From: Torsten
Message: 68679
Date: 2012-03-01
> Torsten <tgpedersen@...>:You misunderstand. I haven't claimed to have disproven the standard theory of a direct decence of the 'mots populaires' from PIE, only that I *prefer* to explain them as loanwords. This I do because of the greater explaining power of that theory since it explains the systematically (not random) skewed distribution of the semantics of those words.
> >
> >> What I lack is a proof that such words were taken from a language
> >> other than Latin (because I don't know of any other language
> >> where those words are attested) into Latin (i.e. a further proof
> >> that the direction of the loan was precisely from non-Latin into
> >> Latin)
> >
> > We don't have proof in linguistics, as you should know, only
> > disproof.
> OK, I'm waiting for disproofs that a Latin word, attested only
> in Latin and with IE etymology, isn't hereditary.
> Please don't answer 'because they are loans', since You haven'tSee above.
> disproven the a priori alternative that they are hereditary.
> Note that I'm not excluding that they are loans, I'm justExcept for explaining the skewed distribution of their semantics.
> claiming that the hereditary hypothesis is at least at the same
> level of probability
> and morevoer doesn't have to postulate a substrate presence in RomeNot true. I wish linguists would be more aware of ancient sources and of archaeology.
> (not otherwise documented except for these controversial words).
> >> > They [the 'a'-words] have have also been characterised as wordsNo, see above; we have to assume the existence of that component on historico-sociological grounds anyway, so Occam doesn't apply here.
> >> > belonging to the lower class *and* religious sphere.
> >
> >> All that is so lovely vague that everybody can build every
> >> theory on such a basis.
> >
> > The important fact is that these words are concentrated in a few
> > semantic spheres, which indicates (not 'proves') that they derived
> > from a particular sociolect of Latin, correponding to one of the
> > component people of the ethnogenesis of the Roman people.
> Alas the very existence of such component people is product of a
> linguistic hypothesis and therefore cannot be the base for further
> arguments: it's simply one and the same argument - a good
> hypothesis, but not better than the hypothesis of the absence of the
> /a/-substrate of Latin
> Torsten <tgpedersen@...>:I know that that is what orthodoxy teaches us, so imagine my surprise when I checked for Celtic cognates of NWB words in p-, eg.
>
> >> Latin /a/ is different from, say, /p/ in Q-Celtic languages
> >
> > In what way?
> Q-Celtic languages have no hereditary words with /p/ of IE
> origin (except perhaps where /pp/ is from IE */pn/ + accented vowel,
> e.g. *ruppos < *rup-'no-s.
> Do You think that EVERY /a/ in Latin isn't of direct IE origin?Jens had some convincing explanation (somewherre in the archives) that -a- would appear where zero was expected if the context was 'too heavy' (not his words), eg captus, should be *kptó-. Other than that I assume, at least as a working hypothesis that Latin words in -a- are Plebeian <- Sabine <- 'Opscan'/Ausonian.
> Torsten <tgpedersen@...>:I agree. I just prefer the loanword one as a working hypothesis.
> >> Do You feel that explanations through *h2 are 'contrived'?
> >
> > Yes.
> >
> >> If no, I beg Your pardon; if yes, You apply a criterion which
> >> is quite tough in comparison with the optimism with which You
> >> accept as true a substrate hypothesis
> >
> > Do you feel that is the case?
> All these are hypotheses.
> I know Kuhn's hypotheses, Vennemann's ones and so on. I like them.Me too.
> Laryngeal are hypotheses as well.No, as I said I prefer them. I haven't written off the alternative yet.
> You refuse completeley certain hypothese and subscribe
> unconditionally other ones. I simply ask: "Why?"
> I rather work on probability levels. Certain hypothese are nice,I agree.
> but intrinsically less more expensive than other ones. Maybe they
> are nevertheless true, but till now we don't know. So why certain
> ones - absolutely yes and certain others - absolutely no?
> Torsten <tgpedersen@...>:Actually I think Old European is Venetic, in order to please Occam.
> >
> >
> >> A people called Veneti were there. Venetic
> >> language was spoken, as far as we know, in the Upper Adriatic
> >> Basin. It CAN be that it was spoken in Southern Poland as well,
> >> but this is just a simple hypothesis. We don't have a single
> >> piece of evidence in favour of such hypothesis
> >
> > Not true.
> > http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/4443
> Oh please, these are Old European river names, not Venetic
> inscriptions! Come on! Don't play with definitions!
> Torsten <tgpedersen@...>:No.
> >> As for Thracian, this is simply wrong. Thracian was spoken in
> >> Thrace; there is a couple of names in Regnum Bosporanicum that
> >> can be of Thracian etymology. That's all. There area in between
> >> is rather Dacian.
> >
> > Okay, so that's what you think.
> > Strabo and Pliny the Elder disagree
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dacians
> > 'Strabo and Pliny the Elder state they spoke the same language'
> Do You think that Thracian had a Lautverschiebung?
> Do You think that Daco-Misian had a Lautverschiebung?No.
> If You answer 'yes!' or 'no!' to both questions, You agree withTrue.
> Strabo and Pliny's historical-linguistic evaluation; otherwise not.
> In this particular case I have doubts that Daco-Misian had aI haven't read them, you'd have to quote their arguments to convince me. I don't remember seeing any signs of LV in the glosses in Detschew's "Die thrakischen Sprachresten'.
> Lautverschiebung, while I find quite convincing that Thracian had
> one (Georgiev, Duridanov).
> Torsten <tgpedersen@...>:Sorry, you can't do that. The
> >
> >> As for Dacian, it's quite sure that it was spoken West and
> >> East of the Carpathian Range. More to the North, there were
> >> Slavs; the hydronimic evidence (Udolph) is too strong
> >
> > Here's a -dava within the range of Germanic (Sciri) settlements at
> > the time
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setidava
> OK, very good. This is a good argument. Until we don't know
> something more about alternative etymologies and explanations of the
> name (I could propose some of them, but now it's really irrelevant,
> so I omit to do it), a simple ending -daua is a weak piece of
> evidence, but still it IS a piece of evidence.
> So, for the sake of the argument, let's state that (I'm quoting)Yes
> "a Dacian outpost in North Central Europe" was in linguistic contact
> with Proto-Germans and that words could flow from there up to
> Scandinavia (not just into Scirian). This is a further, but
> possible, hypothesis.
> This doesn't imply that every other (hereditary) possibility isTrue.
> automatically excluded. Stop. That is what I was already
> underlining:
> hereditary hypotheses cannot be disproven by the mere existence of
> possible substrate alternatives. That's all
> Torsten <tgpedersen@...>:I disagree. If a sufficiently large part of the vocabulary of a language can't be matched with a standard derivation from its supposed, you have to suppose a different ancestor. That goes for mixed language as well as for mixed creatures.
> >
> > See above, plus the name. According to Kuhn Germanic had early
> > contact with an Italic language. Venetic is Italic.
> All of Kuhn's etymologies (which I like, by the way) are less
> than a single inscription. In order to be sure that a language has
> been spoken in a region, one needs inscriptions.
> If there's no inscription,You are beating a straw man. I don't disagree.
> one has to emit hypotheses, but they are bound to remain such -
> hypothese. Very good, very nice, I like hypotheses very much. But
> You can't refuse an etymology just because it isn't compatible with
> a different *hypothesis*; less so You can refuse an etymology just
> because an alternative hypothesis is there
> Torsten <tgpedersen@...>:I agree.
> >
> >> >> Wouldn't it be better if we used one and the same criterion
> >> >> for all etymologies?
> >> >
> >> > Which one would that be?
> >> Diachronic phonological precision and areal linguistic
> >> philological care
> >
> > You didn't answer the question. Which criterion is it you
> > recommend?
> Holzer's criteria (Entlehnungen aus einer bisher unbekannten
> indogermanischen Sprache im Urslavischen und Urbaltischen, Wien:
> ÃAW, 1989): respective length of alternative compared words,
> respective possibility of phonological confusion, respective
> semantic neighbourhood to the compared word, respective semantic
> vagueness, degree of reconstructability of the alternative compared
> words