Re: swallow vs. nighingale

> > In order to aknowledge that the presence of fleeting a- is a

piece

> > of evidence for the presence of the bird substrate language, we
> > would have to show that:
> >
> > a) there does not exist a simpler explanation of the observed
> > phenomenon,
> > b) a similar phenomenon cannot be observed in other instances,
> > explained without the need of the substrate.
> >
> > These are fundaments of science. All the rest is just fantasies,
> > not science.
>
> No. If b) is false, ie if a similar phenomenon etc. we are not
> forced to give up the hypothesis of a substrate for the fleeting-a
> words in PIE.

On second thought, I'm wrong here, you are right in the discussion
of principles, except for one thing: in a discussion on principles,
you can't pick on one theory to exclude it, as you do in b). Leaving
out the phrase 'without the need of the substrate', I contest that
b) is true here, ie with respect to your Altaic example; the
irregularity of that example could be explained by the same device
I, following Schrijver, use to explain the irregularity of the
morphology of the bird etc words of IE and neighbors, namely by
assuming a substrate. All the more so as irregularity can never be
used as a given; the point of any hypothesis is to explain seeming
irregularities by regularities; factoring out those irregularities
into a putative donor language does just that.



Torsten