Re: Nordwestblock, Germani, and Grimm's law

> > > > > > 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?
> >
> > Chiefly, no weird consonant alternations. *tSai never becomes
> > /dZia/, or *kAhvi never becomes /kubbi/, etc.
>
> None in mine either.

Um, no, they're full of that stuff. *kaNt- > *kansa for one example (the sound change t > s is not required by any receptor language and must be added as an assumption).

> > The burden of proof for defining "privilege of exemption" more
> > specifically is on you I believe.
>
> I don't know how you read my sentences. 'the ... privilege ... of exemption from that stuff' is a definition of that privilege.

If you're only referring back to my comments, it then seems you're asking me to proov a negativ.

> > > > "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"
> >
> > Yes, "limb" > "side" is well attested (also "my right hand" etc.)
> > However I do not like the opposite direction of development at
> > all. Much too specific without motivation. Tons of things are at
> > the sides of something.
>
> But in English, it's specifically 'left/right hand side'. No other bodypart is used.

That's still the direction "limb" > "side".

> > > > 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.
> >
> > A concept of "group" in general would have existed even before.
>
> Before the necessity of organizing people and land according to the the demand for 100 cavalry?

Yes. "Family". "Tribe". "Humans (of any tribe)". "Herd of animals". "A group of objects of any sort". "A group of hunters". And so on.

> > I don't see why some existing word couldn't have been
> > appropriated for the negativly defined sense.
>
> Note that it is involved in the "long" sense.

I have no idea what you mean by that.

> So it has to do with ordered vs. unordered (single file) march
> through the landscape.

More assumptions.

> > After the introduction of *kants, all the older "group" words
> > would have by default been "unordered".
>
> But they would not have meant "the totality of the people, regardless of the ordering".

> Torsten

? Of course they could have. No reason not to.

John vertical