Re: [tied] Re: Some thoughts...

On 04-10-06 09:37, Sean Whalen wrote:

> I'm sorry to bother you all again, but I'd like to
> be clearer. I've worked on an internal reconstruction
> of PIE for about the last week and have formed over
> 100 rules that can derive any word from a base form
> within a consistent framework. This is very important
> to me, matching my wildest dreams (of linguistics).
>
> I really would appreciate it if you would help me
> or just tell me where an amateur's work could be
> published or put online. This is for your benefit,
> not mine, since I already know what I have done.
> Almost all irregularities and oddities have been
> explained, leaving an oldest form suitable for further
> work linking it with Proto-Afro-Asiatic and -Uralic.
>
> I know how this seems to you professional
> linguists, but I've somehow managed to advance PIE
> reconstruction more than it has in the past century.
> I would think someone making these claims was worse
> than the attempts at Nostratic or World Language from
> current language forms, but I can't help it. It's all
> real. Will you give me a chance?

Dear Sean,

How about testing your ideas on an informal forum like this one before
you attempt to publish them? How is anyone to trust your "advanced
reconstruction" without being able to inspect at least some crucial
parts of it? You might show us in what ways it is superior to mainstream
scholarship, give us examples of hard problems you have managed to
crack, etc. Your word for it just isn't enough, since, as we all know
from experience, claims like yours usually turn out to be vastly
inflated. You say, "I already know what I have done". Well, that's 100%
subjective, isn't it? You don't really know what you've done until other
people see and evaluate your private theory, since you can't be an
impartial judge in your own case.

Piotr