Jens,
This topic needs to be more focused in order to prevent further
essay-long rambling by both of us. I choose to refocus the topic
to the core of our methodologies since I think it is this that
prevents you from accepting the loss of final vowels in MIE and
subsequently prevents you from accepting that thematic stems and
their paradigms are recent innovations.
What frustrates me here is that we can't seem to get passed
methodology in order to reconstruct pre-IE together. You claim
that my theories are based on "nothing" and that I make decrees,
however I can only assure you that Occam's Razor is my foundation.
In contrast, you don't seem to follow the same principle since
you appeal recurringly to our lack of knowledge (eg: "we can't
possibly know that") and you taint the focus of a topic by drowning
me in a myriad of "possible" theories no matter how absurd or
untested they may be. That's unfair tactic and unworthy rebuttal.
The degree to which we may lack knowledge is completely irrelevant,
nor could we define it if we tried, so stop using that as a point.
Theories are meant to cure us of ignorance afterall and your method
is like giving up on penicillin because we all will die some day
anyway.
Occam's Razor is about finding the most economical solution. Both
in parts and as a whole, a theory on pre-IE must conform to this
methodology. My theories have a clear foundation. They begin with
the acknowledgement that quantitative ablaut is the result of the
alternation of stress and that this accent alternation can be shown
to be once regular by a trivial assumption of loss of final vowels.
Theories require some assumption, otherwise we would never advance
at all, so we try to assume as less as possible.
Now how do your theories add up in comparison? Where do your
theories begin? I presume that they begin in the same place,
quantitative ablaut as the result of heavy stress, since this is
probably the most self-evident place to start. Yet, it is where
you go from here that I believe is far less efficient because
you obviously reject earlier penultimate accentuation and apocope,
which is an extremely large basis of my views and where we deviate
on most things pre-IE.
So I suppose we should be interested in what assumptions you choose
in place of my penultimate accentuation and how efficient it is
in comparison.
What are those alternate assumptions, Jens, and how are they more
efficient than the "baseless" views I maintain?
- gLeN
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