Jens:
> Syllabic structure is one of the many things that can change over
> time.
Given that the syllabic structure I posit for MIE is quite different
from that of IE itself, perhaps you are the one that should take
note of your own wisdom. I'm fully aware of this fact and have long
since incorporated it into my theory.
> What matters is what the facts demand.
You're not listening to your own mantra.
The facts are the Uralic is a CV(C) language. It is reconstructed that
way based on what the facts demand! EA doesn't seem to demand anything
more than -CC at the end of words if what you're saying is correct.
Otherwise, we see CV(C) yet again. Considering that Uralic and EA appear
to be especially linked, it's easy to see why the syllable structure
might be similar. It's not hard to explain why -CC would develop at the
end of the word.
Those facts then, combined with QAR in IE (which isn't necessarily a
"fact" in your mind but damned if it ain't nifty), would seem to demand
that the common protolanguage (call it Proto-Steppe or whatever you want)
was a language that only allowed CV(C) syllables. No Nostraticist
has ever succesfully demonstrated connections between IE and its
initial consonant clusters on the one hand and feasible cognates
outside of IE. (Hell, they have enough trouble with simple sound
correspondances half of the time!) What correlates with IE *str-, for
example? It's laughable that anybody would even continue to try to find
a correlate with this in Uralic or EA. Anybody with a functioning brain
can see that IE created those consonant clusters because of stress off
of the initial syllable. IE is the only language in this list with
accentual ablaut patterns like *?es-mi/*?s-mes and the only one
coincidentally with a _mobile_ accent.
It's time for you to add two plus two in this respect. I think that an
underlying CV(C) pattern can still work well with your analyses and
even explain the origins of some of the patterns.
> No, I haven't told you about the details. I wrote a book about it,
> but the matter does not belong on this list.
Fair enough.
> Could it ease your pain that the analysis of the type nat&q as /natR-
> / was not made by me, but by Robert Underhill?
It opened the wound actually :) Now I know we're a bunch of silly
monkeys playing with arsenals. We're doomed as a species.
= gLeN