Re: Gmc. w-/g-, j-/g-

At 2:58:32 AM on Saturday, October 22, 2011, stlatos wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott"
> <bm.brian@...> wrote:

>> At 3:44:21 AM on Thursday, October 20, 2011, stlatos wrote:

>>> There should be no reason for any linguist to reject a
>>> sound change because it's optional.

>> Nothing except intelligence.

>> Optional sound changes are a methodological nightmare; at
>> best they are admissible only under the strictest
>> controls.

> I didn't argue against a regular sound change,

I'm not talking just about your present argument. I'm
talking about your approach in general. It's as unsound
methodologically as Greenbergian mass comparison, albeit in
a different direction. In some ways it's worse: at least
mass comparison can suggest starting points for serious
comparative work.

[...]

>> Failure to recognize this leads to such crap as '[a]ll known
>> languages not currently classified as IE are actually from
>> one branch of IE: Indo-Iranian'.
>>
>> (<http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/62316>)

> You have no way of knowing whether this is true, so
> don't say it's false.

It's unadulterated rubbish. Even if monogenesis is true,
it's most unlikely to be demonstrable, and it's historically
impossible that PIE is 'Proto-World'.

>> They also (as Douglas pointed out) obviate any need to
>> look for real but highly non-obvious sound laws.

> Attempts to find a "real but highly non-obvious sound law"
> often lead to linguists attempting to fit a law that must
> be tailored to fit every case, with a strange set of env.
> and env. exceptions, that obviously doesn't come from
> reality but instead from attempting to fit regularity
> where none exists, making them unlikely.

And pseudo-explanations employing optional changes,
metatheses, and dis- and assimilations ad libitum are
better?

Brian