Re: Plausibility Check


Nathan Sanders wrote:

a reply half a meter long, making it almost impossible
to answer - I could easily answer each and every point,
but in this way we'd soon arrive at replies one kilometer
long. So I just pick out a couple of points.

A discovery is not a prediction. A prediction is a prediction.

A Nathan is not a Sanders. A Nathan is a Nathan.

Mining is not predicting.

When I know about geology, and can say: there might
be oil, and when I dig, and find oil, I did so on the basis
of a prediction that sprang from laws of geology.

And your trick is nothing but. Language simply doesn't operate that
way, except in an incredibly tiny number of limited circumstances
(i.e., when whispering).

Not whispering, not whispering, not whispering,
pronouncing the words silently, without giving voice,
in order to trick out the phonetic system that keeps
words in their place within what I call the verbal
morphospace. Phonetic rules don't hold over
a period of 15,000 years, so one has to find other
ways to follow the development and evolution of
words. Mine is to pronounce them silently, not
whispering, not giving the least bit of voice.

Okay, one single valid idea: What rule predicts when Magdalenian A
corresponds to /e/ in Greek, rather than /a/? That's the one single
valid idea I want. I've asked this numerous times, in different ways,
so even you should understand what I'm asking by now.

Once again you dob't understand. I told you how to
handle kooks in a sci.group on the Usenet. If someone
tries to impress you with 30 ideas, ask him or her for
one single valid idea, and insist on it. Or pick out the
worst he or she says and insist on that.

There's so much to choose from!

The worst is a superlative, bad worse worst. Pick out
the worst I say and insist on it.

No, you don't. Whispering, by definition, is speaking in a purely
voiceless manner, with no vocal cord vibration. Again, if you're
going to use technical terminology, learn what it means first.

Fool that you are. Whispering is speaking with a minimum
of air streaming along the vocal chords. You can hear when
someone whispers. In the cinema you can hear it over long
distances. I speak of pronouncing words silently, whithout
giving any voice at all, and repeating the words over and
over again. When I do so, the words shift. When I whisper,
the phonetic system sets in and keeps words from
shifting.

"I don't like this fact, so I'll ignore it and just spew out my own
uneducated opinions instead."

Anyone's understanding of language and opinion on it
is not a fact, but an opinion.

No, you studied languages, not language. There's an enormous
difference that I fear is too large for you to comprehend.

I learned some eight languages, and I studied language.

Why the furor of your replies? Did your students look how
their university don fares in sci.lang, and see that you
can't cope with an alleged kook?

Franz Gnaedinger

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