Patrick Ryan wrote:
> ***
> Patrick:
>
> I am going to comment here on the language being used not on the main
> argument which is being handled nicely by Grzegorz and Brian.
>
> Grzegorz, I think you do not understand that implying someone is
> "undereducated", as you do here below, is an insult, and an
> argumentum ad hominem, even if it be true.
Patrick, you would have been right if I had written "you are undereducated".
But I had not. "You quote bad sources written by undereducated ones" means
not the same. You may term it an attack ad homines if you insist, or better
ad personas - but it is not a direct attack towards a person I discuss with.
A subtle but important difference.
I only stated, and I maintain it, than most linguist (the majority) did not
even know what Zipf wrote. They think that he wrote only about statistic
classes, and they quote one another in this point to motivate what they
think. Only few (the minority) have the consciousness that Zipf formulated a
law which deals with probabilities and word length in a text. Which is more,
the majority sometimes tries to send the minority back to school or suggests
that the minority misscalls Zipf's law. Very sad, indeed.
> Terming someone's argument "ridiculous", i.e. 'worthy of ridicule', is
> similarly offensive.
Not similarly, and it is not an attack ad hominem but an attack ad
argumentum. Anyway, it is much less offensive than "don't be ridiculous",
isn't it? I have heard such lines from my adversary but he has not heard
such a statement from me, so you need not be his attorney.
> I would also suggest a new thread, "Zipf's Law", since the arguments
> advanced bear little relationship to *kap-.
I do not think it is needed. As I said, it was not my intention to explain
what Zipf's law is and what it is not, which linguists understand this term
only like a statistic law and which linguists understand this term as a law
saying about relations between word lengths and frequencies. I talked about
some words which were changed due to frequency and not because of such or
another phonetic rule ("sound law"). I quoted Zipf's law as the base for my
statement. And even if it appeared that there is not the accordance here on
what Zipf's law is and what it is not, I have been under impression that
nobody calls my argument in question. But "has", "had" developed
irregularily, and they are in close relation to PIE *kVp-. Ergo: we should
expect that *kVp- developed irregularily in other languages as well. Ergo:
Latin and Germanic habe:- may be related even if against known sound rules.
This is what is important, all the rest is unnecessary commentary.
> What published authors (print or Net) say about
> Zipf is interesting
... but it is more interesting what Zipf himself said. I gave a quotation.
> but lining up a group of publishers who _seem_
> to agree with you
Is there any seeming in terming Zipf's law "dealing with probabilities and
word length in a text"? Or in the statement "George K. Zipf is famous for
his law of abbreviations"? (it's from the article quoted by Brian, by the
way) But abbreviation = a making shorter, and short has something to do with
length, and not with statistic classes, isn't it? So, what doubt have you?
> is only proof that some interpret Zipf in the same
> way that you do (if, in fact, they do - which I sincerely doubt).
If you are interested in this problem, read W. Man'czak's book "Problemy
je,zykoznawstwa ogólnego". Yes, of course, the book is in Polish, and what
of it. Professor Man'czak, who is a Romancist and a scholar interested in
generel linguistics, gives a detailed analysis of the problem and plenty of
examples on how Zipf's law functions. At the beginning of chapter 3, he
wrote (my translation): "even if the name of the American linguist Zipf is
scarcely known to most linguists, there is no doubt that the history of
linguistics will acknowledge him as one of the most eminent lingists of the
20th century". It appears that we should agree with both those statements:
that Zipf is scarcely known and that his law has much more universal
character than so called "sound laws".
> You both want to determine exactly what Zipf had in mind with his
> formulation? Ask him (if he is still alive?).
Not a problem, let's read his books. I cited him just because of this.
Grzegorz J.
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