From: stlatos
Message: 66811
Date: 2010-10-25
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "stlatos" <stlatos@> wrote:There are laws that a judge can show leniency on, for first time offenders, etc., as well as those with opt. punishment (such as either monetary fine or punitive service, etc.). This would actually have been a good type of example for me to use, but human laws do not correspond analogously to sound laws, etc., very well.
> > I'll respond to several things at once.
> >
> > I don't know why this seems so hard for some people to
> > understand. A change in a sound is no less of a law if it has two
> > outcomes.
>
> So
> 'whosoever steals a bike gets two years in the slammer or is let go'
> is no less of a law than
> 'whosoever steals a bike gets two years in the slammer'
> and
> 'whosoever steals a bike is let go'
> ?
>
> That is hard for me to understand.
> > For example, n > l (opt.) is the same as a law n > l OR n > nUse your best judgment.
> > (analogous to 2 or -2 being the square root of 4).
>
> What do you intend the operator(?) '>' to stand for in that sentence?
> "Larger than" or "becomes"?
> > Many of these changes are known. Instead of criticizing myAre you attempting to show the vast extent of your incompetence? Quoting from Wikipedia would mean next to nothing, even if those very pages didn't have many instances showing your interpretation wrong like saying Salish = Montana Salish there to distinguish it from ambiguous Salish = Salishan Languages also, or Flathead = Salish = Sélis^ = Montana Salish (with Sélis^ [seIlIS] ), [sqëllu], etc. For most Salishan Languages, saying 'It is also unusual in lacking a simple lateral approximant ... ' would mean that it has n which varies with l (for Montana Salish, they probably mean that l varies with £ (a lateral fricative), or some phonetic specificity; also most Salishan Languages have underling l' which can appear as l? or ?l, etc., and shouldn't be _analyzed_ as containing "a simple lateral approximant", which that sentence could also be discussing (it's ambiguous and without context as it appears)).
> > methods, learn about what is already known. For example, in
> > Salishan, n and l alternate.
>
> I assume you don't mean the Salishan language family,
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salishan_languages
> but Salish proper
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montana_Salish_language
> of which Wikipedia says
> 'It is also unusual in lacking a simple lateral approximant ... ', http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lateral_approximant
> ie. it has no /l/.
>In what way does Montana Salish alternate between /n/ and the /l/ it doesn't have?
>Contrary to your ill-based belief, Montana Salish possesses both the sounds n and l, whatever their phonetic status. I used "Salish" in a broad way, also describing the situation in Proto-Salish and modern Salishan Languages like Klallam.
> > There is no regularity, no dialect mixing, only optionality.They are irrelevant to all this; only the incredibly huge variations in Proto-Salish account for most differences in Salishan Languages.
>
> According to
> http://www.native-languages.org/salish.htm
> the three languages of the
> Spokane-Kalispel-Bitterroot Salish-Upper Pend d'Oreille
> family, which could be considered dialects of the same language, have in all approx. 200 speakers. Could you tell us more about the divisions which characterize the dialects in those three languages?
> > In a loanwoard like school > skun, it's easily seen by linguists,Wrong.
> > the people who speak the language know about it, there's nothing
> > else to say.
>
> Except perhaps that maybe the people who speak the language, and maybe also some linguists, know that their language has no /l/, so they substitute /n/?
> > The alt. l/n exists across most of the Americas, and obviously isTlingit is one, there are many. Some only show it in certain words, indicating the older alt. l/n decreased in extent lexically.
> > either from the parent l. of them all, or an incredibly old areal
> > change, borrowing, etc. Since it is also found throughout Asia,
> > nothing else is likely.
>
> Is this the 'across most of the Americas' and 'also found throughout Asia' you are referring to?
> 'Nearly all languages with such lateral obstruents also have the approximant. However, there are a number of exceptions, many of them located in the Pacific Northwest area. For example, Tlingit has /tɬ, tɬʰ, tɬʼ, ɬ, ɬʼ/ but no /l/.[1] Other examples from the same area include Nuu-chah-nulth and Kutenai, and elsewhere, Chukchi and Kabardian.'
> [1] Some older Tlingit speakers do have [l], as an allophone of /n/. This can also be analyzed as phonemic /l/ with an allophone [n].
> > It's not weaker to invoke optionality if that is what is seen.Your attempt at analogy is worthless. A good analogy would be comparing the regularity of when the sun goes up and goes down compared to time to rules based on environment, such as k>c^/_i vs empty k>k/_a. This kind of rule exists, but is not the only kind (I might compare opt. ones to atomic decay, or something).
> > Historical linguistics involves finding the right explanation; if
> > optionality exists, then optionality must be given as the
> > explanation.
>
> So if the sun sometimes goes up and sometimes goes down, it is wrong not to explain it by stating that the sun optionally goes up or down?
> > Ignoring optional changes as the explanation has led to long andIf I say "n > l OR n > n" I have made one out of an infinity of statements. I have narrowed n > _ to 2 out of many (an infinity if not limited to human l. or one step A > B, etc.). It is significant, descriptive, simple, compact, etc. If there is no environment, etc., causing it I've said all that can be said.
> > foolish arguments and too much effort put into what has been made
> > complicated by ignoring the simple. Greek opt. w- / h- from opt. w
> > > xW > h, so IE u- > G hu- from u > wu > xWu > hu; so Myc. h/y from
> > opt. y > xY > h, so IE * xYe_kYwós > * y/xYi_kYWwós > hÃppos.
> > Similarly, opt. e > i and i > e in -eos/ios (like L -eus/ius),
> > *-ixYn.ós > *-iyn.ós > G -einós / -i:nós, Erinú- / Saran.yú:-, etc.
>
> 'Optional' is not an explanation, it's a cop-out. An admission of defeat. Calling it something else won't change that.
>