Rules (was: swallow vs. nighingale)

---- Original Message ----
From: fournet.arnaud
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2007 3:18 AM
Subject: [!! SPAM] Re: [tied] swallow vs. nighingale

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Grzegorz Jagodzinski
> To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2007 2:45 AM
> Subject: Re: [tied] swallow vs. nighingale
>
>
>> And my notices about words mentioned in this thread.
>
>> 0. General notice. Contrary to Neo-grammarian believers, I doubt in
>> existence absolute phonetic rules in general (I do never call them
>> "laws" for the reason explained elsewhere). Of course, there may
>> exists rules without exceptions - but this seems to be a very rare
>> phenomenon. It is also possible to formulate rules in such complex
>> manner that the rule would explain all known examples - but I doubt
>> in practical use of such complex rules, illustrated by single
>> examples. ===============
> A.F
> What distinguishes Alchemy from Chemistry is the absence of rules.
> You need "rules" to make sure traceability exists. And the result of
> traceability is that you can prove something because you can also
> disprove it.
> No rules means empty speculation.
> ==============

Only a blind one can state that rules always exist when he can see that they
do not exist sometimes. See examples in other posts.

Nobody says "no rules", by the way. All I want to say is that the rules are
limited in their activity. As the result, historical linguistics does not
change in speculations. But we know that all reconstructions may only be
taken with some degree of probability, and that some words which looks like
unrelated may be related in fact.

Grzegorz J.



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