PIE conjugations

From: Glen Gordon
Message: 5435
Date: 2001-01-12

Miguel:
>But *-wan(i)/*-wen(i) are themselves undoubtedly connected to
>non-Anatolian *-men (and both in turn, one would expect, connected to
>singular *-m(i)/*-w(i)).

This is ridiculous. Is there a rational reason for why *-wen(i) should
derive from *-men as opposed to *-wen? Um, *m -> *w ?? You really don't see
the absurdity of your proposals, do you?

>The correspondences are irregular, but to me that suggests that >we're
>dealing with an unstable proto-phoneme **mw.

When correspondences are irregular, it suggests to most of society that the
hypothesis is full of hot air without substance. If a theory isn't even
logically secure from the start (let alone, when it lacks strong evidence),
one has a major, MAJOR hurdle to overcome.

>[*] The fact that many of the phenomena associated with my postulated
>pPIE palatalized and labialized phonemes show irregularities is in
>itself not surprising (though annoying):

... yes, very annoying and hopelessly illogical...

>I think these irregularities tell us something about a very remote >stage
>of pre-PIE, [...]

According to ordered thought (something that I would hope we are all
striving for), irregular, self-contradicting thoughts and other chaotica can
tell us absolutely zero about pre-PIE, but oh so much about the deductive
reasoning capabilities of the theorist involved.

I'm sorry. I had a bitchburger for lunch :) Carry on.

- gleN

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