Re: [tied] Re: Convergence in the formation of IE subgroups

----- Original Message -----

From: Piotr Gasiorowski

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Wednesday, May 10, 2006 4:54 PM

Subject: Re: [tied] Re: Convergence in the formatin of IE subgroups

On 2006-05-10 18:00, Patrick Ryan wrote:

> That "some authority had decided that Nostratic" (also
> Proto-Language) "is too old" was exactly what was asserted on this list.

Can you name names?

 

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Patrick:

 

Yes. Brian.

 

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"Nostratic is too old" is not an a priori assertion
or an authoritative prohibition but one of a number of possible
explanations (a posteriori) of the fact that the Nostratic hypothesis,
like many other long-range proposals, hasn't fared very well so far.

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Patrick:

 

That the Nostratic Hypothesis has not fared well is not due to its weakness but to the ideological stances of its opponents.

 

Bomhard, for example, is, in the main, on the right track even if I do not agree in all specifics:

 

http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/NostraticDictionary.htm

 

No one who is totally objective can look at what he (and I; and others) have assembled without realizing that there is validity to the Nostratic idea. Only the details remain to be fine-tuned.

 

> The idea that "the methods (that) have been tried and haven't
> yielded much" is due to the lack of proficiency of the
> reconstructionists not to the model.

Oh, really? How do you know the model is sound if no consistent
reconstruction exists? By clairvoyance? That the methods haven't yielded
much is just a plain fact.

 

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Patrick:

 

Nostratic has been proved. If we can argue over the "origin" of English "'s", no one of sane mind will dispute the datum that "'s" exists.

 

That to which I was referring was, primarily, the PAA reconstructions.

 

I also believe that 'laryngeal' explanations for PIE phenomena have been abused.

 

In the case of PAA, in spite of the strange reconstructions, one can still see the outlines of an undoubtable relationship among the various included languages.

 

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> And when you write that perhaps "we are indeed dealing with too deep
> chronologies", you are re-asserting — through a backdoor — the "too
> old" argument assuming the destructive effects of language change
> invalidating reconstruction attempts. Perhaps you do not even
> realize that.

I'm not going to prevent anyone from trying to demonstrate the validity
of long-range groupings. I can only wish such adventurous spirits
success. But somehow the task proves to be enormously difficult -- much
more difficult, at any rate, than the reconstruction of the ancestral
language of a family with the probable time depth of five or six
millennia. Information (and with it, evidence of relatedness) _is_
gradually lost over time as a side-effect of language change. This fact
_must_ make reconstruction problematic sooner or later.

Piort

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Patrick:

 

Well, that is why Ballester's essay is so useful.

 

It shows rather persuasively that linguistic stability over great periods of time _should_ be expected when other factors, which he details, do not negate it. Linguistic stability is what we should be able to see unless other situations arise to upset it.

 

This is the opposite of the now prevalent view that linguistic change is the norm; and that time-periods of relative stability are the exception rather than the rule.

 

This latter position is logically indefensible. It asserts effect without cause.

 

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