Pat:

> For example, Bomhard asserts that his Nostratic *a is seen in >Dravidian
>*a; the allophone, Nostratic *6 in Dravidian *e. This means that any given
>root in Nostratic *a has two chances at a
>cognate in Dravidian: one in *a and one in *e. This hopelessly
>muddles the roots.

Actually, I do find the careless treatment of Dravidian annoying,
not just by Bomhard but by all Nostraticists whose work I have
come in contact with. However all is not lost. I had mentioned sometime ago
on the "other" Nostratic list that I felt that it
would be easier to understand the connection of Dravidian to
Nostratic if we propose a vowel shift sometime in Dravidian's
past.

Essentially, the following, using a simple three vowel system in Nostratic
and assuming Sumerian vocalism to be the most
conservative:

Nostratic Dravidian
*a *a
*i *a
*u *i

This is not to say that EVERY instance of Nostratic *u becomes *i
because it appears to be more complex than that. Sometimes *u or
*i is retained. It is not an all-encompassing vowel shift
and there are some exceptions... For instance, it seems to only
operate on non-verb stems.

Now, I hold that the Dravidian pronouns are inherited from
Nostratic, that is, the _absolutive_ set of pronouns which are different
from the more recognizable ergative ones. The two
pronominal sets became the basis for subjective-objective
conjugation seen in Uralic, Yukaghir and EskimoAleut and for the
active-stative conjugation witnessed in IE. The absolutive set
for first and second person is [*u, *nu] while the ergative set
is the more familiar [*nu/*mu, *tu]. We thus see that Nostratic
*nu(n) "you (absolutive)" had become *nin-, with a permanently
affixed pronominal *-n termination in Dravidian, demonstrating
the vowel shift in action. The lengthened nominative *ni:n is
not caused by some mysterious laryngeal infix (ie: **ni-H-n)
but rather is due to compensation for being unusually
monosyllabic in contrast to the majority of longer disyllabic
words in Dravidian vocabulary. In effect, the length causes it
to be as long as the other disyllabic words, a kind of
"length assimilation". We see the exact same lengthening
of pronouns in IE (eg: *tu: "you"), again, due to similar
reasons.

Other cases I've found for the vowel shift:
*lil- "four" Drav. *na:l
(Sum /limmu/, Ur *nelj�)
*ilu "not" Drav. *al-
(Sum /li/, Alt *�li-)
*ti "this, that" Drav. *ta:n
(Ur *c^i-, IE *to-, Alt *te)

Pat:

> If you will go through all the roots I have reconstructed for >Nostratic
>in *CaC, you will see that there is no necessity to have >two Dravidian
>responses: *CaC suffices to cover all legitimate >cognates.

I have gone to your site and I immediately have some web advice - Please
turn of the annoying "blink" tags in your HTML document. I haven't seen
blink tags since the mid 90's and I can't say that I
missed them :) I find that small 1K anigifs suffice to draw the
viewer's attention without causing visual aggravation.

Anyways, back to more serious matters. Your Nostratic page
(http://www.GEOCITIES.COM/Athens/Forum/2803/NostraticDictionary.htm)
is far too long, disorganized and replete with a staggering number
of font and colour changes for anyone to be able to ascertain what
roots you personally have reconstructed or which Bomhardian
reconstructions you agree with. It is also difficult to
read the text in entirety (It would take several hours). From a
scan of the page, I can only find sentence after sentence of
critiques on Bomhard's methods and conclusions which are in many
cases honestly deserving.

Could you perhaps summarize for us the Nostratic roots you are
refering to and their attestations (including that of Dravidian)
so that we may quickly and efficiently criticize your methodology.

- gLeN

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