Re: *ka/unt- etc, new conquests

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, johnvertical@... wrote:

>
> > It is not possible to make an object-based description of a
> > scenario of the movement of physical bodies (including object
> > representations of statements of events (collisions etc) and
> > permanent facts) without a statement like that.
>
> > We still have such a theory, because there's no other way we can
> > represent it (actually there is another, totally different way to
> > represent gravity, namely as curved space, but that fact should
> > tell us something about the limitations of our perceptional
> > categories).
>
> One word: "field".

Which is the same as curved space. So you agree there are at least two formulations.

> And with that, I think I'm done with this tangent.

Oh. That precludes you from answering this:
Fields or curved space descriptions must contain objects too, or they are useless, and once you have moving objects, interaction and causation you have the problem of the primus movens or prima causa. Agency again.

> > > How would you propose disproving a word's belonging into one of
> > > your substrate loan complexes?
> >
> > Words which have cognates in relatives of the successor languages
> > should be assigned to the successor languages. Those which
> > fulfill one of the defining characteristics of the proposed
> > substrate languages should be assigned to them. Those who fulfill
> > neither I can't assign anywhere by purely linguistic means.
>
> You went from "disprooving" to "assignment" here.

Yes, I answered that since words are assigned to a substrate by definition, you can't disprove their membership. What should be disprovable is the actual existence of this artificially defined substrate.

> Would you mean that having cognates in related languages counts as
> counterevidence of being a loan?

Counterevidence of it being a loan to that language at that particular time, yes.

> If yes, you have not been folloing thru. When given that eg.
> *kanta- has Samoyedic cognates, you do not take that as
> counterevidence, but rather extend the substrate (eastward in
> space, or backward in time) in an ad-hoc fashion to cover that
> family too. Since you keep doing that I don't see how it is
> possible for there to BE a counterargument.

Nonsense. I never claimed it was a loan into FU in particular, only that it was a term that seemed to have passed back and forth between IE and Uralic.

> > > > Forget predictive power in a historical science. Any
> > > > prediction a theory makes we already know, unless we discover
> > > > new material like Hittite, and that's very rare.
> > >
> > > Maybe with Indo-European. There are still plenty of
> > > understudied languages in the world which may or may not
> > > provide us with data that fits our reconstruction of, say,
> > > Proto-Uralic.
> >
> > True, but it's pseudo-prediction in principle.
>
> We can predict the *discovery* of new lexeme sets that fit our
> soundlaws, if you want to nitpick about chronology.

OK, sage, predict the appearance of the next Hittite. It would be most helpful to many linguists in their career planning.

> > We have to come up with some criterion for the historic sciences
> > which doesn't involve prediction.
>
> I hear regularity of sound change works pretty well.
>

It does, but it's not prediction.

> > > > > "tree stump" is the kind of concept even stone-age hunter
> > > > > gatherers can be expected to have in their vocabulary.
> > > >
> > > > But they can't be expected not to replace by a new word from
> > > > some prestigious new technology.
> > >
> > > OK… sure not, but I'd then expect those who kept the technology
> > > (such as the Sami) to keep their word for it too, not just some
> > > generalization of it.
> >
> > I didn't get that?
>
> The Samic reflex means "roots". No association with hunting
> storages - which they still use (eg. http://tinyurl.com/yjfmtak)

So the technology came to the Saami after it had ceased being associated with a tree stump. Why is that a problem?

>
> > > And the newness of this prestigious technology remains assumed.
> >
> > What do you mean? Everything was new once.
> >

> I mean newness at the time of Proto-Uralic, obviously. You keep
> talking about "prestigious new technology" without any evidence of
> who, where, and when. Until you have, it remains an assumption.

It remains an assumption that it was once new? It is sometimes difficult for me to understand the way you think.

> Now perhaps you still think "assumption" is as good as "theory",
> but that's still utterly wrong.

Yes, because if you make theories you can have coffee and layer cake with your colleagues in the afternoon, but if you make assumptions you can't. However, I have discovered that also without your colleagues, coffee and layer cake is much yummy. Let that be my advice to you.


Torsten