--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, random randomersson
<valrkirin2@...> wrote:
>
> I don't mean to denigrate Pokorny in any way, Though I'm working
on it, I'm not yet much of an expert on the linguistic side of
things. I'm basing this off of the comment I found on the
internet: "Pokorny is regarded as disgracefully lax by
indoeuropeanists, terrible in fact, bad by our standards" by Don
Ringe at
http://www.tlg.uci.edu/~opoudjis/Work/ringe.html.
If you think that's bad, try the reviews at Amazon.com.
I get the impression he set out to find every PIE root. The problem
there is that if you have a high acceptance threshold, you will
reject roots. Pokorny set the threshold low. A good threshold test
is to require evidence from three branches, with consistent
consonants. Also, treat onomatopoeic words and 'lallwörter' with
the utmost suspicion. No matter how PIE-speakers laughed, *ha ha
and *kha kha can go straight into the bin. PIE may indeed have had
*kuku 'cuckoo', but it is subject to constant remodelling, so
nothing can be proved about the PIE form.
Beware of a bias in the dorsals. I am quoting Piotr from memory
here. Pokorny doesn't reconstruct *kW unless there's a Centum form
showing it, and he doesn't reconstruct *k^ unless there's a Satem
form demonstrating it. In Pokorny, there are actualy more entries
for *k than for *k' or *kW, and no-one believes that reflects the
situation in PIE. Reconstruction has problems when necessary
evidence is missing.
Richard