From: Patrick Ryan
Message: 39441
Date: 2005-07-26
----- Original Message -----
From: "david_russell_watson" <liberty@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, July 25, 2005 3:51 PM
Subject: [tied] Re: Short and long vowels
--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Patrick Ryan" <proto-language@...>
wrote:
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "David Russell Watson"
<liberty@...> wrote:
<snip>
Alright then, where can I find a description of this Proto-
Afro-Asiatico(?)-Indo-European? Where are the tables of
sound correspondences laid out? Where are the tables of
conjugations and declensions? Where are the series of sound
changes described that gave rise to each descendant of this
proto-language? As I've hinted, I'm not interested in helping
you to formulate your Nostratic theory, if I were I would
participate on Nostratic-L. If you want your Nostratic
theory to influence my own view of P.I.E., then it is up
to you to make a proper case for it, and to make that case
somewhere else in fact, and only then come back.
***
Patrick:
Here is the link again. It has everything you have requested.
http://geocities.com/proto-language/c-AFRASIAN-3.htm
***
> > You don't still believe that you can reconstruct the
> > first human language, do you?
You didn't answer this one.
***
Patrick:
Because it is not germane to the question of the relationship of Afrasian to
PIE.
But yes, I believe I have isolated the monosyllables that made up the
world's first language.
You can see them if you wish at:
http://geocities.com/proto-language/ProtoLanguage-Monosyllables.htm
***
> > Well that would be somewhat of a job, and moreover not
> > properly a job for me. I joined a list for Indo-European
> > linguistics, while yours is a question of Nostratics.
>
> Well, if you want to learn all there is to know about PIE,
> you must go beyond PIE to other comparisons.
One can construct a proto-language out of any two languages
assumed cognates, only that reconstruction won't reflect
reality if the two languages haven't been proven related by
other means.
***
Patrick:
That is the method of proving it. The test of correctness is whether the
correspondences proposed can be successfully applied over and over again.
There is nothing arbitrary about my method.
***
I will give you a connection to Afro-asiatic,
simply because some respectable members of this list don't
seem to doubt it, and because I personally just don't know
enough about it to say, but I do know that Sumerian has most
certainly not been properly connected to any other known
language.
> Internal reconstruction only takes us halfway.
Halfway where? This topic of this list isn't Proto-Nostratic,
remember?
***
Patrick:
I will ask you a question by way of answering yours.
What is the difference among:
1. mel-, 'crush';
2. mel-, 'deceive; and
8. mel-, come forth'.
???
Do you think they were all originally identical?
***
> If you are unwilling to do that, then some of the most
> interesting aspects of PIE will remain ever hidden to you.
I'm fairly certain that most of these interesting aspects
that you claim are phantoms arising out of your improper
methodology.
***
Patrick:
Strong words from a person who has not even looked at the appropriate files
at my website, or read Bomhard.
As for 'improper', tell me what is improper about my methodology. It is
identical to what others used when reconstructing PIE from the various
daughter languages.
You are fairly free with the disparaging epithets.
***
> I think your recollection is a bit unbright.
"Unbright"? You like to coin new words, eh?
> I never have said or written anything like "penis - bright -
> bright - make". Where do you think you got that?
Please see http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/39403 ,
where you wrote
> The first element I would propose to identify in the four words
> designating members of the nuclear family is *H2éH2{e}-ter, 'fire',
> itself a compound (a reduplication of **H2e-, '**bright' [cf. 4.
> *a:y-, 'burn'] + 3. *ter-, '*make' [cf. Gk. toreía, 'preparation
> of embossed work in stone or metal']).
and
> If combined with *bheH2r-, 'what protrudes, **male genital', we
> obtain *bhar- + *á:tr.-, which would give *bhrá:tr.-, 'male part
> of the family'. To connect it with 1. *bher- is rather too broad.
> What, pray tell, did the primeval son 'carry'?
and so "penis - bright - bright - make". Although I suppose
that the male _genitals_ ('genital' is an adjective) include
(ideally) more than just the penis, and so even though I don't
buy 'male genital' < 'what protrudes', I am willing to amend
it to "male genitals - bright - bright - make".
Actually, I'm going to have to let go of your "genitals" and
your "breasts" right now before I become tempted to get silly
with them. (I once shaved Torsten's beaver, you know?)
***
Patrick:
From an infantile standpoint, I guess you were right.
***
> > That's significant though, because even if you both agree
> > that Sumerian is Nostratic, your two voices don't constitute
> > cumulative support of that when you differ in your actual
> > reconstructions.
>
> Excuse me, but that is ridiculous.
No that's simple logic.
***
Patrick:
No, it is ignorant. And I am not the only one to think so.
Check other recent posts for a refutation of your purblindness.
***
> If I say I like vanilla ice cream for the color, and another says
> he likes it for the flavor, we can both be said to find vanilla
> ice cream desirable.
Your claim is that since both Bomhard and Ryan believe in the
cognacy of Sumerian and P.I.E., that it must be so.
***
Patrick:
That is not my view, and it is not Bomhard's view.
The relationship is not a priori, it is a hypothesis that he tested, and I
tested; we bppth found it a tenable hypothesis.
***
However we
have agreed that it is the quality of the argument itself and
nothing else that matters, have we not? So if you and Bomhard
are making the same argument, it amounts to _one_ argument, and
one argument made no better simply because two share it. If on
the other hand you and Bomhard make different arguments, they
cancel each other out in so far as they differ.
***
Patrick:
You are really dense.
If a start with Egyptian d3, tremble', and compare it to PIE *der-,
'tremble', it does not matter one little turdlet if I say the proto-form of
the first consonant was /l°/ or /z/ or /þ/ as long as I can show that
whatever proto-consonant I propose consistently shows up in Egyptian as <d>
and in PIE as *d.
***
> Ah, subjective. A pig is a pig, and Marilyn Monroe is Marilyn
> Monroe.
To me, Marilyn Monroe, with here flat turned-up nose centered
midway between here eyes and mouth (instead of being closer to
her mouth as is necessary to be beautiful) did somewhat resemble
a pig in the face. I don't really find her attractive at all.
Of course there is the fact too, that regardless of how she may
have looked, Monroe was a basket case, making your analogy some-
what apt, because you ought to be more concerned with the content
of your posts, which leaves something to be desired, rather than
the mere appearance.
***
Patrick:
_Normal_ men, all over the world found her attractive. Of course, that just
means you are a sport.
***
> The appreciation of beauty is built into every healthy human
> being, and has genetic commonality thoughout the world.
Well I never found your posts particularly beautiful, I'm afraid,
and precisely because they were so poorly formatted. There is
beauty in efficiency, brevity, conciseness, and clarity, is there
not? I'm not sure how you thought that HTML covered for the lack
of these.
David
***
Patrick:
There is beauty in reading first that on which you spew opinions. Why not
try it?
***
Yahoo! Groups Links