From: Patrick Ryan
Message: 42699
Date: 2006-01-01
----- Original Message -----
From: "Miguel Carrasquer" <mcv@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, January 01, 2006 3:45 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] Re: Etymology of PIE *ph2ter
> On Sun, 01 Jan 2006 13:42:59 -0600, Patrick Ryan
> <proto-language@...> wrote:
>
> >The very concept of nursery words is infantile.
> >
> >An infant does _not_ assign meanings to words.
> >
> >An infant makes random sounds, and adults choose to reinforce some
> >associations and discourage others in exactly the same way that _any_
> >vocabulary item is taught.
>
> That's not the point.
>
> The point is that nursery words are re-created with every
> new generation, so they are meaningless in long-range (or
> even medium-range) linguistical comparison. In other words,
> the fact that most Germanic languages have a word for
> "father" starting with p- (pops, pap, pappa, Pappi, etc.) is
> not an argument against Grimm's law.
>
> =======================
> Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
> mcv@...
***
Patrick:
Utter ridiculous!
Who re-creates them? Children tapping into a Platonic universal?
Grimm's Law needs to be updated to provide for vocabulary used within the
family circle.
***