Re: Substrates in Latin and Germanic [was: The reason for Caesar's o

At 12:53:26 PM on Thursday, March 1, 2012, Torsten wrote:

[...]

>>> 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

> No, see above; we have to assume the existence of that
> component on historico-sociological grounds anyway,

Nonsense. The existence of a sociolect obviously does not
require that it derive from a linguistically distinct
component of the ethnogenesis of the Roman people.

Brian