Re: [tied] Nominative: A hybrid view

On Mon, 26 May 2003, fortuna11111 wrote:

> Hi Jens,
>
> > On Sat, 24 May 2003, fortuna11111 wrote:
> >
> >
> > > [...]
> > > Ops, that about the voiced/voiceless was new to me. Now I see.
> > > Kapiert.
> >
> > Wirklich, Eva? Then go tell your countrymen. The rule is known to
> > everybody but never endorsed expressis verbis.
>
> This is what I call muscle logic. Males are always tempted.

Now I think the time ha come for me to object against sexual harassment.
Chromosomes are not at stake her; I ask only for logic and fair play.

> I did
> not intend to make the whole issue political, Jens, although my first
> (American) degree is in Journalism. I am studying for a second degree
> in IE liguistics and have only now started. I am not acquainted with
> all the basic knowledge you may be referring to. And I am not German.
> You made many assumptions wrong.

Oh, sorry, I jumped to the conclusion you were German because of the
interspersed German in your postings. I don't know which other assumptions
I have made about you - or are you referring to other assumptions?

> I guess it is just too much
> to
> > accept such a simple solution to a problem that has been discussed
> as long
> > as /e/ and /o/ have been known to both exist in PIE; that was
> exactly 100
> > years at the time I put forward the rule. To my great surprise it
> appears
> > to have been completely accepted by writers on this list, but I
> don't
> > suppose it is a requirement for being here.
>
> I don't think you are the person to set requirements about anything,
> or am I wrong? Sounds a bit pompous.

I wasn't, wouldn't dream of it. But if you really mean "anything", there
may be a niche here and there where you are wrong, but that's way outside
of this forum.

> Generally, the scientific
> method implies much of what is already written may be wrong.

How very true, we correct and reject things all the time, and those of us
who are trying to be active in the field must accept being criticized just
as much.

> One such
> assumption of wrong-ness attracted me towards this field.

Sounds very interesting, I'm sure I'm not the only one who would like you
to tell us more.

> So now I
> basically want to see what people believe that they know on the
> subject. I also want to get to know their methods. By the way, an
> observation I have made is comparative linguists often discuss languages
> that they don't know in depth. In most cases they have just read a
> grammar or something of the kind, quickly skimming through grammatical
> rules and forms, but their knowledge hardly extends to the depth and
> soul of the language. I find this to be wrong.

I suppose we all agree. Still, there would be no investigations into
Nostratic if that requirement had to be met every time. But one can get
close to the heart and soul of the branches of Indo-European by reading
some 50 pages of text in each of some 15 well-chosen languages.

> I speak four
> languages "in depth" and I really want to go on applying this attitude
> to language study. On the other hand, I want to get to know better
> the comparative method and then see what I can do with both combined.
> I think there is a lot to do.

Don't tell anybody I said so, but there is no comparative method, that
term is an empty noun phrase. In comparative linguistics we try to figure
out what has happened to a set of related languages on their way from the
putative protolanguage to the oldest stages we find documented. We have
the traces and want to know how they came about. What we do is not
essentially different from what a police detective does if he observes the
traces of a crime and wants to know what happened back at the time when it
did happen.

>
> > Why may I not have my little pleasures?
>
> I just thought you may not want to explain since this is also
> laborious. Time limits are something I can understand.
>
> I understand your question
> to mean
> > where you can read about IE linguistics.
>
> I read a lot about IE linguistics, but I am concentrating on other
> parts of it right now. So I will have to read more on what you are
> talking about in order to be able to discuss it further. Much of what
> I have to do is just boring stuff like getting to know your terms
> (definitions). Means of expression are a very important thing. If
> you don't know the tools, you cannot start doing the work. I thought
> this should be clear for a scientist.

You are very right. In this field you may run into some particularly nasty
frustrations on that score. There is little consistency in the notation of
the phonological elements of the protolanguage, nor even agreement on the
point whether they are phonemes or rather have some other status. I once
bought a book about "voice in Slavic" in the belief it was about phonetics
(as in voiced/voiceless), but it turned out to be about diathesis (verbal
voice). You may have had your fill of rebaptizing of paradigm strucures.

>
> If I'm wrong correct me,
> and I'll
> > be more specific next time.
>
> You can be as specific as you wish. I appreciate all information and
> ideas and I don't even translate everything into politics and
> political camps :-)

Neither do I, unless I watch it being done against me (or against somebody
else) from all around. Sadly, that is frequently the case. There is litle
one can do about it except point it out explicitly and, by contrast, keep
one's own act together by sticking to sober and relevant arguments. I
really try to do that, and I am very sorry if you get a different
impression. You may have caught me in a particularly heated act of
self-defense. God knows I have been provoked; I try not to provoke back.

> > One of the only modern manuals that are not preaching personal and
> > untenable nonsense is Andrew Sihler: New Comparative Grammar of
> Greek and
> > Latin, Oxford UP, 1995.
>
> Thanks for the reference, but I think I will just re-read your old
> message and ask my questions so that you know what I mean. I don't
> think I will start reading a comparative grammar of Greek and Latin
> before I have done Greek. I will do it next semester since now I am
> doing three languages and concentrating on Indo-Iranian. One thing at
> a time. But I may look at this grammar you are offering to me in
> summer.
>
> By the way, to clear your political concerns, Germans read in all
> possible languages at the university, so all the possible literature
> you are talking about is actually being used as a reference here.

I know that, I just didn't know where you were. My concerns are not
political in any sense of the word; I was concerned about giving real and
unbiased advice.

> I
> read in Bulgarian, Russian, English and German. I miss French as a
> research language, so I think I will have to learn it quickly as well.
> The problem with sources is more on the practical side and hence my
> question: where do I get to read that which I want to read. I have
> skimmed through so much literature that is simply un-usable, etc. Can
> you imagine how much of useful and useless literature you can find at
> the Staatsbibliothek-Berlin? And that's just one of the libraries
> here.

I know exactly what you are talking about. That was my reason for
commenting on the basic handbooks, but I obviously started too low. You
desperately need to get started in Greek, and Berlin is a splendid place
to get it; then Indo-European will open up as you go along learning Greek
- especially if you already have a knowledge of Sanskrit. Saussure made
practically all of his magnificent analyses on the sole basis of Sanskrit
and Greek. Saussure's "Memoire" on the IE vowel system in many respects
reads like a morphophonemic analysis of Sanskrit, and its general
character is highly akin to the discussions we are having on this list 125
years later. I have some trouble reading his French style, which is not
helped by the special notation of, say, /e/ and /o/ as a1 and a2; there is
a Russian translation in a collection entitled Trudy po jazykoznaniju,
Moskva 1977.

>
> It extensively treats Lat. and Gk. in a
> pan-IE
> > context, providing much of the information needed to integrate the
> other
> > branches also.
>
> I am more into Indo-Iranian now. I will concentrate on Slawistik next
> semester. I will put this grammar on my list of references.
>
> Other basic textbooks are: Oswald Szemerenyi:
> Introduction
> > to Indo-European Linguistics, Oxford UP 1996 (paperback 1999).
> Michael
> > Meier-Bruegger: Indogermanische Sprachwissenschaft, de Gruyter,
> Berlin -
> > New York 2002.
>
> Hihi, I know this author and have used the book.
>
> The part on laryngeals is fine in the latter, while
> other
> > matters are treater more informatively in the former; one needs them
> both.
>
> And you need many others.

Sure, sure, this was meant for starters. To get discouraged just look
through the majestic bibliography of Meier-Bruegger's book. At the present
moment, that book is where you go see what you have missed in your
reading. Mostly it does not state the point of the books and articles it
refers to, so you have to do that bit yourself, and it often takes a
frustrating turn when you see how limited the actual wisdom was. But it
does offer you the opportunity to get acquainted with a huge amount of
literature. I am sure it would have been a better introduction if the
oversized reference frame had been reduced and more had been said about
the subject-matter in the main text which is in fact surprisingly limited.

>
> > Apparently list members prefer R.S.P.Beekes; Comparative
> Indo-European
> > Linguistics, An Introduction. Amsterdam/Philedalphia 1995:
> Benjamins.
>
> Okay, That I have also used for my exam :-)
>
> That
> > ought to be known if only because it is the one most writers on the
> list
> > refer to;
>
> Everything is known in Berlin, Jens :-) It is just that some of it
> might not have reached me, naturally.

Sure, I was talking to you, not to Berlin :-)

>
> The last no-nonsense presentations of
> PIE
> > were Meillet's Introduction a l'etude comparative des langues
> > indo-europeennes, 7e ed., Paris 1937 (largely unchanged since 1903),
> > reprint 1964 University of Alabama, and Karl Brugmann: Kurze
> vergleichende
> > Grammatik der indogermanischen Sprachen, 1-2. Strassburg 1902-04,
> reprint
> > deGruyter, Berlin - New York (one volume) 1970. Meillet and Brugmann
> can
> > sometimes still be bought cheap, try www.abe.com and see if they've
> got
> > them.
>
> I will definitely find them in the library. I am generally frustrated
> I can only read Meillet in translation. That will change soon.

That's the spirit. French may be a language you should begin reading
before you know it in your bones. There's a very rich scholarly literature
in the field of IE in French. But there is nothing like Brugmann's
Grundriss (of which the Kurze ... is a bulky abridgment) whose volumes (in
second edition) are currently celebrating their centennial. Even with no
mention of Hittite or Tocharian, it still is the fundamental book of
reference, and the general reconstruction of PIE here codified stands
unshaken (though not unchallenged); what is more, one can still make new
discoveries by departing from its presentation of the facts.

> > Many of the things we are discussing on the list, however, have
> not
> > entered the world of handbooks (yet, perhaps never will), or have
> only
> > entered it in imperfect and partly distorted form. By staying on the
> list
> > you can contribute to the brew out of which future scholarship will
> > perhaps be distilled.
>
> That should be the whole point.

We do *so* agree.

Jens