--- In Nostratica@yahoogroups.com,
"H.M. Hubey" <hubeyh@...> wrote:
> I found it. Thanks to Richard. I
agree with this
> statement totally:
> ------------------------
>
> Something here is not right. I
can't imagine Proto-Nostratic
speakers
> needing so many words for
"turning". Obviously the majority
can be
> described as:
> velar stop-vowel-(d/l/r/n)- in
other words they could could
derived by
> common and well-known changes
from something like
>
> *kVl-
>
> or
>
> *kWVl-
> ---------------------------------
--
>
> I have been working on these
myself. There is something
seriously wrong
> with the way
> things are done. That calls for
some kind of an overhaul of the
methodology.
>
> In fact, I have been reading and
thinking about these for years and
I
> have come to
> certain conclusions myself. Here
is a simple way to look at things
in
> the sense of
> "why is this insufficient".
Suppose you collect all the roots
of various
> languages,
> as done, for example, by Bomhard
(which by the way is excellent).
There
> is still
> a problem. The problem is that
although patterns were used to
create
> these roots,
> there are still patterns in the
result. There are patterns in
patterns
> and there is
> no reason to call a halt to the
search for patterns because all
science
> is based
> on patterns, and none of the
sciences have yet come to a halt
because
> none of
> them are really finished.
>
> One day it hit me. Humans used
stone tools for everything for
hundreds of
> thousands of years. Breaking,
smashing, digging, clipping,
cleaving,
> slicing,
> dicing, drilling holes, etc was
done with stone tools. So after I
had
> spent enough
> time looking through
dictionaries, including Hittite and
Akkadian, I
> realize that
> this regular sound change
business is insufficient. Then I
discovered to my
> delight that in Semitic studies
they have already given up on it
> (Saenz-Badillo,
> A History of the Hebrew
Language). A new model of sound
change is needed.
> The heuristic is still sound, but
it is still a heuristic and it is
too
> simple to totally
> explain the data.
>
> My data, the way I constructed
things, tells me that the roots
that can be
> found easily (because they are
the latest) are KR and KL. I see
that these
> are from KTh and thus using some
simple sound changes *th>{w,l,s/sh}
etc
> some of which I gave already in
various groups, I can derive most
of these
> words, maybe all accross Semitic,
IE, Turkic and even NS.
How do you avoid being badly misled
by pure coincidence? A
similar-sounding technique has been
used to argue that IE derives from
Dravidian.
> I do not claim
> that the sound changes took place
exactly like that. These are what
might be
> called changes based on something
like Parsimony Principle, Occam's
Razor,
> MDL (minimum description length),
MEM (maximum entropy method), etc.
>
> In other words they are
reasonably concise and precise
descriptions of
> observed data. Then I saw that I
can take this backwards e.g. T>K,
> and then further back P>T. The
trick is to fit the data to a
theory, a
> mathematical theory, something I
have been working on for a decade
or
> more. I am convinced that these
things done with stone are derived
from
> words for stone and can be seen
to have the same phonetic form
accross
> language families.
>
> In fact, the root kVr/kVl for
"turning" can be also found in the
form
> tVr. The earliest form for "cut"
etc PL root (pilakku, pelekus,
BALAG,
> balta
> polat, bilda.) can also be found
as PR (part, portion, parathu,
parala,
> parchala..).
>
> It looks like tVr gave rise to
kVr but this is just one aspect of
a big
> problem.
> What I cannot determine are
things like was there a single
liquid at one
> time,
> which was it if it was so, were
there two or more, why, was there a
single
> language, or was there a mixing
of 2 or more, etc. These are the
things that
> interest me, not arguing about
silly things regarding IE as if it
was
> the holy
> language of god. The reason
everything is claimed to be IE is
that it is
> the first one deeply studied as a
result of a historical accident. It
was