dive (was Re: Sos-)

From: Torsten
Message: 65993
Date: 2010-03-18

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, johnvertical@... wrote:
>
> > > > > > 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.
>
> My factual objection IS that you in fact have provided no factual
> argument.

That is not a factual objection to any of the assumptions I make, but an unspecified objection to all of them. And I don't have to provide any justification or 'factual argument'. Read the paragraph again.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Popper#Problem_of_Induction
'...no assumption can ever be or needs ever to be justified, so a lack of justification is not a justification for doubt'


> Re: your reply to Brian, let me clarify I'm not requesting "proof"
> and at no point have I;

Why talk about 'burden of proof' then?


> In case you do not understand the meaning of those words

You got some nerve - first you weasel switch the definition of what you said earlier and then you ward off criticism of it by attributing any impression of it to my supposed ignorance.

> - they very much do not mean "proof of absolute truth"

And I know what you don't intend it to mean.

> (I hold it to be elementary that no such thing can exist in
> science, and so I am confused why you would assume me to have meant
> that) -

Then what are you talking about? It obviously can't have been anything to do with the Popper framework, since you never referred to him before I did.

> translated to your Popperist terminology, this is indeed
> essentially a request to "show that your assumption explains more
> with less than the existing theories".

Ok, so now you redefine what you meant by 'burden of proof'.

> So in more detail, my objection is that you in fact have not done
> this:

That can't have been your objection, since you just redefined it.

> you apparently only explain more data by using MORE assumptions (of
> phonetical developments, semantical drift, existence of cultural
> habits in areas where they have not been attested, etc) than the
> theories thus far, which is a non-achievement.

Okay, so this is now your objection to my *presentation* of my theory.

I am afraid I got carried away when I said that the goal is to explain more with less; this is like the vacuous 'the largest amount of happiness to the largest number of people'; it sets up two metrics for the same area and wants you to maximize both, obviously comparisons can only be made if one is kept constant. Thus, to defeat a theory, you can do three things:

1) show that it doesn't show what it purports to show, or that there is logical flaw in its inferences (primary method)
2) show that some other theory shows more with the same (secondary)
3) show that some other theory shows the same with less (secondary)

The competition my theory has is two:

1) The theory that there were no substrate languages in NW Europe or if there were they left no marks on either IE or Uralic, therefore only inner developments within IE and Uralic should be posited for any word in those languages.

2) The theory that there existed besides PIE and Uralic in NW Europe also
i) Kuhn's ur-/ur- language (NWBlock I),
ii) Schrijver's language of geminates, and
iii) Schrijver's language of bird names

As for theory 1 I don't consider it competition; there is sufficient consensus for me that there must have been now extinct languages in NW Europe influencing PIE and Uralic.

As for theory 2 I have proposed that i - iii are one and the same language, since the vocabularies ascribed to them overlap. So my theory explains the same with less than 2)


> > > > The problem is, the semantic dividing lines you can set up for
> > > > my proposed set of reflexes of *saN-, do not match similar
> > > > semantic dividing lines in reflexes of *daN-.
> > >
> > > Semantic dividing lines are not required to conform to any
> > > pattern if these are originally unrelated roots.
> >
> > Yes, that is your assumption, but you can't use your assumption
> > to prove things, as you pointed out yourself.
>
> True, but there's nothing I'm trying to proov.

Well, you're trying to disprove.

> The "semantic dividing lines do not match"? So what?

So your argument doesn't work

This

Alternation
*-aN-/*-aNG-/*-aNw-
Denasalization adds variants
*-a:-/*-aG-/*-aw-/*-anG-/*-anw-
*-u:-/*-uG-/*-uw-/*-unG-/*-unw-
'Venetic Verschärfung' (*-G- > *-g-, *-w- -> *-b-)
*a:-/*-ag-/*-ab-/*-aNg-/*-aNb-
*u:-/*-ug-/*-ub-/*-uNg-/*-uNb-

Grimm
*a:-/*-ak-/*-ap-/*-ank-/*-amp-
*u:-/*-uk-/*-up-/*-unk-/*-ump-

is how the phonetic rule in
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/65884
should have been presented, it is not dependent the preceding *d-


> > > But perhaps you can elaborate on what you mean by "similarities
> > > between semantic divisions"?
> >
> > An example is the dividing line you set up between the "suck" and
> > the "sump" roots.
>

That was an example of a semantic division set up by you, the one between what might be called the "suck" words and the "sump" words.

> And what is this similar to, and in what way?

You can't set up a corresponding dividing line between words meaning "duck" and "dump", so the possible semantic dividing lines there are dissimilar to the one you set up for "suck" and "sump".



> There is no systematic relationship between swamps and sucking.

Well, suck on this:

de Vries
'súgr m. 'sea' (poet.), lit. 'the sucking (one)'


> > > > > 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. I'll give you a last chance
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Popper#Problem_of_Induction
>
> There's no discussion of the concept here.

Of course there's no discussion of 'burden of proof' here. Doh!

> It is tho quite feasible to transfer this concept too to your
> framework. You are proposing a theory that explains more with less
> assumptions? "Burden of proof" in this case consists of showing
> that it indeed explains more data, and by indeed using less
> assumptions.

See above.


> > > It's not a legal or moral obligation;
> >
> > Of course it is, or it wouldn't have been called 'burden'
>
> Don't be so literalist.

Don't be facetious.

> At the very least I am not using it in that sense (nor the "proof"
> part in the logical sense), so you're attacking a strawman.

I could comment on what you are trying to get away with here, but I better not.


> > > > If you are convinced there's nothing to be solved, what are
> > > > you doing in linguistics?
> > >
> > > There's a distinction between "not convinced that X" (aka
> > > skepticism) and "convinced that not X" (aka disbelief).
> >
> > And how is this relevant?
>
> In that I'm the latter, not former as you just implied.

You don't mean the other way around?


> > > > > I'll continue to simply reject the comparision if you
> > > > > cannot come up with any argument better than "they all have
> > > > > /sal/" for why we should attempt to relate these.
> > > >
> > > > They have to with "soul", "immortality", "truth" and "the
> > > > otherworld". That's why it's interesting to find out how they
> > > > are related.
> > >
> > > "Salt", "saliva", "island", "slush" have nothing to do with
> > > those topics.
> >
> > The guy who first proposed a connection between *saiwa- "lake"
> > and *saiwala- "soul" is the one who committed the original sin.
> > I'm just trying to find a semantic connection between them.
>
> According to what you've cited so far that one means not simply
> "lake", but "sacred lake", "water used for divination". This DOES
> have to do with "soul", "truth" etc.

Yes, and therefore I also believe those semantic fields I mentioned are connected.

> > The rest are trivial.
>
> They are not. Connecting *saiwa and *saiwala requires no
> assumptions about sound changes affecting the root, only
> suffixation of /-la/; likewise we require only minor semantical
> changes ("soul" probably suffices as an original to begin with).
> Connecting something like "salt" by contrast requires numerous
> assumptions of phonetical and semantical changes.

You don't need to postulate anything drastic semantically to connect "salt" and "sacred"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt#In_religion


>
> > > > > > The alternation is also manifested as a/o:, BTW.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Germanic: cake/cookie, hat/hood etc and the whole Class
> > > > > > VI strong verbs
> > >
> > > > > /o:/ is not /u/.
> > > >
> > > > That's true, but those alternations seem to appear in the
> > > > same contexts.
> > >
> > > Which are?
> >
> > Eg. the *draN- "draw" verb
> > http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/61626
> > it has a/u-alternation, and the verb itself is a class VI verb.
>
> And... you just outlined how class VI verbs would in your view have
> develop'd within Germanic; ie. the a/u alternation does not
> manifest itself as a/o: after all. Now what?

So the a/o: alternation must have been present in PPGmc as a/a:, which is not an IE thing, which indicates the words involved were loans.

>
> > > > Verbs loaned at that time would have been too drastically
> > > > changed to be recognized if patterned on the existing
> > > > ablauting verbs,
>
> > > There's no reason the loan-givers would still have to recognize
> > > the word,
> >
> > ? No, but the loan-receivers would.
>
> Yeah, so they recognize it, and proceed to inflect it in an usual
> sense. If they can uphold ablaut as productiv, they can recognize
> each form involved in it.

That might be the case for the triliteralized loans in Hebrew you mentioned. It's not a universal law. Eventually something will come along which doesn't fit into the machinery.


> > > > > > > Or varying reflexes of an *o.
> > > > >
> > > > > *o merged with *a or *u.
> > > >
> > > > That would be possible, but it wouldn't explain the forms
> > > > with prenasalised auslaut.
> > >
> > > It doesn't attempt to. Those I could explain from, say,
> > > nasalized vowels.
> >
> > Ok, so you argue that the source of the a/u alternation might be
> > a non-nasalized vowel *o, and now you nasalize it again?
>
> I am proposing eg. the existence of both non-nasal *o, and nasal
> *o~ (as a possibility to explain ). Or equivalently, a single *o
> and a biphonemic structure such as *on.

Occam. You explain the same with more.

> This is in fact a case of LESS assumptions than you have made: I do
> not need to assume the existence of original nasality in all cases.

You need to assume the existence of two vowels instead of one. Fail.


> > These words have variants with nasals.
>
>
> What "these words"? I am precisely speaking of cases where there
> AREN'T variants with nasals, e.g. "suck".

Da. synke (< *sinkW- < *senkW- ?< *sunkW- < *sunk-; sank, sunket class III, but cf Sw. sjunka, sjönk, sjunkit, class II, recategorized or ?) means
1. "to sink" (intr.)
2. "to swallow" (tr. and intr.)

> (And I reiterate that "swamp" does not mean "suck", so I will not
> assume that to be cognate.)


de Vries
'sog n. 'sog, meer, schiff' (poet),
nisl. norw. sog, ndä. dial. sug 'saugung, windstoss',
vgl. fär. sova 'Vertiefung zwischen den beiden untersten gangen'
(s. Falk WS 4, 1912, 34).
— mnd. soch 'das saugen',
mnl. soch auch 'muttermilch',
nnl. zog 'sog, muttermilch',
mhd. soc, suc 'saft',
vgl ae. sogeða 'schluck'
— vgl. súga

Sogn m. ON. 'Sognefjord', auch 'see' (poet.),
vgl. schw. sugn 'Wasserfall'.
— Nach der saugung des wassers genannt
(s O. Rygh, Norske Gaardnavne 1, 325),
zu súga.
...

súga, sjúga st. V. 'säugen',
nisl. súga, fär. súgva, nnorw. schw. suga, ndä. suge.
— > orkn. sook 'trocknen' (Marwick 17.3).
vgl. backsook 'zurückgehende brandungswelle' (ebda 8); >
shetl. suk 'säugen', afsuk 'ebbe'.
— ae. as. ahd. su:gan.
— lat. sucus 'saft',
lit. sunkiù, súñkti 'absickern lassen',
lett. su:zu, su:kt 'saugen'.
— vgl. sog, sogn und súgr.

Neben formen mit g stehen andere mit k, vgl.
ae. su:can, ne. suck 'säugen' und socian, ne. soak 'aufsaugen', vgl.
lat. su:go 'sauge, air. su:gim 'sauge', apr. suge 'regen'.
Die idg. wzln *seuk, *seug sind erw. zu *seu, *su 'ausspressen'...'

And see above.


Torsten