Re[2]: Horse Sense (was: [tied] Re: Hachmann versus Kossack?)

From: Brian M. Scott
Message: 57508
Date: 2008-04-17

At 8:49:09 PM on Wednesday, April 16, 2008, Patrick Ryan wrote:

> From: "david_russell_watson" <liberty@...>

>> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Patrick Ryan"
>> <proto-language@...> wrote:

>>> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "david_russell_watson"
>>> <liberty@...> wrote:

>>>> No, there's no steady association. Pokorny lists only
>>>> *k^e:ibh- and *k^e:igh- beginning with that sequence
>>>> and meaning 'quick', but no *k^(H)e-.

> - edit -

>>> Of course, there is a steady association between *k(^)e:-

>> Now you write 'k(^)e:' when previously you claimed only
>> 'k^(h)e', thus giving yourself the freedom now to work
>> with any of 'k^e:', 'ke:', 'k^He:', or 'khe:'. How wide
>> is your net going to get before it's all over with?

> Why do you delete what I wrote so everyone cannot easily
> see that you have misunderstood it - without archiving?

> You are distorting my words for rhetorical reasons because
> you have no real data to offer.

There is no distortion.

> I have not widened anything. I have been consistent
> throughout.

You have not. Your initial claim (in Nr. 57236) was simply:

There is a steady association of the segment *k^(h)e- and
'fast' in PIE.

In Nr. 57276, in response to David's objection, this
metamorphosed into:

Of course, there is a steady association between *k(^)e:-
(also *k(^)e:i-)

> I will say it simply so you can understand it:

> 1) roots that originally had *k^he- sometimes show up in
> Pokorny as *k^e:- because the languages which would show
> an aspirated voiceless stop are not always attested;

> 2) I wrote *k^e:- because even though the aspiration might
> not be attested, the vowel, *e:, _usually_ remains long;

> 3) so for practical purposes, the ideal *k^he:- will show
> up more often than not as *k^e:- in Pokorny;

> 4) this is important because the length is natural,
> compensating for the aspirate's losing its aspiration.

Without commenting on the substance of this explanation, I
will point out that none of it is present in your two
previous posts, so you cannot legitimately complain when
readers failed to find it.

>>> (also *k(^)e:i-) and 'fast' as Latin 'citus' might
>>> possibly suggest - from Pokorny's *ke:i-, 'set into
>>> motion'.

>> No, there are only _two_ associations, with the common
>> element being 'k^e:i', not 'k^e', not 'k^He', not 'ke',
>> and not 'kHe'. You're not free to just throw in *ke:i-,
>> which begins with a plain velar not a palato-velar, and
>> which doesn't mean anything like 'fast' in any case, as
>> motion can be slow just as well as it can be fast.

> First, there is no such thing as a palato-velar.

Apt or not, it's a familiar term for the series that
includes *k^ and *g^, whatever they may have been in
phonetic fact. Such terminological prissiness merely gets
in the way of any substantive argument that you may have.

[...]

> Second, the examples given by Pokorny given under the
> heading *ke:i- are, in the clear majority, referring to
> 'fast' or 'violent' motion. If anyone cares to refresh
> himself in Pokorny, they will be able to see that this is
> correct.

It isn't. Barring accidental omissions, what follows is a
complete list of the glosses in the article:

gehe web, fahre
folgte nach, durchstreifte
Eseltreiber
beweglich
werde bewegt, erschüttert, gehe
schwanke hin und her
setze in Bewegung, treibe
wecke, erwecke
schicken, senden
reize, necke
bestürmen, anfallen
in Bewegung setzen, regemachen, herbeirufen
schnell
in Bewegung setzen, kommen lassen, vorladen
ganz, stark bewegt, beunruhigt, in Angst und Gefahr
gesamt, sämtlich
invecta
exseri
heissen (= antreiben), befehlen, anrufen, nennen
rufen
bewegt, wippend
Bachstelze
lebhaft
bewegen[*]
bewegt die Glieder, ist in Bewegung
Bewegung, Gebärde
regt sich, geht fort
setzt sich in Gang, Marsch
marschierte
Unternehmung, Bemühung
Tun, Handeln, Wirken
Tat, Werk
Aufbruch
ich breche auf, reise ab
ich ging
setze in rasche, heftige Bewegung
eile, bin erregt
eilte
getrieben
in Gang gekommen
in Eile
bewege mich rasch oder heftig
treibt
die Völker zum Kampfe antreibend
betreibe
beschäftige mich anhaltend mit etwas
das hölzerne Rad
Radreifen

[*] 'vielleicht nur Grammatikererfindung'

No such clear majority is to be found; only Gk. (the last
13 items) shows any real tendency in that direction.

> So, this is the second misrepresentation.

> I called attention (but, of course, you missed it) to the
> condition that I would be dealing with roots. The
> correctly reconstructed root here is *k^he:-. The -*i is a
> root extension.

So you say. In fact Watkins takes the root to be *keih2-
'to set in motion', and his gloss fits the data in Pokorny
considerably better than yours. It also agrees with half of
Pokorny's gloss (see below).

[...]

>> Moreover you may not even claim 'fast' for *k^e:i-, for
>> we don't know that it yields any such meaning without the
>> addition of 'bh' or 'gh', as we find it. If it did,
>> Pokorny would already have made a separate entry of it,
>> as he wasn't shy about that sort of thing.

> Then Pokorny has organized his dictionary entries all
> wrong, has he not?

> If it tastes bad with sugar, and it tastes bad with salt,
> the chances are very good that it tastes bad.

> You want to outguess Pokorny. You have not got a chance.

You're the one trying to outguess Pokorny by lumping his
*k^e:i-bh- and *k^e:i-gh- entries in with his *ke:i- entry.
As David pointed out, Pokorny wasn't at all shy about
lumping; if he'd thought that there was any serious argument
for combining the three, at the very least he'd have
mentioned the possibility.

> If Pokorny meant 'move', he would have written 'bewegen'
> not 'in Bewegung setzen'. How well do you understand
> German?

Pokorny has 'in Bewegung setzen, in Bewegung sein'; that's
'to set in motion, to be in motion'. The first is roughly
the same as transitive 'to move', and the second is
intransitive 'to move'.

>>> I believe this is properly reconstructed as *k^(h)e:i-;
>>> and without going into Nostratic data to support the
>>> point, the semantic connections alone with *k^e:i-bh-
>>> and *k^e:i-gh- should suggest the possibility of an
>>> initial palatal *k^ for Pokorny's *ke:i-.

>> So you feel free to change one construction to make it
>> more like another to which you, and you alone, are sure
>> it is related? It was reconstructed with a plain velar
>> for a reason, and you're not entitled to reassign it to
>> force it to fit your personal theory.

>> *ke:i- begins with a different sound than *k^e:ibh- and
>> *k^e:igh-, and has a different meaning, and that is all
>> there is to that.

> I guess your eyes got tired before they came to Old Indian
> <cé:s.t.ati>.

It's glossed 'bewegt die Glieder, ist in Bewegung'; that's
'moves the limbs, is in motion' -- nothing to do with the
'schnell, heftig' ('quick, hasty, violent') gloss of
*k^e:ibh- and *k^e:igh-. And of course the <c> points to
*k, not *k^.

>> There is no "steady association" between *k^(H)e and the
>> meaning 'fast'.

> On the contrary.

If there is, you've altogether failed to demonstrate it.

>>> As for it being an unvoiced aspirate, *k^h rather than
>>> *k, anyone who has read Pokorny will be familiar with
>>> reconstructions like 1. and 2. *(s)p(h)el- where the
>>> notation indicates that the root occurs with or without
>>> *s-mobile, and without or without *(h).

>> Pokorny often has a legitimate reason for such a lumping,
>> and for which he offers real cognates as proof. You have
>> nothing comparable for your 'k(^)(h)e(:)(i)', which is no
>> more than a way to secure as many escape routes as you
>> possibly can.

> Pokorny lists *ske/e:i-, 'cut'.

> He then goes on to mention the word is attested also with
> *sk^, skh, sk^h.

Yes: _he_goes_on_to_mention_the_variation_, and his data
explain why he does so. But there is no such comment in the
*ke:i- article.

> What you might pick up from this is that lengthened vowels
> can be shortened; palatals and velars can interchange.

You might; I conclude only that either *this* root had such
variants, or Pokorny has conflated at least two roots.

[...]

> Obviously, you are unfamiliar with Pokorny's *(s)kek-,
> ;jump, lively motion'; this is the simple reduplication of
> *k^he:- with loss of palatalization and aspiration, and,
> in this case vowel length;

According to you.

> and how would you explain OI <khajati>? Oh yes, stick in a
> 'laryngeal'.




>>> Thus, I think the the possibility of an unpreserved
>>> aspirated voiceless stop in *ke:i- is measurable; and I
>>> reconstruct *k^He:i-. The root extension -*i is what
>>> transforms *k^he-, '*deer', into 'fast.

>> There is no *k^he- meaning 'deer' upon which to make such
>> a transformation.

> I have explained this also. *k^em- (*k^he:m-), hornless',
> refers to the 'hind'.

But we don't buy this oddball interpretation in the first
place. It runs completely counter to the evidence. Thus,
there's no point offering it as justification.

>>> I propose that early PIE words for 'deer', like our
>>> 'hind', contained the segment *k^(h)e- so that *k^em-,
>>> 'hornless', should be regarded as a generalization of
>>> 'hind' rather than 'hind' being derived from 'hornless'.

>>> The sense 'fast' is the characterization of any 'deer';
>>> it can be augmented by derivative -*y as in *k^he:i- but
>>> is unaugmented in words like *ken-, 'exert one's self',
>>> where both palatalization and aspiration have not been
>>> reconstructed: properly *k^(h)e(:)n-.

>> 'k^(h)e(:)n' means 'k^he:n', or 'k^hen', or 'k^e:n', or
>> 'k^en'. Again you try to secure as much wiggle room for
>> yourself as possible.

> It is you wiggling not I.

David is quite correct: you're allowing yourself a great
deal of latitude in varying segments to get the matches that
you want.

>>>> This is your semantic-chain game again, this time going
>>>> from 'fast' to 'deer' to 'hind' to 'hornless'.

>>> As usual, you twist my words to serve your own rhetoric.

>> Twisting words isn't something I _ever_ do, so you are
>> lying when you say 'as usual'.

> You are a liar about lying, which is the usual pattern.

David is correct on both counts. I have never seen him
twist words, and you *are* playing silly buggers with the
semantics again.

>>> I _do_ suggest a semantic connection between 'deer' and
>>> 'fast'; the connection with 'hornless' is through
>>> *k^(h)e(:)m-, 'hind',

>> There is no *k^hem-, *k^he:m-, or *k^e:m- meaning 'hind',
>> only *k^em-.

>>> not *k^he:-, 'deer'.

>> There is no *k^he:- 'deer', or do you derive that from
>> Pokorny's *k^ei- 'to lie down', on the basis that deer
>> lie down at least once a day, or do you derive that from
>> Pokorny's *k^ei- 'a k. of dark colour', on the basis that
>> some deer are dark, or do you derive that from Pokorny's
>> *k^e, for which see *ak^- 'to eat', on the basis that
>> deer eat?

> I knew you would revert to snide sarcasm.

But you didn't answer the legitimate objections.

>>> Do we not sometimes say: 'he's as fast as a deer!'?

>> Well I don't, but I'm sure somebody does. I am likewise
>> fully convinced that deer lie down, that some deer are
>> dark colored, and that all deer eat, but so what?

> The slot was filled. 'Bears' were named for their 'lying
> down' = 'hibernation'.

Another private theory?

>> It's a neat trick yours: when one of your roots is shown
>> to be fabricated, you just create three more to "prove"
>> it real, and when each of those is exposed in its turn,
>> you invent still more.

> "fabricated"??? Am I a forger?

To fabricate is to create, to make, and you're certainly
creating roots that exist only in your imagination.

[...]

>>>> Moreover, why not follow the shorter route available to
>>>> you, from *k^em- in its properly reconstructed meaning
>>>> 'hornless'? Horses are similiar to cattle and deer in
>>>> many ways, yet always hornless, and the insertion of an
>>>> 'e' and the elimination (or conversion to 'w'?) of 'm'
>>>> surely involves much less voodoo than converting 'aira'
>>>> to 'e'.

>>> If your data was correct, yes. But GIGO, from 'aira' the
>>> route is tortuous; from *ai-ra:, as II have demonstrated
>>> above, it is far less problematical.

>> No, because we have 'aira:' alone, or 'ai-ra:' if you
>> prefer, with the meaning 'grass', not 'ai'.

> It is Pokorny's segmentation, not mine.

It also makes no difference to David's point. Whether
Pokorny's segmentation is right or wrong, or for that matter
whether his reconstruction of the root is right or wrong, it
is clearly the full *aira:- that underlies the material
offered in support of the root, NOT *ai-, let alone **e-.

[...]

>>> It is like when we propose *d in Language A -> *t in
>>> Language B. The first step is pure speculation.
>>> Additional speculation either confirms or denies the
>>> original speculation,

>> It's not additional speculation that confirms the first.
>> That's ridiculous. It is sets of systematic sound
>> correspondences in numbers larger than likely to occur by
>> random chance. See the article 'How likely are chance
>> resemblances between languages?' at
>> http://www.zompist.com/chance.htm .

> I saw it years ago. Total garbage.

No, it isn't. It's a bit oversimplified, partly of
necessity and perhaps partly for the intended audience, but
it's basically sound.

> Like Ringe-aroud-the Rosie.

At least one of Ringe's papers on the same subject contains
some real errors, but even in it his results are
qualitatively correct.

Of course those whose pet ideas rely on finding a very
modest number of very loose matches have a hard time
accepting the fact that Mark and Ringe are demonstrating.

Brian