing and is
partly the basis for this rule in the first place.
This is how the above sentences would be spoken the ProtoSteppe way:
1.a) "The tornado turned that city into a junk yard"
b) "City-that junkyard-into tornado-by turn-[passive]-[3ps]."
OR RATHER...
"That city was turned into a junkyard by the tornado."
2.a) "The sun shines"
b) "Sun shine-[3ps]"
OR RATHER...
"The sun shines"
(... in this case, the sun may be viewed as a _deity_
and therefore ANIMATE)
3.a) "That music made me remember things that I had forgotten
years ago".
b) "Forgot-[passive] many year before-[locative] that
thing- [ablative/partitive] music-that-[ablative/partitive]
me remember-[causitive]-[3ps]."
OR RATHER...
"It caused me to remember from that music of things that I
forgot many years ago."
... This last one is nasty if I understand Steppe grammar
right because it's the inanimate-subject rule combined
with a weird partitive aspect. In this case, the initial "It"
is a non-subject 3rd person and doesn't refer to anything
(eg "It's raining"). Does your head hurt yet? Mine does.
And if we consider the 2x3 contrast of inanimate/animate
gender and proximal/medial/distal location within the
demonstrative set, your head is really going to hurt.
Anyways, point is, inanimate nouns were never _grammatically speaking_ the
subject and circumventive methods were used instead. Therefore, we need not
terminate an _inanimate_ noun with *-m for the object because the inanimate
noun is ALWAYS the object.
In this sense there is no contrast to make between an inanimate subject and
an inanimate object, which would normally be distinguished with *-m as with
_animate_ nouns. Therefore, the inanimate object, functioning as the subject
semantically, needs no termination. This is what I mean. It's a peculiar
rule of Steppe grammar, not anything to do with general grammar or with what
we find in English. There may be other weird grammatical rules that may be
the source of some of IE's weird rules.
>"Proof" in such sciences [the humanities] is a matter of opinion only ->I
>don't agree and I don't think you believe this yourself, otherwise >you
>wouldn't spend so much time looking for words that strengthen your >theory.
I'm not searching for "proof". I'm searching for "greater accuracy". The
former implies that 100% accuracy can be attained in CompLx (and it can't).
Greater accuracy CAN be acheived however.
>Hey, then I'm a specialist in Nivkh too! Wow! This way of thinking >opens
>up a lot of possibilities. Maybe I'm a specialist in heart >surgery as
>well!
'Fraid not. In the latter case, your specialisation affects the lives of
others. Further, I don't believe that heart surgery is a theoretical
science. The heart is very much physical. Whether the heart you operate on
beats or not is proof enough of the effectiveness of your surgery and a
basis for any future criminal sentencing. Go back to the chalkboard, Hakan,
and devise a better rebuttal.
>I'm not saying this to make you stop doing your work. I don't think >you
>can be stopped! And that's a compliment.
I'm too stubborn really. I'm sure there is a hoard of angry linguists out
there ready to beat down my door and "end" my research. If not, I guess I
have more work to do :)
- gLeN
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