dive (was Re: Sos-)

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

>
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, johnvertical@ wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> >>>> "It includes 'sump' "swamp", thus it is not well-limited to
> >>>> putative derivatives of the Uralic 'mouth' word"
>
> >>>> My argument of semantical well-limitedness is based on the
> >>>> data; your "counterargument" appears to be based on just
> >>>> restating your proposal.
>
> >>> But the semantics of "swamp" also occurs in Finnic *so:- which
> >>> means that if we posit that the semantic 'suck' group and the
> >>> semantic 'swamp' group are from the same substrate language,
> >>> they would have been indistinguishable in that language.
>
> >> It is again a circular argument that "if we assume (or 'posit')
> >> they come from something identical, then they come from something
> >> identical".
>
> > You got it all wrong again. It's 'if we assume they come from
> > something identical, then we assume they come from something
> > identical'.
>
> Yes, that is what you actually said.

Yes, that's true.

> But there's no point in the assertion unless you wish to draw
> conclusions from the assumption -- as indeed you do.

I wouldn't call them conclusions, it smacks too much of 'proven truth', since their epistemological status is that of their premise, the original assumption, thus unproven and unprovable. Call them inferences.

> Thus, your present objection, though technically correct, is in
> fact a pointless quibble.

I think I'll leave it to the honored audience to decide who is making a pointless quibble.

> [...]

> >>>>> but then I got the idea that it could be handled by deriving
> >>>>> the auslaut consonants from the diphthongs which were the
> >>>>> result of the denasalisation of the nasal vowel I posited for
> >>>>> another reason (that of accounting for the a/u alternation).
>
> >>>> This is where you go off the track of conclusions and into the
> >>>> woods of wild speculation.
>
> >>> Do you have any factual objection here?
>
> >> Yes: you have provided no factual argument.
>
> > I repeat: Do you have any factual objection here? Please answer
> > the question.
>
> Why? The question of whether you have any factual argument is
> clearly prior.

I assumed here that since like you, John is stuck in some idea that assumptions should be proven, he wanted some kind of argument to prove that my assumption is true. I've told him several times that this is in principle not possible, but he keeps on insisting on it, without apparently giving much thought to the subject. Therefore there is no question of whether I have 'factual arguments' which I assumed to mean 'arguments for the truth of the assumption'and I am entitled to ignore his call for them. Now if he had asked me to show eg. that my assumption explained more with less than the existing theories, that would have been a different matter, except that I already explained that in the pragraph he is criticizing for not containing 'factual arguments'.

> [...]
>
> >>>> it seems to be quite possible to just speculate
> >>>> without ever getting to the level of real arguments.
> >>>> At that point the burden of proof (or, more correctly, burden
> >>>> of argumentation) is still on you.
>
> >>> What? When?
>
> >> Perhaps you do not fully understand what the term means.
>
> > What seems to be the case here is that you either don't
> > understand, or don't want to understand that there is no burden
> > of proof on me.
>
> Yes, there is, as there is on anyone who makes a scholarly proposal.

If proof is in principle not possible, then of course there can't exist any 'burden of proof'. Get you act together, Brian.

> Of course you're free to declare that you're merely indulging in
> empty speculation and not engaging in any kind of scholarship at
> all,

I don't recall having declared that.

> but then you can hardly expect anyone to take an interest

Good thing I didn't then.

> (except, perhaps, when you post something exceptionally
> wrong-headed).

I looked up 'wrong-headed' just to make sure; I found this definition:
'Stubbornly defiant of what is right or reasonable; obstinately perverse in judgment or opinion.'
I think you are right; this is exactly the kind of ideas Popper's definition will foster, they will be immune to demands that they yield to what has by tradition been considered 'right and reasonable'.



Torsten