Re[2]: [tied] Scythian tribal names: Paralatai

At 7:53:45 PM on Saturday, July 5, 2008, stlatos wrote:

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

>> At 1:04:13 AM on Saturday, July 5, 2008, stlatos wrote:

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

>> [...]

>>>> 'Aptya'/'Athwiya' is indeed an irregular
>>>> correspondence, but one on obviously much more solid
>>>> ground than 'Thraetaona'/ 'Targitaus'.

>>> Yes, of course, but the principle that changes might
>>> occur in only one word in a language and still be valid
>>> and identifiable must be used for both.

>> It is an empirical fact that irregular changes occur, not
>> a matter of principle,

> Are you objecting to my use of the word "principle"?

I'm objecting to the notion that any principle is involved.
Obviously this entails objecting to the use of the word, but
my objection goes well beyond that.

>> and there is no guarantee that isolated instances can
>> even be identified, let alone demonstrated. Even when an
>> irregular relationship is very likely, the details of the
>> change are generally undemonstrable in the absence of
>> intermediate forms.

> It's the same for all historical linguistics. I'm not
> going to treat irregular rules as rendering all attempts
> at reconstruction impossible.

I consider 'irregular rule' an oxymoron. There are regular
sound changes that fail to go to completion, like /u:/ > /U/
in <roof>, <root>, and <room> (in my idiolect: in some
varieties it did occur in these words); but the only puzzle
here is why the exceptions weren't affected. There are
sound changes that are too sporadic to be called regular but
that are none the less well enough attested to be clearly
identifiable, like /U/ > /V/ in <blood>, <flood>; these give
the impression of being aborted sound changes. There are
tendencies, which may just be rules whose conditioning
factors aren't yet understood. But 'rules' posited to
account for an isolated change aren't rules at all.

>> There is obviously some value in finding a plausible
>> pathway, but in the case of an isolated change it isn't
>> subject to confirmation; it's a Just-So story, and the
>> proposed 'rules' have no real evidentiary support.

> I disagree. Consider:

> comfortable, comftrable

> What caused this?

> comfortable
> comfrtable
> comftrable

> First came V2 > 0, a common though not necessarily
> completely regular change, then metathesis to correct an
> impossible cluster. This intermediate form is
> undemonstrable because it occurs within the minds of
> speakers, not in speech or writing, but the stage with frt
> before ftr is needed to explain the whole.

That isn't even the only possible path: comfortable >
comftable followed by misplaced r-insertion in more careful
speech also works. But even if I accepted the necessity of
your particular sequence of changes, I would not call the
individual steps 'rules' or treat them as such.

[...]

> The Laryngeal Theory came about very similarly: no
> apparent possibility of certain demonstration, but
> proposed as a rational explanation, then later new
> discoveries validated it. [...]

Even without the later discoveries it had a great deal of
explanatory power; a one-off demonstration that there are
individually more or less plausible pathways from a putative
common ancestor to two attested forms by itself does not.

>>> You can object to the particulars of my reconstruction,
>>> but not the theory behind it.

>> I do in fact object to one of your fundamental
>> methodological principles: crudely stated, that if two
>> words might have a common source, they do, at least if
>> you can come up with derivations that you find plausible.

> I split up those considered of common origin if they don't
> fit my rules as well: *pr- 'far, around' and *pYr- '(up)
> to, through' are different, based on such changes as e>o
> by P, p>f but pY>p, etc., in dif. languages. It's all
> based on evidence; if you think it's too thin then say so,
> but don't act as if I'm following a ridiculous principle
> of my own making.

I do think that you often rely on evidence that's so thin as
to be damn' near intangible, but I also think that your
methodology is flawed in principle.

Brian