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

From: Brian M. Scott
Message: 59497
Date: 2008-07-07

At 4:25:49 AM on Monday, July 7, 2008, tgpedersen wrote:

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

[...]

>> It is an empirical fact that irregular changes occur,

> That's wrong.

Literally, yes, but it's an obvious shorthand for an
obviously correct statement.

> Irregularity is not a property of a set of changes, but of
> a set of changes with respect to a given set of rules.

Indeed. And of course a rule with only finitely many
exceptions can trivially be rewritten as a rule having no
exceptions simply by incorporating the exceptions in the
statement of the rule. But no one in his right mind would
consider the result a satisfactory rule as the word is
usually employed in this context. (I might add that
postulating dialects/sociolects that are not otherwise in
evidence is methodologically no sounder than devising
unsupported chains of sound changes to account for possible
isolated relationships.)

Brian