Re: HORSA vs. EXWA

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

>
> You missed the point completely, which suggests that you
> don't understand how comparative reconstruction works.
>

I know perfectly how the comparative method works, but I disagree with
some of its "implementations".

> PIE is by definition the most recent common ancestor of the IE
> languages, as best we can reconstruct it.
>

According to this definition, PIE would be closer to a Platonic ideal
than to an attainable goal. IMHO the hypothesis of a monophyletic IE
family (i.e. all IE languages branching from a tree with PIE at the top)
is inconsistent with linguistic data, although surely it was the only
available when neogrammarians first formulated it in the 19th century.

> The NEC languages are not IE, so they have no
> legitimate rôle to play in the reconstruction of PIE.
> Even assuming that the PNEC
> reconstruction is justifiable and that a relationship
> between PNEC and PIE is demonstrable -- I'm agnostic on the
> first and consider the second extremely unlikely -- your
> statement is methodological nonsense.
>

I'm afraid you missed my point. I quoted the word 'bear' as being
extremely difficult to reconstruct as a single IE protoform (i.e. "PIE
root") because of phonetical inconsistences. But IMHO they can be
explained as different reflexes of a former sibilant affricate like the
one we find in PNEC. I've simply extended the comparative method outside
the IE family to help us understand what you regard as "purely internal
matters".

I also don't think we have to demonstrate a genetic relationship PRIOR
to accepting cognacy, as this is utterly inconsistent. We can only posit
a genetic relationship from a mass of cognates along with predictable
(I prefer this term to "regular") sound correspondences, and nobody
would do so with a single cognate.

> Any possible relationship between PIE *h2rtk^o- and PNEC
> *XHVr[ts']V becomes relevant only when those reconstructions
> become part of the evidence for a common ancestry for PIE
> and PNEC. This, of course, is necessarily preceded by their
> convincing reconstruction from their putative reflexes,
> which is a family-internal matter.
>

This corresponds to the isolacionist model held by most IE-ists but not
by macro-comparativists.