Re: Do Eskimos count like New Guineans?

On 17 Jan, 00:55, "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Tue, 15 Jan 2008 23:53:35 -0800 (PST), richard01
<richardparke...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in sci.lang:

On 16 Jan, 12:47, "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Tue, 15 Jan 2008 19:24:03 -0800 (PST), richard01
<richardparke...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in
<news:7ff7bb89-407a-43f3-9e4c-a4bb7c399492@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
in sci.lang:

[...]

It seems to me that the adoption of  a created and
inferred proto- language, that then seems to be treated
as a sacred text, from which all the language family
descends, with any changes labelled as innovations, is
just Creationism in a different guise.

<shrug>  Your problem, not mine.  You seem to be the one
with the unbreakable dogma.

So how did certain groups newly invent exactly the same
counting method as Eskimos did? Why do certain Vanuatu
groups still count their toes between 10 and 20?
Are they remarkably coincidental new inventions, or are
they relicts of older systems, as I believe?
What's remarkable about body-part reckoning?
It's remarkable by being the way that almost all humans
first started to count beyond a very, very ancient 1 - 2
- more.

Which is exactly why there's nothing remarkable about it as
an innovation.

Well I think such a reversal in the techniques of counting is not a
new invention at all, but simply keeping the original method and
verbalisation of it. If linguists insist on calling any change from a
proto-language an innovation or a borrowing, then that's up to them.


Even if PIE seems to have arrived with a fully-blown
number system, PIE *dek'mt "ten", was, earlier *de-kont
"two hands".

Maybe.

Not maybe, certainly.


Is an 'innovation' back to that natural way of counting a
real new invention, or a 'regression'? (Assuming, of
course, that you cannot imagine any change from a sacred
proto-language to be anything _but_ an 'innovation').

A change from an inherited form is either an innovation or a
borrowing.  ('Sacred'?  My, my.)

If Dempwolff hadn't constructed his original proto-Indonesian largely
from Western Malayo-Polynesian languages where the vast majority have
an abstract decimal system in place, together with the standard names
for words from 1-10, then that system and those words would not be
enshrined in proto-Austronesian.

If they weren't already there, then they wouldn't by necessity have to
be in proto-Oceanic, either, because that has to 'inherit' those words
and the associated system.

If proto-Oceanic had been reconstructed in a complete vacuum, without
pre-knowledge of proto-Austronesian, it would have had to take into
account the majority of its languages whose number-names and systems
differ, greatly, from the PAn model, but at the same time, have a
variety of factors in common between related languages or areas.

By looking at the whole lot, I can see small areas where idiosyncratic
number systems occur together. By comparing Papuan and Austronesian
number systems and words, I can see that the same number-construction
rules seem to apply universally.

No Papuan language seems, ever, (or at least, so far as I know as of
now) to have developed an abstract decimal system independently, but
many of them have the same structures as those in Austronesian
languages that never had contact with Papuans.

It's more than a concidence if you find the same numbering system
structures in Formosa as you find in the New Guinea Highlands (or in
Eskimos, for that matter).

Was it only Austronesian languages who 'innovated' like that?

In many Papuan and Austronesan languages in the New Guinea area, the
changes between the original languages and those after adoption of Tok
Pisin or Papuan Malay systems are visible, and obvious, in just the
past 100 years.

The only major difference is that no-one has reconstructed proto-
Papuan numbers, so there's no linguistical conflict.

I don't see why the same processes shouldn't be inferred as occurring
at earlier stages in numbering development, and I simply don't see why
there is such a strong feeling amongst Austronesian linguists towards
insisting that putative proto-number systems are sacrosanct, just
because they've been inferred from much later stages in the overall
process.

It's not my dogma, it's theirs.

Meanwhile, for my own purposes, I've had to make up some new personal
technical terms from the linguistical ones:

Retention - means a word (or bit of grammar) that apparently descends
directly from the imaginary proto-language
Innovation - means a word (or bit of grammar) that apparently doesn't
descend from the imaginary proto-language
Reflex, reflected - means a word (or bit of grammar) that apparently
corresponds to something in the imaginary proto-language
Conservative - means a language that apparently still preserves words
(or bits of grammar) from the imaginary proto-language

for new terms:

Preservation - means a word (or bit of grammar) that still holds over
from an earlier language.
Invention - means a word (or bit of grammar) that doesn't descend
directly from an earlier language - it's genuinely new.
Descends from - means a word (or bit of grammar) that does descend
directly from an earlier language.
Preservative - means a language that apparently still preserves words
(or bits of grammar) from an earlier language

regards

Richard


[...]

Brian

.

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