Re[4]: [tied] Re: Monovocalism: sequel

At 7:46:33 PM on Sunday, July 4, 2004, enlil@... wrote:

> Brian:

>> Nonsense. A reconstruction offers much weaker evidence
>> than a directly observable language, but it is not wholly
>> without evidentiary value.

> You're speaking nonsense. It has no value in determining
> language universals because the theory itself is _based_
> on these language universals which are supported by
> attestable data in modern languages as well as written
> ones in six-thousand years of historical records.

You appear to be under the impression that you were making a
limited statement about the value of a particular
reconstruction in respect of a particular linguistic
universal. In fact what you wrote was a general,
unqualified assertion that reconstructions have no
evidentiary value in respect of linguistic universals. Not
being a mindreader, I was responding to what you wrote, and
it is simply wrong.

Brian