Re: Nordwestblock, Germani, and Grimm's law

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

>
> > > > > 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?

Of course the transmission of those Wanderwörter contains nothing 'out of the ordinary'; we're used to them. Could you be a bit more specific?

> 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.

Rest assured that if we knew nothing of Chinese phonology there would be two opposing linguistic camps: one would say they are related, another that we are not permitted to make that inference.

>
> > > (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.
>
>
> 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",

That would be the origin, but I might want to drop it.

> "hand",

See the Epimakhov, Koryakova quote in
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/65159
With a societal division like that, and with a metaphor of the wings (note the English metaphor) as arms/hands of the main body, you get an easy semantic slide "side" <-> "hand"

> or "talk".

I won't take responsibility for the proposal to bridge that gap, that goes to the first person to suggest a connection between 'deutsch' and 'deuten'

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

The second goes with the first as its antonym (if they were once both adjectives): ordered mass vs. unordered mass. The third is a mental quest, partly judicial, part magical, a function needed in such a composite society.


Torsten