Re: Proper methodology (was: RE: [tied] Re: Mother of all IE langua

From: Glen Gordon
Message: 28320
Date: 2003-12-10

Miguel theorizes out of control:
>It's there. The 2sg. *must* be **-tu > *-tW > *-sW > *-s. Otherwise it
>would have been *-t.

Oh dearie, aren't we just getting out of hand now. Sometimes your *tW
becomes *s/*sw (in *-es), sometimes *y (in *yus), sometimes *w (in *wos),
and sometimes *tw (in *twe). Why it becomes every phoneme imaginable
to PIE. Imagine that... No really! IMAGINE that! (And _I'm_ attacked for
ideas far less strange than this!)

Look, we all agree that the *-i indicative is a later addition to the 2ps
*-s.
So at least things are looking up. Now, *-s is merely the result of a
lenited *-t
and the source of the *s/*t alternation in some noun stems. Obviously so,
since 2pp *-te contains medial *t and is unaffected by this lenition. We've
gone through this before and we don't need to propose empty theoretical
phonemes like *tW that magically do a four- or five-way split into the later
IE phonological system or reconstruct imaginary pronouns.

I find it funny that you accuse me on the Nostratic list of "dismissing"
Nostratic studies by proposing some things that are different from the
mainstream (if indeed there _is_ such a thing as mainstream Nostratic
reconstruction) and yet here you are dismissing a very much standard
IndoEuropean reconstruction with much stronger foundations and trying
to replace them with unlikely double-asterisked suggestions of your own.


= gLeN

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