Re: [tied] IS's "regular roots"

From: Glen Gordon
Message: 5784
Date: 2001-01-25

Miguel:
>Utter nonsense. If *CVC is all you have, you need all the phonemes
>you can get! And if a simplified phonemic system is what you want,
>you can't have *CVC.

Which is utter nonsense? What you just said? Yes, I agree, you _are_ talking
nonsense. Tell your theory to the Samoans or the Philipinos. They'll have a
good laugh. Here's some online Tagalog lessons for you:

http://www.seasite.niu.edu/tagalog/

Tagalog is a prevalent language in Winnipeg and has a very limited phonology
with a simple CVC syllable structure. I guess you don't have librairies over
where you live. Poor guy :)

At any rate, what I meant by urging for a "reduced" phonology in Nostratic
is that as a theorist, one has to start simple and work one's way up. The
general strategy of the Nostraticist however has been to start with
something unworkable and complex without knowing what Nostratic is even
about. This is why Nostratic has progressed at such a snail's pace for the
past century, because it works against normal scientific methodology. There
are many phonemes in the traditional Nostratic inventory that are wholly
unjustified and need to be forgotten.

All this doesn't mean that Nostratic necessarily had a simple phonology. It
means that Nostraticists don't know enough to justify half of the
phonological inventory and are only confusing themselves and everyone else.
In IE studies, an additional *q as opposed to *k^, *k and *kW is not
justified and is resisted for a simple theory. In Nostratics, this doesn't
happen. It's anything goes. If I want to reconstruct a rounded semivowel *y"
in Nostratic, who's gonna stop me? So, let's start thinking rationally and
reduce the damn Nostratic phonology until these phonemes can be better
justified.

- gLeN

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