From: fournet.arnaud
Message: 58405
Date: 2008-05-08
----- Original Message -----
From: "mkelkar2003" <swatimkelkar@...>
> At one level, Grimm's Law is simply a factual description
The languages are factual. Grimm's Law is not. It is theory of what
could have happened.
========
Grimm's Law entails two times of analysis :
time 1 : some consonants in Germanic languages consistently are replaced by
other consonants in Skrt, Greek, LAtin, etc.
Such as for example : f th h for p t k elsewhere.
time 2 : this is because Germanic languages have undergone a specific
change.
Grimm's Law is not exactly a fact : more an observably finished sound
change.
Arnaud
==========
> The languages like English and
> German are facts but "Germanic" languages is not a fact and so is PIE.
==========
Are you serious ?
Arnaud
=======
> From my long presence here, what I have found is
> many members are not able to take an objective view of anything
> perhaps because they are used to taking subjective reconstructions as
> factual description of history.
> M. Kelkar
==========
Reconstructions are just a way of stating that IE languages share a certain
number of lexical isomorphisms.
This is not subjective.
Anybody can check that it works or not.
Now, you may criticize the comparative method,
are you capable of doing that ?
Reconstructions are not history
Interpretation of reconstructions is history.
Arnaud