Re: Armenian, Sumerian, Burushaski, and Turkic languages

On Sat, 09 Jun 2007 03:29:15 -0700, Darkstar
<darkstar100@xxxxxxxx> wrote in
<news:1181384955.291036.25600@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
in sci.lang:

On Jun 9, 6:21 am, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Jun 8, 9:19 pm, Darkstar <darkstar...@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

Mass comparison (if done properly) is a sensible,
scientific method (with many limitation, though). I
don't know what's wrong with you, fellas. Your brains
stopped working long ago. You're just repeating old
textbooks notions. Intended as an insult.- Hide quoted
text -

What does "if done properly" mean? Greenberg never laid
out any principles, and constantly adverted to the
illegitimate comparison with familiar Indo-European
languages, and the many review articles of LIA in IJAL
(by specialists in the various language families) lay
out the many mechanical errors and errors of judgment
committed in that work. How much worse is the
"Eurasiatic" volume!

If G. did not laid it out, that does not mean such a
procedure cannot exist in principle.

So far as I know, no one has laid out a principled
description of mass comparison. Until we have such a
description, 'done properly' is meaningless.

To some extent, I agree that mass lexical comparison is
rather an art at this point than a standard methodology,
and as such may not be reproducible by others, especially
if they're biased or lack sense of logic or statistical
intuition (Like Campbell! After reading _this article_
http://www.billposer.org/Papers/iephm.pdf (1992), which
is full of logical mistakes I finally realized what kind
of opponent he is).

Your inaccurate description of that paper -- which, by the
way, has *two* authors -- and your continued failure to
understand what Nathan's been telling you rather clearly
demonstrate how little your opinion is worth.

[...]

Neither classical comparative method nor MLC constitute a
well-defined structure.

Detailed descriptions of the comparative method are readily
available; no one has provided anything remotely comparable
for MLC. (E.g., Henry M. Hoenigswald, _Language Change and
Linguistic Reconstruction_, or Anthony Fox, _Linguistic
Reconstruction: An Introduction to Theory and Method_.)

[...]

Actually, I see almost nothing weird or revolutionary in
most of G&R's groupings (with a few exceptions of which I
have little knowledge, like the Amerind groupings, and
possibly Indo-Pacific). Many of them have for ages been
part of my "Encyclopedic dictionary of linguistics"
(1990) which is a standard, comprehensive, official
edition in Russia.

None of which says that it's right. Especially the
'official' bit.

[...]
.

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