From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 20214
Date: 2003-03-22
----- Original Message -----
From: "Abdullah Konushevci" <akonushevci@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, March 22, 2003 3:46 PM
Subject: [tied] Re: Dacian
> Eric Hamp, The Position of Albanian
> "... Thus, according to Cimochowski, the evidence for Thracian labiovelars crumbles away. The distinct reflexes of labiovelars in Albanian and Illyrian form, then, a capital proof of the Illyrian ancestry of Albanian."
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That is Hamp's summary of Cimochowski's arguments. But in the very next paragraph Hamp goes on to say:
"But, in the face of all this, I feel we must bear in mind that the positive Illyrian labiovelar evidence is sparse and conjectural in the extreme. Moreover, as a retention it would be, strictly speaking, only weakly diagnostic."
And I would add that the evidence for the different treatment of *k and *kW in Albanian is also weak and inconclusive.
Hamp's bottom line is:
"Clearly, the whole question remains completely open. But perhaps we have been able to clear a little ground."
Piotr