Re: Nordwestblock, Germani, and Grimm's law

> > > > Hmmm. It seems you're not counting insufficiently
> > > > estabilish'd sound laws and propagation pathways as
> > > > "assumptions"? And you'll need a ton of both to make those
> > > > complexes work.
> > >
> > > Naah, I'll just claim they're wanderwords and then claim the
> > > same privilege for them of exemption from that stuff that they
> > > enjoy.
> >
> > What privilege where? I'm not aware of any that require a handful
> > of idiosyncratic innovations every other step.
>
> These do
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanderwort

Nope, not seeing anything out of the ordinary there. Would you care to elaborate?

Note for example that we cannot indiscriminately clump *thee and *tSai together, they are two separate loan complexes (despite the shared meaning). We can only securely join them given an understanding of historical Chinese phonology.

> > (Wanderwords, unlike your complexes, also come with narroly
> > defined semantics related to some specific technological
> > innovation.)
>
> *kan,-t- "organized set of people, hundertschaft (cavalry)"
> *Lun,- "non-organized set of people" and
> *san,- "quest, trial"
> is good enough for me.

> Torsten

Would be (semantically) good enuff for me too, if they stayed within those bounds. It goes inane right around where you propose adding stuff like "tree stump", "hand", or "talk".

Also, only the first of those is an innovation by any stretch.

John Vertical