From: Patrick Ryan
Message: 58422
Date: 2008-05-09
----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Wordingham" <richard@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, May 09, 2008 7:03 AM
Subject: [tied] Reconstruction (was: Grimm 's Law fact or myth: Gessman
(1990))
--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "fournet.arnaud" <fournet.arnaud@...>
wrote:
> From: "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...>
> >Obviously there are
> >the same methodological problems in reconstructing words as
> >reconstructing buildings or civilizations, but in each case what you
> >reconstruct is something which once existed, and no one is doubt of
that.
If only that were true. For counter-examples, see Pokorny. It's been
suggested that all roots not attested in three branches should be
discarded as probably being wrong.
Similarly, with Nostratic reconstructions, even if the hypothesis is
correct, a great many proposed correspondences are wrong.
Unfortunately, I think in many cases we will not be able to tell which
ones are wrong. Some of us have to learn to work with noisy data.
> One method could be to work with a one-to-one feature approach
> for example a matricial formula like P_K where P is any labial stop
and K
> any velar stop,
> be it voiced, voiceless or whatever.
> That method would sort out more words than the comparative words does,
> and in the case of some of your beloved substrates,
> we might easily identify words with the same phonemic pattern as the
> standard formulas.
> This is another approach.
> It's more quantic than newtonian.
> I suppose the orthodoxists will look upon this method with the same
> horrified gape as XIX century's physics would look upon quantics and
> relativity.
You've dropped your detection threshold - you'll always have a lot of
false cognates. You'll have to cope with the fact* that, say, 80% of
your correspondences are wrong.
*The error rate will have to be an estimate rather than a fact - not
something that unduly bothers statisticians.
Richard.
***
Patrick:
Essentially, I agree with everything you have written here, Richard.
But why as high as 80%?
That seems unduly pessimistic to me.
***