The palatal sham :) (Re: [tied] Re: Albanian (1))

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "P&G" <petegray@...> wrote:

> Torsten:
> >>>I'd like to discuss the idea that supposed PIE
> >> >plain velars occur only in loans. So, fire away, list some

examples

> >> >of what you believe to be incontrovertible examples of plain

velars

> >> >and I'll check with Møller and Bomhard. I find them, you lose; I
> >> >don't find them, I lose. OK?
> Peter:
> >> why present the argument in terms of "winning"
> >> and "losing"?
> Torsten:
> >nothing nore pugnacious than playing cards; just a game.
>
> Nobody wins when academic discussion becomes a competition.
> In any case, Moeller and Bomhard are attempting show a genetic

connection,

> they attempt to identify roots that are inherited within PIE. They

are not

> making a list of loan words!

So? To me they are just a convenient collection of look-alikes. I am
not bound in honor to use their collection after their intended
purpose.

> Bomhard at least specifically tries to exclude loans. So if a root

is found

> in
> Moeller or Bomhard, it certainly does not prove it is a loan.

> It may be a loan (if they are wrong) or inherited (if
> they are right). Therefore you cannot use them as final proof that

a

> particular root is a loan. If anything, finding the root there

increases

> the odds that it is not a loan!
>

Nonsense. Of course not.

> Finding the root in Bomhard and Moeller only proves that they

suggested it

> was inherited from Nostratic. Not finding it only proves they did

not

> suggest it was inherited.
>
> _If_ you have discovered anything, it would be that Latin words

with ca-

> correspond to similar roots in certain other language groups. Now

that

> could be interesting, and worth taking further. But it doesn't

prove that

> these roots are borrowed, nor does it prove that PIE plain /k/ did

not

> exist, which was the starting point of all this.

Trying to sidetrack me here?


And see my previous answer.

And BTW, if "I win", I have the Occam prize before me: the abolition
of plain velars, which behave 'out of character' with the other
velars in that they can't be swayed; the are not affected by front
vowel contexts (which is what I think happened; *k' (actually a /k/)

> *c^e-/*ko- and *kW (originally /q/?) > *ke-/kWo-). Why is that?

Because they were loaned at a time (the /a/-less time) when
palatalisation had ceased to exist, when all new words were regular,
without strange stress alternations.

I don't know much Russian, but some years back I bought some from a
closing Communist bookstore; among them a Danish-Russian dictionary,
and a 'Novye Slova i Znachenniya', New words and meanings. Now in the
back, the dictionary had all kinds of types of inflection patterns
for various nouns, but the 'New words ...' didn't. Now why is that?
Because even highly irregular languages only keep a few and usually
regular types of inflection patterns open for 'new memberships'. And
you found no new verbs with g/z^ or k/c^ alternation like the old
ones had. And I think this situatiopn applies in general. Therefore I
suspect all words with 'plain velar' of being loaned. And their
associating themselves with /a/'s which are known outsiders, doesn't
allay my suspicion.

Torsten