Re: open letter to the Google company, on the value of the scientific groups

On Oct 2, 5:36 am, Nathan Sanders <nsand...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In article
<e5085a03-62e8-4098-8a5a-527a1bf97...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,

 analys...@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
On Sep 30, 11:31 pm, Nathan Sanders <nsand...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In article
<4d4af7f4-7125-4241-9c3c-062cbb7b5...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,

And yet, consider the English and Hindi cognates [wil] and [tSakka:],
which are very different phonetically, yet both mean 'wheel'.

and that is questionable.

There are plenty of more examples.  I'm sure no matter which ones I
posted, you'd find them "questionable".

Is palatal to velar a "plausible sound change"?  Yes - but you'll have
to wait for my book to see the evidence.

I don't need to see your book to know what a plausible sound change
is.  Palatal to velar is of course plausible.  Why wouldn't it be?

much you assert that phonetics trumps semantics in historical
linguistics, it simply isn't true.

It is, of course.

No matter how much you assert that phonetics trumps semantics in
historical linguistics, it simply isn't true.

There are no root words in traditional linguistics
without the nexus of the "plausible sound change" from parent to
descendant.

There are also no root words in traditional linguistics without the
nexus of the "plausible semantic change" from parent to descendant.

Read a historical linguistics textbook.  I can't believe that with
your obvious interest in the field, there is no evidence that you have
ever bothered to actually read even a basic introductory textbook.

You are saying that all four possibilities of the two by two grid of
similar/dissimilar versus semantic/phonetic exist.  But the phonetic
dissimialrity always has to be linked through "plausible sound
changes" as in the celebrated Armenian "erku" being derivable from
"PIE" "dwo".

And the semantic dissimilarity always has to be linked through
"plausible semantic change".

If two cognates mean 'cow' and 'mountain', they have to have gotten to
that point somehow!  (In this case, via 'horn'.)

Unsurprisingly, Franz is wrong.  There is no trumping.

No, you are wrong.

No matter how much you assert that phonetics trumps semantics in
historical linguistics, it simply isn't true.

Purely phonetically conditioned sound changes are
the heart and soul of traditional reconstruction - I am astounded that
the other professionals in the ng. have not challenged you on this.

Because they know that semantics is not trumped.  Neither is
phonetics.  *Both* factors are always taken into account; they work
together in every single case.

If you have two words in two languages with completely different
meanings whose pronunciations could be derived via known sound changes
from a common historical source, you still cannot be sure they are
cognates unless you have an explanation to derive their meanings, too.

If French <père> meant 'book', no one would claim it is cognate with
English <father>, without some way to explain the semantic differences
as well as the phonetic differences.

Missing from the traditional method is

(1) Whether the "roots" are actually pronounceable by actual human
beings

You've apparently never seen Georgian.  Nothing proposed in Proto-Indo
European is any worse than the Georgian word for 'you peel us' (which
is the monstrosity [gvprtskvni].  If human beings can pronounce that
(and they can), then they can pronounce PIE.

I meant monomorphemic forms of course.

I don't see how that's relevant.  Do you really think there are no
examples in any human language of difficult clusters in a
monomorphemic word?  How about Polish [fstSO~s] 'shock'?  Is that
monomorphemic enough for you?

As another poster pointed out here, that word indeed has a prefix, ws-/
wz-. But there are better examples, such as Czech "krk", "srp", and of
course the Serbo-Croat "rt".
.

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