Re: Volcae and Volsci

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@...> wrote:

>
> At 5:50:05 AM on Sunday, March 30, 2008, tgpedersen wrote:
>
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott"
> > <BMScott@> wrote:
>
> >> At 2:26:46 PM on Saturday, March 29, 2008, tgpedersen
> >> wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> >>> No, what you want to do is present an example which
> >>> can't have been caused by a substrate.
>
> >> In your world I doubt that there is such a thing. Even in
> >> my world it would, I think, be very difficult to find
> >> such a thing. That's why your extreme reliance on
> >> substrates, like your reliance on invisible underclasses,
> >> is methodologically unsound.
> >
> > I always relate underclasses to to substrates and
> > therefore to previous conquests
>
> I know. Since you don't otherwise appear to lack
> imagination, overcommitment to a theory seems the likeliest
> explanation of this reflex.

I relate underclass (or upperclass) to substrate because
1) it reduces the number of variables in the claim,
2) it adds a falsifiable claim to a proposal of a substrate
3) it's good practice; most people who propose substrates do that

> > and they consequently becomes yet another touchstone which
> > my claim has to be tested on. You might think that
> > disregarding history and archaeology to obtain a clean
> > science of linguistics is methodologically unsound;
>
> Eh? This has nothing to do with my point, though I do of
> course think that a historical linguist who disregards
> archaeology and history is every bit as foolish as an
> archaeologist or historian who makes the complementary
> error.
>
> The point is the same one that I made a few weeks ago in
> connection with your shibboleth fetish: 'I think that
> resorting in the first instance to an explanation that in
> general cannot be tested is methodologically unsound.'

> In many cases your 'explanation' is empty: it explains nothing
> and is in all probability incapable of either demonstration
> or refutation.

If you think a claim I make is explains nothing, say so. That's what
this list is for.
If you think if it's incapable of either demonstration or refutation,
find out if it's true and then speak up.

> In other cases it's downright ludicrous,
> like your 'gradually germanized originally NWBlock speaking
> underclass' that finally shows up in 17th century English.

All the Germanic languages, with the exception of High German and
Icelandic have been heavily creolized, to a degree not seen in other
European IE groups, possibly with the exception of Northern Romance.
This creolization took place at the same time in parallel in those
languages. In most other cases no linguist would hesitate to assume a
substrate was at play here, but this one involves the m,other tongues
of those very same linguists, and there seems to be an assumption that
white folks don't speak creole. The reason I assumed at the time that
NWBlock was that substrate (the non-NWBlock, that is, there was a IE
NWBlock which followed it) was that I thought perhaps Lower Saxony,
the home of the Elbe-Germani at the time they became active in
expanding in the 1st century BCE might have spoken that language. Now
I think we'll have to go back to the Corded Ware culture to find that
language, which would also be the language of the geminates; the
distributions of the creolized features, geminate loanwords and
archaeological Corded Ware horizon is the best match I can find.

> [...]
>
> > How would you explain all the early English names in P-,
> > eg., if you disregard NWBlock?
>
> My objection was to *excessive* reliance on substrates, not
> to any and all appeal thereto; here there seems to be at
> least some sort of case to be made, though I'd not go so far
> as to say that you actually have an explanation.

No, your objection was that any claim that a substrate is present is
unfalsifiable. The 'excessive' part is your subjective assessment of
my practice, which you back up with no arguments having to do with the
theory of science. You can't have your cake and eat it, Brian, either
you accept the idea of substrates, and then you have an explanation
for the names in P-, or you condemn it as scientifically unsound, and
then you don't have an explanation.


Torsten