Re: Re[2]: [tied] *kW- "?"

>
> Patrick:
>> 'Markedness' is a useless concept.
>> If it had any legitimacy, Khoisan could not exist
>> with its very "marked" clicks.
>
> Brian:
>> This is an absurd straw man.
>
> Patrick:
>> Why do you not explain why this is absurd?
>
> Simple: Markedness shows that Khoisan clicks are
> EXCEEDINGLY RARE, _not_ non-existent.
>
> Since Khoisan clicks are a REALITY, not a theory, we
> must accept this rarity as a fact. Markedness is
> not contradicted by this fact. Pay attention.
>
> IE is not a 'fact' but an ongoing theory. Since a
> theory can never be accepted as absolute fact, it
> must be _changed_ to suit reality because reality
> cannot be changed to suit schizophrenia.

If I get Patrick right, he's trying to say something like this: there are
some languages in the world which have very unusual traits. But because we
know for a fact that they exist, we cannot say that these feature cannot
exists. But if we reconstruct some strange feature in a proto-language
(and we reconstruct it because the evidence point to it), we tend to say -
oh that can't be, there's no such language. Sure, typology is useful and
markedness theory can be useful as well but sometimes they can set you on
the wrong track.

Mate