Re: Stacking up on standard works

At 5:43:15 PM on Wednesday, March 21, 2012, Tavi wrote:

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

>>> Also some of De Vaan's etymologies, e.g. Latin vitrum
>>> 'glass; woad' from IE *wed-ro- 'water-like' are rather
>>> inventive, to say the least.

>> It can't be all that inventive, since Sihler (223.5)
>> accepts it. He also says that 'for the semantics there
>> are a number of parallels'.

> The problem is De Vaan's systematically tries to derive
> everything from the reconstructed "PIE" using "regular"
> sound correspondences, regardless of other considerations.

Broadly speaking, that's a feature, not a bug. In
particular, when such a derivation is possible without
unreasonable contortions, it necessarily has primacy. This
isn't to say that it can't be displaced if a better
derivation is found, but the bar for any alternative is
pretty high.

Brian