Re: HORSA vs. EXWA

At 5:37:16 AM on Thursday, March 8, 2012, Tavi wrote:

> --- 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,

This is far from evident.

> 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.

It's a rather basic definition. If you can't accept it,
you're in the wrong hobby.

> 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.

Oh, the historical facts are obviously more complicated than
simple branching; that's obvious even just within IE
subfamilies. It's also clear that the IE languages do form
a family.

>> 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.

That may have been what you meant, but it certainly isn't
what you said.

> 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".

Because they *are* 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.

Don't be silly. The word 'cognate' *means* that there is a
genetic relationship. When you say that A and B are
cognate, YOU ARE ASSERTING A GENETIC RELATIONSHIP.

>> 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.

It has nothing to do with 'models'; it's simply a matter of
methodology. And while there are certainly exceptions, a
great many long-rangers are methodological dunderheads;
Ruhlen, Bengtson, and Starostin come to mind immediately.

Brian