Mate:
>But languages are *not* always logic.
I know that. You're now confusing the nature of the item with the
manner in which we evaluate it. We could say Harry is illogical, but we
wouldn't evaluate him by being illogical too. Same goes with language.
You're also confusing the impossibility of _predicting_ how a language
will change versus the relatively regular manner in which language has
changed. If the latter weren't true, we'd never have Grimm's Law.
Once change has happened we can trace back the steps in regular,
logical fashion just as we've done to reconstruct Proto-IE, just as
Grimm did. Do you honestly want to fight this point?
>It would be more logical that *k' is not more frequent than *k but because
>of the historical accident (more front vowels in the past)
So rather than accept the failure of the theory, you'd rather explain why
it doesn't work. Three words: cart before horse.
>If you spoke of typological plausibility, that would be reasonable. But
>speaking of logic in language is not so selfunderstandable.
That sentence is incomprehensible. The science of typology derives from
logical examination. So I have no clue what you're saying at this point.
You must be confusing a definition of a word. There is little logic in
how a language eventually changes but there IS logic in how we assess
what changes have taken place. If you don't assess a language logically,
you're a bad linguist.
>I wouldn't say we all agree on this. The reconstructions look vaguely
>similar but no so much.
You merely deny it because it suits you. The numerals "six" and "seven"
aren't merely "look-alikes" to their Semitic kin. They are quite bluntly
loaned. The donor is Semitic because *septm contains fossilized
Semitic grammar and is also found in a wealth of other proto-languages.
If you can deny this, you must be either ignorant of the entire facts or
are just ignoring what doesn't conform to your preconceived notions.
Neither strategy is logical... so you must accept this. But then again,
if we are questioning the nature of logic itself, I guess who cares about
logic anymore, eh?
So once you accept that "six" and "seven" are loans from a language
without palatal velars, you will also finally accept that IE never had
palatal velars to begin with except during post-IE times, within the close
confines of the Satem dialect area.
>Besides, just to play guessing, I see no reason why /s^/ for instance
>wouldn't become somekind of a /k'/ in a lg which doesn't have /s^/s.
Because /S/ sounds far more like /s/ or /h/ (which IE had) than /k'/.
Sound it out for yourself. From Latin to French, palatal /k/ first became
/tS/, not /S/. In fact Semitic *s^ seems to be interpretted as IE *sw.
This makes sense since the added labial semivowel is either a
reinterpretation of the tongue retraction in Semitic or Semitic *s^
was pronounced with automatic rounding as we in fact find in English.
= gLeN
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