[Glen]

> I think most would agree that Uralic is probably closer to IE than it is

to

> Dravidian. For me, Dravidian represents a more archaic stage than those of
> the Steppe languages (IE, Etruscan, Uralic, Altaic, EskAleut), where
> different forms for a nominative/absolutive case than for an
> accusative/ergative case still existed seperate from the verb.

It's a pity that both you and the opponent have a _geographically_ based
preliminary classification of the Nostratic families ("Steppe languages" and
"East Nostratic" respectively). I think we have to try to "forget" it now
when considering only linguistic arguments.

[Glen]

> I believe
> this is why Dravidian appears at odds with the current understanding of
> Nostratic rather than being a usefool tool. (I think Nostraticists have
> something to learn from Dravidian's "oddness".)

Just a thought, perhaps a very naive one.
Look:
Dravidian is odd;
Altaic is very odd;
Afroasiatic is rather odd too;
Kartvelian is not said to be odd just because it consists of a tiny group of
very closely related languages.
What remains?
Uralic (although if we include Yukagir an oddity can appear, can't it?)
Finally IE. It is not odd, it is very regular and understandable.
And we can easily find a "normal", "not odd" rather strong correspondance
between IE and Uralic (especially Finno-Ugric, which had numerous contacts
with single IE groups - Indo-Iranian, Tocharian, Baltic, Slavic, Germanic).

Can't the reason of this situation be following?
IE has been studied very good, we know it well, we feel it well. Moreover,
linguistics as a science is based mainly on the knowledge obtained as a
result of IE studies. Our methodological approaches were invented, checked
and proved mainly in the framework of these studies. These tools fit
perfectly the peculiarities of IE languages. And when we apply them to other
families we find a great lot of oddities.
If we started to use principles of classification designed to primates (just
because we are primates) to, say, cetaceans what would we have? Oddities?

Perhaps we have first to invent _original_ "Dravidian philology", "Altaic
philology" etc. and only thereafter "Nostratic philology" integrating the
previous ones and explaining (almost) all the oddities? Up to now Nostratics
seem to be standing on 1 leg (instead of 6 as a normal insect :-)
Is there any sense here?

Alexander