Re: Why do Pokorny's roots for water have an "a" in front?

[Top-posting corrected.]

At 8:21:00 PM on Monday, December 10, 2012,
Bhrihskwobhloukstroy wrote:

> 2012/12/11, Brian M. Scott <bm.brian@...>:

>> At 7:55:12 PM on Monday, December 10, 2012,
>> Bhrihskwobhloukstroy wrote:

>>> It's apparent that reconstructable phonology has had an
>>> impressive rising of its rate of change in the latest
>>> millennia (at least up to the Middle Ages included).

>> It is?

That's a serious question; I'd like an answer.

>>> Please don't put every Continuity Theory into the same
>>> slot; the extreme possibility to be taken into
>>> consideration is a PIE diasystem (in fact a very
>>> differentiated lexical one, just as one would expect,
>>> but with extreme conservativism at *reconstructible*
>>> phonological level, i.e. plosives, not liquids or
>>> vibrants) encompassed a whole linguistic history from
>>> Palaeolithic to Chalcolithic

>> 'Because nothing can (still) exclude it' is insufficient
>> reason to consider seriously something that is so clearly
>> incompatible with what we can actually observe of
>> linguistic change.

> Then be satisfied with invented substrates and the Far
> West Model of PIE. It seems that You all consider
> Glottochronology a better attested fact than plain
> etymological method.

Quatsch. I'm extremely skeptical of glottochronology.

> What's incredible to me is that You all practically hate
> PIE: it has above all to be restricted, limited,
> short-lived, with the smallest amount of words and
> phonemes,

Piffle. I simply accept the uniformity principles as sound
heuristics, so sound that proposed violations must be very
well supported. Failure to do so leaves one open to
excesses every bit as silly as Sean's opt. snd. 'laws',
albeit of a very different sort.

> while invented substrates flourish undemonstrated... You
> all really prefer invented languages to reconstructed PIE

I don't believe that I've said much one way or another about
substrates since your appearance here, apart from objecting
to Tavi's parody of historical linguistics; in the past I've
been highly critical of Torsten's predilection for positing
substrates on the basis of uncritical Worthäufungen. On
this subject I'm inclined to agree with Roger Lass:

This decision [viz., not to reconstruct an IE root that
would have to have been lost everywhere save in one
subfamily or small areal grouping, and not to admit
large-scale word creation ex nihilo in established
languages] leads to a lot of imaginary languages being
sucked out of linguists' thumbs; but it can also
occasionally lead to discoveries of considerable and
wide-ranging historical importance.

In fact, I'm really not sure to whom 'You all' could refer.
DGK does IE linguistics. Sean is on record as believing
that 'All known languages not currently classified as IE are
actually from one branch of IE: Indo-Iranian'.

<http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/62318>.

Shivraj is an ideologue with no real interest in the
subject. Jörg has merely observed that there must have been
substrates in at least some parts of the area eventually
covered by IE speakers; acknowledging their almost certain
existence is a far cry from making specific claims about
them. João mostly asks questions, and I can't recall any
instances of Rick beating the drum for substrates. Does
'You all' really refer to anyone besides Tavi?

Brian