On Mon, 18 Aug 2003 08:42:14 +0100, P&G <
petegray@...> wrote:
>However, Pokorny in my view is still the only standard work in this field.
>It's merely out of date.
I have to say I don't really understand Ringe's criticism. Normally, if
one were to assert that Pokorny is "lax", I would agree: his semantics are
sometimes very, very lax. But the context is: "For example, if you take a
look through the [Nostratic] comparative dictionary of Illich-Svitych, you
will discover that he does not really work with exceptionless sound
changes. The thing is really quite a bit worse than Pokorny's Indoeuropean
dictionary, and Pokorny is regarded as disgracefully lax by
indoeuropeanists, terrible in fact, bad by our standards." So he's saying
Pokorny is bad because of his lack of rigour in the application of
soundlaws (BTW, how does that square with what Ringe says in the same
interview: "...the indoeuropeanists in German universities, who are the
most rigorous lot in the world", when Pokorny was a product of those
universities?). I don't think that is true at all: Pokorny is usually
quite rigorous in that respect. Does he sometimes accept an etymology in
spite of phonological irregularities? Of course he does: he would be a
bad etymologist if he didn't. Irregularities happen, and English "I" *is*
derived from OE <ic>.
BTW, there's nothing really problematical about the Armenian interrogative
pronouns.
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...