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

At 7:45:23 PM on Sunday, July 6, 2008, stlatos wrote:

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

>> 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.

> What do you mean? You said it was a "fact" that irregular
> changes occurred, so why isn't it a principle that such
> changes account for some correspondences?

In what way is that assertion a *principle*? You can't use
it to do anything, for Pete's sake. But don't waste time
getting hung up on the word. The real point is that this
fact does not in itself justify claiming that such an
irregular relationship obtains between <Thraetaona> and
<Targitaus>; for that you need something like the
methodological principle to which I originally objected.

[...]

>>> 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.

> I'm not interested in arguing over semantics. If you don't
> want to call all regular sound changes "rules"

That was not at all my objection. I'm beginning to think
that you have a complete blind spot in this area; at any
rate your responses have either addressed superficial
details and ignored the point that I was trying to make or,
as here, exhibited totally unexpected misunderstandings.

> then just call them "regulas" or assume I'm doing so.

The problem is that you take changes to be regular on
little or no evidence -- sometimes with no evidence that
they even occurred.

>> 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.

> What principles are you using to determine when a change
> can be called "regular"? Is it the number of forms with as
> opposed to without the change in the (exact?) same
> environment?

That's certainly part of it, though not the whole.

> How specific should description of the env. be? Is
> A:thwiya/A:pt[i]ya able to be explained by changes p>w and
> wt>tw with just the provision that both are irregular and
> both happened to occur in this one word? If they are
> instead given as a result of the very specific environment
> (say, VVptV), are they irregular because the env. only
> occurred once in surviving words?

Of course, so far as anyone can tell. Regularity implies a
consistent pattern; a single data point does not constitute
a pattern. It is of course possible that that single data
point is all that has survived of a consistent pattern, but
it's clearly impermissible to assume so.

>>> comfortable, comftrable

>>> What caused this?

>>> comfortable
>>> comfrtable
>>> comftrable

>>> First came V2 > 0, a common though not necessarily
>>> completely regular change,

Not even close to completely regular, especially if you fail
to consider the location of the accent.

>>> then metathesis to correct an impossible cluster.

But of course it isn't impossible; with syllabic /r/ it's
not even all that uncommon.

>>> 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.

Though in my experience 'comft(e)rble' is a more common
variant anyway.

> That seems unlikely.

<shrug> I don't know how likely it is, but it's certainly
possible, and that's all that I require. I don't think that
it's outrageously unlikely -- the second step is merely a
kind of hypercorrection, after all -- but it doesn't
actually matter for the point that I was making.

>> 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.

> You said u: > U was a regular sound change with
> exceptions; I'd say V2 > 0 in a word with 3 or more vowels
> (usually in non-careful speech) was the same sort of
> thing, whatever you want to call it.

I wouldn't.

Brian