Re: Ligurian

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Bhrihskwobhloukstroy
<bhrihstlobhrouzghdhroy@...> wrote:

>
> > As I see it, the "PIE" reconstructed by IE-ists represents a later

stage

> > (and certainly not a real protolanguage) within the IE family whose
> > antiquity is Late Neolithic at the most (in some cases it's even

more

> > recent), so it it can't valid for older stages.
>
> "It can't be valid for older stages" AS YOU SEE IT, that's
> obvious. You still have given no reason for this assumption. It's just
> Your word. Until You don't demonstrate it, it is like conceding that
> I'm right
>

On the contrary, the burden of proof is on you, not me. I'd recommend
you read Adrados' 3-stage IE model.

> > I'm afraid this is an intrinsic limitation of the comparative method
> > when only internal IE data is used as input. In order to get further
> > back in the past, you need also comparative data from other families
> > such as Altaic.
>
> Sure, but there's still a period of time in which only PIE has
> been the relevant language (and Altaic was already separated). You
> reduce this period to a minimum; it's just Your hypothesis, not a fact
>

Surely not "PIE" (which is a much modern and somewhat fictious entity)
not several paleo-IE dialects.

> > You're simply projecting traditional "PIE" outside its
> > chronological scope many millenia into the past, instead of

replacing it

> > with a new reconstruction valid for that period.
>
> its chronological scoper isn't known by You any more than by me,
> so You can't base Your argument on what You don't know better than me.
> Whether a reconstruction is valid for a period cannot be judged by
> Your taste. As far as *we* can know, there's still no means to assign
> a specific absolute chronology to a given reconstruction; Your
> hypothesis can work, mine (ours) too
>

On the contrary, there're means of absolute dating for words relative to
domesticated animals and plants, technological inventions and so on.

> > I don't refuse any genetic link apriori, but you must be aware of

the

> > limitations of the comparative method as regarding *distant*
> > relationships. The intrinsical flaw of "Nostratic" theories is they
> > posit genetic relationships on the basis of loanwords, because

they're

> > unable to differentiate them from *inherited* lexicon.
>
> You too are unable to distinguish possible loanwords from possibly
> inherited forms. Same flaw
>

Not exactly. My model is multi-layer, i.e. I study the various lexicon
layers in a given language (which are consequence of language contact
and/or replacement processes) and their external relationships.

> > How would explain then the geminate -kk- in Goidelic? Your

hypothesis of

> > this being an IE word is most unlikely.
>
> -kk- < PIE *-kn- + accented vowel (Stokes's Law)
> 'Likely' or not is just Your taste. Probably You'd find that I'm
> unpleasant: same question of taste. Your taste can be interesting, but
> has no particular scientific force. So, my hypothesis, albeit disliked
> by You, maintains its validity. Bye bye
>

I stand by my Vasco-Caucasian etymology because it's consistent with the
hypothesis that the Neolithic farmers who colonized Europe from the Near
East à la Renfrew spoke language of that phylum. In the case of this
and other VC loanwords in Celtic, I think they correspond to the
languages spoken by people of the Megalithic Culture, who preceded
Celtic speakers in the Altalantic fringe.