Re: [tied] Re: Germanic Scythians?

----- Original Message -----
From: "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@...>
To: "tgpedersen" <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, March 24, 2003 2:31 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] Re: Germanic Scythians?


>> [Torsten:] Objection: IE spread. Thereofore all the known IE languages may have substrates.

> [Brian:] Producing the same change in several branches independently? It doesn't matter much what triggered the change; as long as it's independent in the several branches, elementary probability theory will tell you that it's unlikely.

Precisely. What matters is only that those shifts would have had to involve several independent events, none of which, when taken separately, can be considered inevitable or even highly probable.

Piotr