From alderson at netcom.com  Wed Jan 27 01:52:26 1999
From: alderson at netcom.com (Richard M. Alderson III)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 17:52:26 -0800
Subject: Searchable archives
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.175226.0800.ALDERSON@NETCOM.COM>

Thanks to the generosity of the moderators of the LINGUIST list, postings to
the current incarnations of the Indo-European and Nostratic mailing lists
will be available in searchable archives.  The archives will be available at
the following URL:

	http://listserv.linguistlist.org/archives/

In addition, the previous postings will be made available in these archives
after a bit of manual editing to add the required headers.

This announcement is going out to the Indo-European, Nostratic, Historical
Linguistics, and Linguist mailing lists; I apologize to those who thereby
see it more than once.  If you know of colleagues who would be interested
but who do not subscribe to any of these lists, please feel free to forward
this announcement to them.

Rich Alderson


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Tue Jan 26 01:55:36 1999
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (Patrick C. Ryan)
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 19:55:36 -0600
Subject: <Language> Re: Caucasus and Kaska
Message-ID: <MON.25.JAN.1999.195536.0600.PROTOLANGUAGE@EMAIL.MSN.COM>

Dear Claire and EvolLinguists:

-----Original Message-----
From: Claire Bowern <C.Bowern at student.anu.edu.au>
Date: Monday, January 25, 1999 7:24 PM

>Re Hubey's posting and the moderator's comments

<snip>

>1) frozen accidents (i.e. initial conditions)
>2) system characteristics
>3) external forces

> is something students learn in first year linguistics. It is a principle
>well known.

If linguistics really took "initial conditions" into realistic
consideration, we would have been spared the pouring of much ink!

Pat


From C.Bowern at student.anu.edu.au  Tue Jan 26 02:08:03 1999
From: C.Bowern at student.anu.edu.au (Claire Bowern)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 13:08:03 +1100
Subject: <Language> Re: Caucasus and Kaska
In-Reply-To: <00be01be48cf$c5b116e0$c09ffad0@patrickcryan>
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.130803.1100.C.BOWERN@STUDENT.ANU.EDU.AU>

>If linguistics really took "initial conditions" into realistic
>consideration, we would have been spared the pouring of much ink!

>Pat

Fair enough, but since truly initial conditions are irrecoverable,
"earliest known stage" will have to do! This is, incidentally, another good
example of why languages are different from thermodynamic models.

Claire


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Tue Jan 26 02:18:46 1999
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (Patrick C. Ryan)
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 20:18:46 -0600
Subject: <Language> Re: Caucasus and Kaska
Message-ID: <MON.25.JAN.1999.201846.0600.PROTOLANGUAGE@EMAIL.MSN.COM>

Dear Claire and EvolLinguists:

-----Original Message-----
From: Claire Bowern <C.Bowern at student.anu.edu.au>
Date: Monday, January 25, 1999 8:01 PM

>>If linguistics really took "initial conditions" into realistic
>>consideration, we would have been spared the pouring of much ink!

>>Pat

>Fair enough, but since truly initial conditions are irrecoverable,
>"earliest known stage" will have to do! This is, incidentally, another good
>example of why languages are different from thermodynamic models.

>Claire

But, Claire, to decide that "initial conditions are irrecoverable" is pure
dogma. It has not been proved.

Sadly, I notice in your final sentence yet another attempt to distance the
methodology of linguistics from non-linguistic sciences.

The "Big Bang" is not really recoverable except theoretically, but a lot of
very intelligent people are doing valuable work  on the hypothesis that it
"happened".

Pat


From mclasutt at brigham.net  Tue Jan 26 02:18:36 1999
From: mclasutt at brigham.net (Dr. John E. McLaughlin and Michelle R. Sutton)
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 19:18:36 -0700
Subject: <Language> Re: rate of language change
Message-ID: <MON.25.JAN.1999.191836.0700.MCLASUTT@BRIGHAM.NET>

H. Mark Hubey wrote:

> Larry Trask wrote:

> > On Sat, 23 Jan 1999, H. Mark Hubey wrote:

> > > No, I am assuming that everyone would agree that in a highly
> > > literate society language changes would be small and minimal,

> Has there been any syntactic change? Or has there been a substitution of
> some English terms (probably mostly Americanisms) like show, footlight,
> etc.?

Perhaps you should look at some references before you write sophomoric
responses to Larry T.'s very-well constructed posts.  Larry is NOT talking
about simply borrowing terms and to think that he would try to sandbag anyone
with such simplistic examples (the kind you can read in any op-ed column in
any American newspaper) is ludicrous.  I learned Hungarian from a bunch of
1956 refugees.  Whenever I've tried to converse with modern Hungarians,
however, it becomes quite clear that the language has changed at many
levels--lexical (of course), phonological, syntactic, and morphological.

> > Britain and the USA are also highly literate, yet changes in all
> > varieties of English are proceeding apace.  In little more than a
> > generation, the loss of /h-/ in the word-initial cluster /hw-/ (as in

> Wow. I don't even notice the difference much in this neighborhood and
> neither does anyone else.

One of the "tricks" of linguistic change is that one rarely sees it from the
inside.  I doubt that you live in a community of phoneticians so I'm not
surprised that your neighbors have noticed the change as well.  Incidently, I
grew up in a dialect area that lost /hw/ clusters a few decades ago.  I
thought, though, that being a linguist I could reproduce them adequately on a
speech sample tape I made a couple of years ago.  No matter how hard I
pronounced the 'h', linguists who still had /hw/ in their dialect couldn't
hear it.

> The only thing I noticed here is that some
> people, mostly Hispanics, or those that live in Hispanic neighborhoods
> are speaking a clear-l instead of the standard dark-l. Is that "great
> change".

Yes, it's always them 'furinners. :-)

> > `white') has spread out across the USA with breathtaking speed.  In many

> "Breathtaking speed"? Are you serious? There wasn't much to notice in
> the first place; that is why nobody noticed it except for a few people
> whose job is to split hairs.

I do believe that splitting phonetic hairs is exactly the job of a linguist,
especially one that is interested in historical change.  It's called "paying
attention to detail".  Poor linguists who don't get quickly weeded out of the
pack.

> > American cities, a number of vowels (up to six) have been changing their
> > qualities so rapidly and dramatically as to impede communication with
> > speakers not participating in these shifts.  In less than about ten

> I don't believe that.

Read any of Labov's studies about sound change in Philadelphia.

> I live right here in the USA and speak to all
> kinds of peoples and don't have any problems.

But you also don't spend a lot of time analyzing how their speech physically
differs from yours.  There are probably half a dozen syntactic structures that
go unnoticed by you everyday because you're trying to politely listen to what
the person is saying rather than how they're saying it.  It's called
communication.  But look at the structure and you'll see vast differences
between every native speaker of English.

> > There's a moral here: you can't figure out how languages change by
> > sitting in your armchair and thinking about it.  You have to go out and
> > look at the data.

> Don't be ridiculous.

Ahem.  All linguistics proceeds from field work and hard data.  To think
ANYTHING else is vanity.  Where is your hard field data to prove your
assertions.  I don't think I've ever read any post or paper of yours that
exhibited hard data.

Let me give you some more hard data.  My wife and I grew up here in Brigham
City, Utah and we didn't distinguish between [E] and [I], so 'pen' and 'pin'
are identical in our speech (context usually always distinguishes them).  We
do, however, both have a healthy distinction between [e] and [E], in 'sail'
and 'sell', for example.  Our daughters are also growing up right here in
Brigham City.  Not only has the collapse of [E] and [I] solidified in their
speech, but the collapse of [e] and [E] has also started and is spreading.
This change happened while I was not living here so has not affected my own
speech, but is firmly planted in my daughters' speech.  I say [sEl] and [sel],
but they say [sEl] for both.  Context distinguishes them.  That's a pretty
significant change in vocalic structure in just a couple of decades.

John McLaughlin
Utah State University


From HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu  Tue Jan 26 02:22:27 1999
From: HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu (H. Mark Hubey)
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 21:22:27 -0500
Subject: <Language> Re: Caucasus and Kaska
Message-ID: <MON.25.JAN.1999.212227.0500.>

Claire Bowern wrote:

> >If linguistics really took "initial conditions" into realistic
> >consideration, we would have been spared the pouring of much ink!

> >Pat

> Fair enough, but since truly initial conditions are irrecoverable,
> "earliest known stage" will have to do! This is, incidentally, another good
> example of why languages are different from thermodynamic models.

> Claire

Actually, this is a very relevant and interesting post. It is like a
breath of fresh air in a room full of cigar smoke. Whether the earliest
stages are really irrecoverable is not known. And the second statement
is trivially true, but is more relevant to this discussion because it
hides something everybody talks about but rarely comes out in the open.
That is one of the problems with social sciences. The determinism is
masked by the randomness. I say this because standard analytical tools
always use randomness for all forms of uncertainty; errors, real
randomness, chaos, many causes all rolled up into one, etc.
Interestingly enough, thermodynamics is even more useful here because it
really has two faces. IT is also called "statistical physics"! The
classical thermodynamics is the part where the randomness is averaged
out to produce simple deterministic equations. Aha! That is what I have
been trying to point out. Despite all the uncertainty, randomness,
chaos, there is still something we can do. We can create simple and
deterministic models and use them as stepping stones to create more
realistics and more accurate models which definitely (at the cost of
more mathematics) predict the real world much better than the simple
models. Think of Darwinism. What has it ever predicted? Nothing.

Best Regards,
Mark
-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
hubeyh at montclair.edu =-=-=-= http://www.csam.montclair.edu/~hubey
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=


From HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu  Tue Jan 26 02:24:09 1999
From: HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu (H. Mark Hubey)
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 21:24:09 -0500
Subject: <Language> Re: Caucasus and Kaska
Message-ID: <MON.25.JAN.1999.212409.0500.>

Patrick C. Ryan wrote:

> Dear Claire and EvolLinguists:

> >1) frozen accidents (i.e. initial conditions)
> >2) system characteristics
> >3) external forces

> > is something students learn in first year linguistics. It is a principle
> >well known.

> If linguistics really took "initial conditions" into realistic
> consideration, we would have been spared the pouring of much ink!

We would have poured much ink in debates about initial conditions :-)

But I do agree (mostly).

Best Regards,
Mark
-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
hubeyh at montclair.edu =-=-=-= http://www.csam.montclair.edu/~hubey
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=


From HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu  Tue Jan 26 02:38:15 1999
From: HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu (H. Mark Hubey)
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 21:38:15 -0500
Subject: <Language> Re: Caucasus and Kaska
Message-ID: <MON.25.JAN.1999.213815.0500.>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

Claire Bowern wrote:

> Re Hubey's posting and the moderator's comments

> Check out the Khoisan languages of Namibia and Botswana - huge numbers of
> consonants but hardly the main theatre of history as Hubey would consider
> it. Look also at Kaytetye and Arrernte, in Central Australia. This is one
> correlation that is demonstrably weak, to put it politely.

I am aware of that, and that is, in fact, one of the pieces of data I
use and have used for a long time. The problem is actually bigger than
IE-linguistics. It involves genetics, anthropology, paleontology,
genetics, and other language families. First, the quick facts;

1. The SAn lived in North-East AFrica and were pushed south by Bantu
speakers (West Africans)

2. The SAn are not "black" but "yellow" (reddish?, copper-colored after
tanning?)
	
3. Egyptians painted themselves red (not black and not white)

4. The 1st wave out of Africa was probably 1-2 million years ago

5. The earliest Neandertal bones in Europe are now 800,000 years old
(Spain)

6. The big problem is whether the 2nd wave out of Africa wiped out the
Neandertals this is a problem in genetics, paleontology, etc

7. Kabardian has 1 vowel. (other caucasian languages are poor in vowels
and have lots of consonant clusters. So do IE languages. So do AA
languages. So does Khoisan.

8. Lieberman says that Neandertals could not speak. Then he changes his mind
and says that they would not be able to speak like us but would speak like
little children and could not make the "supervowel i".

9. mtDNA test say that "Eve" as African.  Y-chromosome test say that "Adam" was
African; Sudanese, Ethiopean and Khoisan.

I probably forgot some others. I've been writing for hours and I am
getting tired.

Questions: if Neandertals could not make vowels like us, what kind of a
language would they have had? If the Khoisan lived in Africa for 1-2
million years why are they yellow instead of black? Why is the fault
line of consonant-clustered languages run south from the CAucasus down
the ME to EAst Coast of Africa? What is all this saying?

> Your quotation from the Nobel Laureate about what should be taken into
> consideration when looking at language change:

> 1) frozen accidents (i.e. initial conditions)
> 2) system characteristics
> 3) external forces

>  is something students learn in first year linguistics. It is a principle
> well known. It also doesn't help here because you are taking a very weak

I am happy that it is so. What I wonder about is why the rest of the linguists
did not apparently learn this during their first year in linguistics and why I
never read that in any book.

> correlation (geographical location and number of consonants) based on a
> dodgy hypothesis and trying to find an explanation for it. Remember that

That point will eventually be settled.

> correlation is not causation; I'm sure that's taught in the physical
> sciences too.

That part is hard in the social sciences.

> Also, I wouldn't want a physicist to take any notice of what I said about
> his field, so, Mr Hubey, don't be surprised if real linguists take
> exception to being lectured at in their own field by a computer scientist.

I take exception that anyone would actually think that like the clubs that kept
out blacks, that anyone could keep me from doing linguistics. I would be more
than happy if you did computer science or physics or engineering.  Please join
any list or newsgroup and post away.

PS. I actually admire your honesty. It saves me the trouble of hinting
at such thoughts among linguists :-)

Best Regards,
Mark
-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
hubeyh at montclair.edu =-=-=-= http://www.csam.montclair.edu/~hubey
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=


From C.Bowern at student.anu.edu.au  Tue Jan 26 02:58:38 1999
From: C.Bowern at student.anu.edu.au (Claire Bowern)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 13:58:38 +1100
Subject: <Language> Re: Caucasus and Kaska
In-Reply-To: <00e101be48d2$358cbb20$c09ffad0@patrickcryan>
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.135838.1100.C.BOWERN@STUDENT.ANU.EDU.AU>

>But, Claire, to decide that "initial conditions are irrecoverable" is pure
>dogma. It has not been proved.

OK, "initial conditions are irrecoverable with current methods". The best
historical linguistics can do at the moment is about 15,000 years (at the
most - many would say less). Language has been around for at least 100,000
years; possibly, if recent finds in Flores are substantiated, much further
back than that. That's a very big gap, and I am not convinced that
theorising beyond the available data, whether using the latest whizz-bang
mathematical models or meticulous comparison, is very useful. Especially, I
might add, when there is so much to be done where the data are good!

>Sadly, I notice in your final sentence yet another attempt to distance the
>methodology of linguistics from non-linguistic sciences.

>The "Big Bang" is not really recoverable except theoretically, but a lot of
>very intelligent people are doing valuable work  on the hypothesis that it
>"happened".

You misunderstand me. I'm not trying to distance the methodology of
linguistics from other sciences, on the contrary, I agree that there is a
lot of room of methods which incorporate more mathematical rigour, and this
is indeed happening, for example in dialectometry and in comparative
Pama-Nyungan. What I do object to, however, is the idea that mathematicians
work with the same sort of data that linguists do. Linguistic data,
especially in historical linguistics, is inherently unreliable (this hasn't
been said for a while so might as well repeat it). Think of the number of
times a single language in a subgroup preserves what is probably the
proto-form. For all of you out there who have done original reconstruction
- think of the amount of guesswork involved in determining the likely
proto-forms and finding possible sources of the innovations. Think of the
number of dead languages which are preserved in only a few words, and think
of how many more there must be for which we have no knowledge whatsoever.
Mathematicians don't have to deal with irregular gaps in their systems.
Historical linguists do.


From HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu  Tue Jan 26 03:06:06 1999
From: HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu (H. Mark Hubey)
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 22:06:06 -0500
Subject: PIE and Horses
Message-ID: <MON.25.JAN.1999.220606.0500.>

X99Lynx at aol.com wrote:

>My point earlier was that DNA (or RNA) testing doesn't necessarily tell you
>when domestication occurs unless there is some clear genetic event associated
>with domestication.

I was only interested in knowing if we could know where domestication
occurred.

>BUT about PIE and the Anatolians, what is interesting about the horse is that
>it is undergoing (possibly) domestication and the introduction of the bit
>right around the time that various conjectured movements are happening around
>and about the Black Sea.  So from circa 3000 bce to 2000 bce roughly, you have
>a horse culture being diffused through the same region, but maybe moving north
>to south.  Sheep, goats, pigs have all been domesticated well before this and
>are pretty well dispersed into Europe, having moved south to north.  But
>horses and horse back riding and charioteering should be just starting to move
>at this point.  Plus you have the horse culture associated catacomb tombs
>starting to appear all along the steppes north of the Black Sea, east of the
>Crimea.

We are still not sure about the date of the domestication of the horse.
It was obviously in Western Europe or the people who painted them on the
cave walls in France came from someplace that had horses 25,000 years
ago. Was it or was it not domesticated? Why did it take so long?

Best Regards,
Mark
-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
hubeyh at montclair.edu =-=-=-= http://www.csam.montclair.edu/~hubey
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=


From HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu  Tue Jan 26 03:16:25 1999
From: HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu (H. Mark Hubey)
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 22:16:25 -0500
Subject: <Language> Re: Caucasus and Kaska
Message-ID: <MON.25.JAN.1999.221625.0500.>

Claire Bowern wrote:

> Pama-Nyungan. What I do object to, however, is the idea that mathematicians
> work with the same sort of data that linguists do. Linguistic data,
> especially in historical linguistics, is inherently unreliable (this hasn't
> been said for a while so might as well repeat it). Think of the number of

Mathematicians, physicists, engineers, computer scientists,
psychologists, sociologists, economists all know and use methods that
depends on unreliable data.

Indeed, the methods of working with such types of data is invented
usually by mathematicians or mathematical scientists.

> times a single language in a subgroup preserves what is probably the
> proto-form. For all of you out there who have done original reconstruction
> - think of the amount of guesswork involved in determining the likely
> proto-forms and finding possible sources of the innovations. Think of the
> number of dead languages which are preserved in only a few words, and think
> of how many more there must be for which we have no knowledge whatsoever.
> Mathematicians don't have to deal with irregular gaps in their systems.
> Historical linguists do.

Economists work with irregular gaps all the time. Would you recommend,
at least, that linguists pick up these methods, if you are opposed in
principle to working with the methods of physical scientists? How about
sociologists' and psychologists's mathematical methods? Do you have
anything against them?

Best Regards,
Mark
-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
hubeyh at montclair.edu =-=-=-= http://www.csam.montclair.edu/~hubey
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Tue Jan 26 03:23:09 1999
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (Patrick C. Ryan)
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 21:23:09 -0600
Subject: <Language> Re: Caucasus and Kaska
Message-ID: <MON.25.JAN.1999.212309.0600.PROTOLANGUAGE@EMAIL.MSN.COM>

Dear Claire and EvolLinguists:

-----Original Message-----
From: Claire Bowern <C.Bowern at student.anu.edu.au>
Date: Monday, January 25, 1999 8:51 PM

>>But, Claire, to decide that "initial conditions are irrecoverable" is pure
>>dogma. It has not been proved.

>OK, "initial conditions are irrecoverable with current methods". The best
>historical linguistics can do at the moment is about 15,000 years (at the
>most - many would say less).

This is but the assumption beyond the assumption. It has also not been
proved.

>Language has been around for at least 100,000
>years; possibly, if recent finds in Flores are substantiated, much further
>back than that. That's a very big gap, and I am not convinced that
>theorising beyond the available data, whether using the latest whizz-bang
>mathematical models or meticulous comparison, is very useful. Especially, I
>might add, when there is so much to be done where the data are good!

Yes, socio-linguistics is interesting.

What does that possibly have to do with the larger issues?

>>Sadly, I notice in your final sentence yet another attempt to distance the
>>methodology of linguistics from non-linguistic sciences.

>>The "Big Bang" is not really recoverable except theoretically, but a lot of
>>very intelligent people are doing valuable work  on the hypothesis that it
>>"happened".

>You misunderstand me. I'm not trying to distance the methodology of
>linguistics from other sciences, on the contrary, I agree that there is a
>lot of room of methods which incorporate more mathematical rigour, and this
>is indeed happening, for example in dialectometry and in comparative
>Pama-Nyungan. What I do object to, however, is the idea that mathematicians
>work with the same sort of data that linguists do. Linguistic data,
>especially in historical linguistics, is inherently unreliable (this hasn't
>been said for a while so might as well repeat it). Think of the number of
>times a single language in a subgroup preserves what is probably the
>proto-form. For all of you out there who have done original reconstruction
>- think of the amount of guesswork involved in determining the likely
>proto-forms

And that, appreciatedly candid Claire, is what invalidates linguistics and
those who presently practice it. Guesswork by Researcher A is not
necessarily of the quality of guesswork by Researcher B. The only solution
is to have a consensus on what the proper methodology is for calculating
odds that will show that Researcher A's brilliant guesses are statistically
probable, and expose B's as professorial humbug.

>and finding possible sources of the innovations. Think of the
>number of dead languages which are preserved in only a few words, and think
>of how many more there must be for which we have no knowledge whatsoever.

It is certainly not necessary to know every language that ever has been
spoken to be able to say with a fair degree of surity whether a vocabulary
item was liable to have been present in the substratum of all language.

>Mathematicians don't have to deal with irregular gaps in their systems.
>Historical linguists do.

Sorry, I will have to disagree. Modern math can deal with every model you
can imagine.

Pat


From C.Bowern at student.anu.edu.au  Tue Jan 26 03:40:00 1999
From: C.Bowern at student.anu.edu.au (Claire Bowern)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 14:40:00 +1100
Subject: <Language> Re: Caucasus and Kaska
In-Reply-To: <36AD3389.8574A4D5@montclair.edu>
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.144000.1100.C.BOWERN@STUDENT.ANU.EDU.AU>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

At 9:38 PM -0500 25/1/99, H. Mark Hubey wrote:

>7. Kabardian has 1 vowel. (other caucasian languages are poor in vowels
>and have lots of consonant clusters. So do IE languages. So do AA
>languages. So does Khoisan.

Nama has 5 simple vowels, which is as many as a lot of languages. It also
has a set of nasalised vowels, a length distinction (aa, ii, oo, uu, ee)
and a ful set of diphthongs. There's little chance of borrowing because
there's little contact (I have it first hand that a lot of people avoid the
bushmen in Namibia because their languages are too difficult).

>8. Lieberman says that Neandertals could not speak. Then he changes his mind
>and says that they would not be able to speak like us but would speak like
>little children and could not make the "supervowel i".

How on earth can he tell that?????? I can't accept this without seeing his
evidence and what experts in his field think about it.

>If the Khoisan lived in Africa for 1-2
>million years why are they yellow instead of black?

They are lighter skinned than Bantu peoples but they are still black (I am
reminded of Steve Bicko's comments at his trial - the judge asked him why
he called himself black when his skin was brown; he replied "why do you
call yourself white when you're pink?"). I believe that the amount of
melanin in the skin is controlled by a few genes only but I don't want to
get into an argument on genetics because the only area of this subject I
could argue remotely coherently about is drosophila melanagasta (fruit fly)
and this is, indeed, a very long way from the topic at hand.

And from another thread:

>Economists work with irregular gaps all the time. Would you recommend,
>at least, that linguists pick up these methods, if you are opposed in
>principle to working with the methods of physical scientists? How about
>sociologists' and psychologists's mathematical methods? Do you have
>anything against them?

I'm glad you brought up economists because they embody a lot of my worries
about the blind use of mathematical models. The economists I talk to either
admit that their models do not model their data very accurately and worry
about it, and slam their colleagues for not taking this ionto account, or
are perfectly happy with the models they use, but are very surprised when
the model fails (which it inevitably does, when unemployment doesn't do
what it should, or inflation rises, or the stock market crashes, etc). This
is why I am sceptical.


From iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu  Tue Jan 26 04:37:22 1999
From: iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu)
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 22:37:22 -0600
Subject: Lieberman and Neanderthals
Message-ID: <MON.25.JAN.1999.223722.0600.>

	Lieberman says what he says on the basis of anatomy, obviously,
the idea being that due to Neanderthals having a more ape-like vocal tract
the range of possible vowels would be less than now occurs.  This does not
show that Neanderthals did not have language.  He is, I believe, guilty of
tautology, for in effect he defines "modern language" as what we can speak
but Neanderthals could not, yet winds up saying that Neanderthals did not
have modern language as if 1) it was not something true by his definition,
and 2) it meant that there was some sort of other impoverishment, perhaps
so severe that Neanderthals could be described as not having language in
any sense.  Apparently he hopes that by the time we reach his conclusions,
we will have forgotten his assumptions and definitions.  The argument is
fundamentally flawed.  At worst, it would take Neaderthals longer to say
things than it does us (fewer contrasts, longer words), but that is about
all.

				DLW


From Odegard at means.net  Mon Jan 25 23:07:26 1999
From: Odegard at means.net (Mark Odegard <Odegard@means.net>)
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 23:01:26 -6
Subject: Carl Darling Buck's IE Synonyms
Message-ID: <MON.25.JAN.1999.230126.6.>

Many of you are no doubt aware of this book. For those of you who are
not -- grab it. Even though it's 50 years old, it's the kind of book
that will take a very long time to become obsolete. It's a lot of
fun, too.

Carl Darling Buck, _A Dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the
Principal Indo-European Languages: A Contribution to the History of
Ideas_, U. Chicago Press, 1949. US$36.00, paperback reprint from
1988, available at barnesandnoble.com

Most of it is arranged like the 2 volume OED reduction you could get
through the book club offer, four reduced pages to a page. I need a
magnifier, or have to bring it up to my nose to read it.

Buck has taken a large number of synonyms through the IE languages
and arranged them by *topic*, relating them to an IE root where
possible, and putting the non-PIE terms into related groups.

For example, under 'Nephew', he gives both brother's son and sister's
son. The list is too extensive for me to copy type here, but you get,
under 'brother's son', Greek adelphidous, Latin fratris filius,
Italian nipote, Irish garmhac, Breton niz, Swedish brorson,
Lettish brala dels, Polish synowiec, Avestan bratruya, just to list
some of them.

This is a book that begs to be built upon.
--
Mark Odegard   mailto:odegard at means.net


From Odegard at means.net  Mon Jan 25 23:50:51 1999
From: Odegard at means.net (Mark Odegard <Odegard@means.net>)
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 23:44:51 -6
Subject: Riding Horses
Message-ID: <MON.25.JAN.1999.234451.6.>

On 24 Jan 99 at 21:20, iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu wrote:

[...]
> In
> any event, my impression is that in the early days there was what might be
> called "role reversal" between cattle and horses:  cattle were used for
> draft, and horses for milk, and that "getting it right" (using horses for
> draft and cattle for milk) was a major agricultural or pastoral revolution
> at the time. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Don't the Mongols still consume mare's milk? And a fermented,
buttered version at that?

I don't think you are wrong at all. Pinning down the an exact date
for this 'pastoral revolution', though, seems difficult. Sometime
before 1300 BCE for sure, at least for the bit. This seems to have
moved down from the steppe. Ramesses II's monuments to himself show
his chariot horses with bits, while not too far before, the images of
horse and chariot from King Tut's tomb has a nose ring in the horse
(this could be an archaic artistic convention though).

The book on equine archeology does not seem to have been written.
The evidence from Dereivka, though, is very difficult to dismiss.
Accepting the latest date, c. 3500 BCE for the bit, it becomes very
hard to believe horses were not being *regularly* ridden. Can you
imagine them NOT riding these creatures? And since they quite
obviously CAN be ridden, can you imagine a rider culture not
developing out there on that ocean of free grass?

By the time of the Indo-Iranian migrations, it is hard to believe
that horseback riding was not integrated into their economic system.
When I read of neolithic/early bronze burials that include horses, I
wonder just how large these animals were; I suspect they were sized
like Iceland horses or Shetland ponies  -- quite capable of pulling a
light cart or supporting a rider, but not really suitable for heavy draft
work -- or for cavalry. Compare such small horses with the apparently
full-sized specimens on Ramesses' monuments. Anyone have any
information?

We also need the book on bovine archeology too. I've been reading
about aurochs skulls being plastered into the walls of Catal Huyuk
family shrines, along with the skulls of departed family members.
--
Mark Odegard   mailto:odegard at means.net


From mclasutt at brigham.net  Tue Jan 26 06:04:15 1999
From: mclasutt at brigham.net (Dr. John E. McLaughlin and Michelle R. Sutton)
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 23:04:15 -0700
Subject: <Language> Re: Caucasus and Kaska
Message-ID: <MON.25.JAN.1999.230415.0700.MCLASUTT@BRIGHAM.NET>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

Patrick C. Ryan wrote:

> And that, appreciatedly candid Claire, is what invalidates linguistics and
> those who presently practice it. Guesswork by Researcher A is not
> necessarily of the quality of guesswork by Researcher B. The only solution
> is to have a consensus on what the proper methodology is for calculating
> odds that will show that Researcher A's brilliant guesses are statistically
> probable, and expose B's as professorial humbug.

Pat, you've said this a couple of times now (on a couple of different lists),
but I must correct you.  Historical linguists do not rely on statistics to
prove or disprove the validity of a given theory of relatedness.  They rely on
PREDICTABILITY.  That's what regular sound correspondences are all about.  For
example, Jakob Grimm described the relationship between the consonants of
German and Proto-Indo-European.  I can now take his theory and see if it works.
I take the word 'father' and Grimm's laws (I'll include Verner's here too) tell
me that the German word with also start with [f], will have a [d] in the
middle, and end with an [r].  And sure enough it does.  I take the word
'father' and run the rules in the other direction and I can predict that the
Latin word will start with [p], have a [t] in the middle, and still end with
[r].  Right again.  If I can do this with form after form after form, then the
sound correspondences are reliable and the genetic relationship postulated is
confirmed.

If, on the other hand, I postulate a linguistic relationship with a few sound
correspondences, but those sound correspondences offer no predictive power
beyond the few dozen forms I cite as evidence, then that linguistic
relationship cannot be considered proven.  It will always be considered only a
hypothesis.  A good example of this is Whorf and Trager's Aztec-Tanoan family.
Beyond their few dozen examples, no one has ever been able to use their sound
correspondences to find any more forms in either Uto-Aztecan or Tanoan that fit
the rules.  It's a dead end.  Therefore, the relationship is considered to be
suggestive, but no more.  Not proven by any stretch of the imagination.

It's not statistics, it's correspondences and predictive power.

John McL


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Tue Jan 26 07:15:56 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 02:15:56 EST
Subject: *gw
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.021556.EST.>

>iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu

>By the way, my pharyngeal theory, in its original crude form,
>also implies that there should be no IE /gw/.  This does not appear to be
>the case.  Nonetheless, I do seem to recall that IE /gw/, /ghw/, and /w/
>often get mixed up in the descendant branches.  (Any two out of the three,
>I mean, not all.)  Perhaps this is relevant.  Another possibility is that
>/b/ and /gw/ began to be confused at some point inthe proto-language, with
>the end result being that all instances of /b were absorbed into /gw/.

-- I would think that the survival of *gw in Mycenaean Greek (eg., Mycenaean
gwous, 'cow', later Greek 'bous') would indicate it survived in PIE.


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Tue Jan 26 07:37:05 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 02:37:05 EST
Subject: (no subject)
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.023705.EST.>

>hubeyh at montclair.edu

>Semitic is being formed around the same time as PIE.

-- however, when we get the first historical glimpse, Semitic is far to the
southwest, completely unrelated languages like Hurrian separate it from any
contact with PIE, and Semitic itself is related to Cushitic, Old Egyptian, the
Berber languages, and Hausa -- suggesting that it originated far from the
Middle East.  Analogy with the later Semitic migrations would suggest that
Akkadian came into Mesopotamia from the southwest, from the Arabian
penninsula.  There's absolutely no indication of any Semitic or proto-Semitic
speakers in Anatolia.

>The IEans move out westwards via the south of the Caspian. A secondary home
>is found in the northwest corner of the Black Sea. The flooding chases them
>out of there.

-- aren't we multiplying the hypotheses somewhat, here?  It's starting to
sound like a Biblical epic, with ping-pong ball migrations all over the place.

>Some move to the Balkans. Some Thracian speakers cross over the Bosphorus
>into Anatolia and make it to the original homeland where all the mixing was
>going on. They mix with the people there including the ancestors of Iranian,
>Hittite and
>Armenian, and more borrowing from Semitic which is itself being formed.

-- it's generally agreed that the Indo-Iranians were already in the northern
Eurasian steppe zone by about 2500-2000 BCE, identifiable as the Adnronovo
culture.  Indo-Iranian certainly shares late isoglosses with Balto-Slavic and
Finno-Ugrian has early IE loans that are specifically Indo-Iranian in nature.

>This is the second churning and is around the time of the Sumerians, and
>Akkadians. As a result of reflux actions and mixing Akkadian, Armenian
>and Hittite are the most divergent.

-- however, Armenian wasn't anywhere in Anatolia until late in the second
millenium BC at the earliest.  That whole area was Hurrian/Urartian (that is
to say, non-IE) speaking until then.

Armenian's closest links are with Greek, which would support the traditional
argument that the proto-Armenians and proto-Phyrgians only entered Anatolia
after 1200 BCE or so.


From glengordon01 at hotmail.com  Tue Jan 26 08:22:20 1999
From: glengordon01 at hotmail.com (Glen Gordon)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 00:22:20 PST
Subject: Semitic and Finno-Ugrian??
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.002220.PST.GLENGORDON01@HOTMAIL.COM>

>>Could someone explain how PIE itself,...could have
>>been in contact with a semitic language, let alone proto-semitic.

>-- As I understand the hypothesis, it was that proto-Semitic was in
>contact with proto-Ugrian.

Proto-Ugrian? I don't know of that theory and would be far too unlikely,
I would gather. What I personally surmise is that _North_ Semitic had
reached the south shores of the Black Sea and the speakers of this
language were in contact with the IE speakers on the eastern shore as
well as Kartvelian speakers to the south of the IE. This is supported by
reconstructed items in both IE and Kartvelian which clearly show a
Semitic influence of some kind. I don't know of much Semiticisms in
Uralic languages apart from instances of the word for "seven" which
could just as well be borrowed from an intermediary source like IE or
its daughter languages.

The original Proto-Semitic isn't involved in this.

--------------------------------------------
Glen Gordon
glengordon01 at hotmail.com

Kisses and Hugs
--------------------------------------------


From nicholas.widdows at traceplc.co.uk  Tue Jan 26 10:55:02 1999
From: nicholas.widdows at traceplc.co.uk (Nicholas Widdows)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 10:55:02 -0000
Subject: Xinjiang mummies were Celts
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.105502.0000.NICHOLAS.WIDDOWS@TRACEPLC.CO.UK>

The textile expert Elizabeth Wayland Barber has identified the
European-appearance mummies found in the Xinjiang desert as Celts from
Central Europe, according to a report in yesterday's _Guardian_. I don't
know how much of this is new, but the report presented it as a major
reassessment in the history of Eastern and Western civilizations, so
here goes. In her book _The Mummies of Urumchi_, to be published next
month, she says that their woollen plaids could only have been woven on
warp-weighted looms, which orginated in "Europe via the Middle East"
(whatever that means: Europe first then ME?). They date from about 1000
BCE, in an inhospitable region never settled by steppe nomads. There was
no mention in this article of Tocharian.

Nicholas Widdows


From mcv at wxs.nl  Tue Jan 26 11:10:23 1999
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 11:10:23 GMT
Subject: How weird is Hittite? Not weird enough :)
In-Reply-To: <l03130303b2cfd5cf15d4@[207.120.0.95]>
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.111023.GMT.>

Rick Mc Callister <rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu> wrote:

>But Armenian has had over 2,000 years to get weird
>As I understand it [from my very limited reading about Armenian], Ancient
>Armenian wasn't all that strange
>but exposure to Turkish and so on did a number on Armenian

Yes, Modern Armenian has apparently acquired some "agglutinative"
characteristics, but when it is said that Armenian is "weird", the
reference is to Classical Armenian, which was already weird enough
(mainly in its phonology, although there are some bizarrities in the
morphology as well).

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam


From tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de  Tue Jan 26 12:15:55 1999
From: tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de (Theo Vennemann)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 13:15:55 +0100
Subject: Non-IE words in Early Gmc.
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.131555.0100.TVN@CIS.UNIMUENCHEN.DE>

>Hello Carol,

>Did anyone ever privately reply to your question about the 30% non-
>Indo-European words in Early German?  If you have come across the list of
>these non-I.E. words since you posted your question, do you entertain any
>theory as to where these words may have came from? Do you think they might be
>Fenno-Ugric, since these groups were nearby the ancient Germans?  Who else
>could it be?  Thanks.

>Best regards,
>David O'Keefe

I know of no such list. But the repeated observation has intruiged me
sufficiently to give it some thought. For those who share this interest,
here are some references, in part with etymologies for some of those non-IE
words:

-- "Bemerkung zum frühgermanischen Wortschatz", in Fs. Matzel, Heidelberg
1984, 105-119.
-- "Etymologische Beziehungen im Alten Europa", Der GinkgoBaum:
Germanistisches Jahrbuch für Nordeuropa 13 (1995), 39-115.
-- "Some West Indo-European words of uncertain origin", in: Fs. Fisiak,
Berlin 1997, I.879-908.
-- "Germania Semitica: *ploog-/*pleg-, *furh-/*farh-, *folk-/*flokk-,
*felh-/*folg-", in: Fs. Eroms, Heidelberg 1998, 245-261.
-- "Andromeda and the Apples of the Hesperides", in: Karlene Jones-Bleyet
al. (eds.), Proceedings of the Ninth Annual UCLA Indo-European Conference
(Journal of Indo-European Studies Monograph Series, 28), Washington, D.C.
1998, 1-68.
-- "Germania Semitica: Biene und Imme: Mit einem Anhang zu lat. apis",
Sprachwissenschaft 23 (1998), 471-487.
You may also want to look at the following etymological studies:
-- "Zur Etymologie von Éire, dem Namen Irlands", Sprachwissenschaft 23
(1998), 461-469.
-- "Remarks on some British place names", in: Fs. Irmengard Rauch, New York
1999, 25-62.

Best regards,
Theo Vennemann.
26 January 1999


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Tue Jan 26 14:04:50 1999
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 14:04:50 +0000
Subject: Cases in Indo-European
In-Reply-To: <36AC0832.B5BB2A83@montclair.edu>
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.140450.0000.LARRYT@COGS.SUSX.AC.UK>

On Mon, 25 Jan 1999, H. Mark Hubey wrote:

> Large scale changes cannot occur in large systems.

I see.  So that's why the earth's atmosphere never throws up hurricanes
or tornadoes.  And that's why El Nin~o has no discernible effect upon
the world's climate.

That's why stars -- large systems, wouldn't you say? -- never turn into
novas or supernovas.

And that's why Middle Chinese -- a large system by linguistic standards
-- hardly changed at all, and why all Chinese-speakers today can
understand one another without difficulty.

And, of course, that's why practically nothing has happened to English
in the last 500 years, and why we find it so easy to read `Piers
Ploughman'.

  *    \
    --  )
  *    /

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk


From mclasutt at brigham.net  Tue Jan 26 14:37:13 1999
From: mclasutt at brigham.net (Dr. John E. McLaughlin and Michelle R. Sutton)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 07:37:13 -0700
Subject: Cases in Indo-European
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.073713.0700.MCLASUTT@BRIGHAM.NET>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

H. Mark Hubey wrote:

> H. Mark Hubey wrote:

>>No, I am assuming that everyone would agree that in a highly literate society
>>language changes would be small and minimal, and that in an illiterate
>>society bilingual speakers would behave much more differently than bilingual
>>speakers in literate peoples. The latter is due to personal observations and
>>the former is partly derived from the latter and partly attempt at logical
>>deduction.

>>[Moderator's comment:
>> Personal observation is a poor substitute for examination of long-term data.
>> Language changes, even in highly literate society, pay no attention to the
>> written word.
>> --rma ]

> Large scale changes cannot occur in large systems. Conversely, large
> scale changes are possible and likely in small systems. If large scale
> changes are observed in a system in two time periods T1 and T2, then (1)
> the system was small, (2) the difference T2-T1 is large, or (3) the
> changes were externally driven. That cannot really be disputed; there is
> too much math, physics, and systems theory behind it and is also based
> on studies and empirical evidence.

Unfortunately, there's no linguistics behind it.  Take syntactic change, for
example.  Thirty years ago, there was no discourse connector/predicate
marker/etc. 'like'.  Now it is like becoming the most widespread marker in the
American language.  Deal with it.  Our language is constantly changing in ways
that you would consider large-scale.  Another example is the common rising
intonation on the end of like all declarative sentences.  Like, you know, it's
not a question, but it's just a statement (rising intonation right up like
through the period).  Most Americans treat the written language as a separate
tongue and speak in a different manner, splitting infinitives, dangling
prepositions, piling on negatives, adding 'like', infixing 'f**king' in
prestress position.  There are hundreds of things going on in standard American
dialects that have no reflection in the writing system because Americans have
perceived a difference.

John McLaughlin
Utah State University


From mclasutt at brigham.net  Tue Jan 26 14:46:13 1999
From: mclasutt at brigham.net (Dr. John E. McLaughlin and Michelle R. Sutton)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 07:46:13 -0700
Subject: Creoles
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.074613.0700.MCLASUTT@BRIGHAM.NET>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu wrote:

> On Sun, 24 Jan 1999 JoatSimeon at aol.com wrote:

> > >Creolization requires either aggregations of wealth or very active trade.

> > -- I don't think this follows.

> > Any situation of contact will produce linguistic effects; simple folk-
> > migration will give you the same prolonged bilingualism and need to
> > communicate in imperfectly understood versions of somebody else's language
> > that a trade-diaspora does.

>         Contact does not typically lead to creolization. If it did, there
> would be a lot more of it.

>From my experience and study, creolization is a product of slavery and
colonization.  I don't think that a single example of creole has been
demonstrated that does not involve one of these factors (almost always the
former, but also with the latter).  Slaves being forced to communication with
one another (I count the Hawaiian indentured sugar cane and pineapple workers
as "slaves") is the classic case.  New Guinea's Tok Pisin involved the forced
communication of a people with the superior authority who refused to speak
anything but English.  If there are widely accepted cases of creolization
outside of these two very specific social environments, I'm not aware of them.

John McLaughlin
Utah State University


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Tue Jan 26 15:11:12 1999
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (Patrick C. Ryan)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 09:11:12 -0600
Subject: STATISTICS IN LINGUISTICS
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.091112.0600.PROTOLANGUAGE@EMAIL.MSN.COM>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

Dear John and IEists:

-----Original Message-----
From: Dr. John E. McLaughlin and Michelle R. Sutton <mclasutt at brigham.net>
Date: Tuesday, January 26, 1999 12:03 AM

>Patrick C. Ryan wrote:

>> And that, appreciatedly candid Claire, is what invalidates linguistics
>> and those who presently practice it. Guesswork by Researcher A is not
>> necessarily of the quality of guesswork by Researcher B. The only
>> solution is to have a consensus on what the proper methodology is for
>> calculating odds that will show that Researcher A's brilliant guesses are
>> statistically probable, and expose B's as professorial humbug.

>Pat, you've said this a couple of times now (on a couple of different lists),
>but I must correct you.  Historical linguists do not rely on statistics to
>prove or disprove the validity of a given theory of relatedness.  They rely on
>PREDICTABILITY.  That's what regular sound correspondences are all about.  For
>example, Jakob Grimm described the relationship between the consonants of
>German and Proto-Indo-European.  I can now take his theory and see if it
>works.  I take the word 'father' and Grimm's laws (I'll include Verner's here
>too) tell me that the German word with also start with [f], will have a [d] in
>the middle, and end with an [r].  And sure enough it does.  I take the word
>'father' and run the rules in the other direction and I can predict that the
>Latin word will start with [p], have a [t] in the middle, and still end with
>[r].  Right again.  If I can do this with form after form after form, then the
>sound correspondences are reliable and the genetic relationship postulated is
>confirmed.

What is somewhat frustrating is that you do not seem to realize that this is
a statistical relationship; if what you are saying was absolutely true, we
would be entitled to say that the probabilities were 100 out of 100. But, I
think you know that these laws, while very reliable, do not *always* yield
the anticipated forms.

>If, on the other hand, I postulate a linguistic relationship with a few
>sound correspondences, but those sound correspondences offer no predictive
>power beyond the few dozen forms I cite as evidence, then that linguistic
>relationship cannot be considered proven.  It will always be considered only a
>hypothesis.

I agree wholeheartedly.

But the crucial difference between your conception of this question and mine
is that I believe that the sound correspondences *might*, if tested, have
predictive power if linguists would dismount from their a priori horses and
give them a try.

>A good example of this is Whorf and Trager's Aztec-Tanoan family.  Beyond
>their few dozen examples, no one has ever been able to use their sound
>correspondences to find any more forms in either Uto-Aztecan or Tanoan that
>fit the rules.  It's a dead end.  Therefore, the relationship is considered to
>be suggestive, but no more.  Not proven by any stretch of the imagination.

No reasonable person, and I hope I am one, could disagree with that.

>It's not statistics, it's correspondences and predictive power.

Predictive power, IMHO, is based on statistics.

Pat


From cjustus at mail.utexas.edu  Tue Jan 26 15:19:06 1999
From: cjustus at mail.utexas.edu (Carol F. Justus)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 09:19:06 -0600
Subject: NEW BOOK IN IE
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.091906.0600.CJUSTUS@MAIL.UTEXAS.EDU>

I wonder if readers have seen Elizabeth Wayland Barber's new book entitled
THE MUMMIES OF UERUEMCHI (1999 W. W. Norton Press). It was reviewed in the
NY TIMES a week or so ago and is a very readable account of the Tarim Basin
/ Tocharian evidence. It is written for the general public but based on
some very solid scholarship. The volumes edited by Victor Mair (2 volumes:
THE BRONZE AGE AND EARLY IRONAGE PEOPLES OF EASTERN CENTRAL ASIA, 1998,
Institute for the Study of Man and Univ. of Penn. Museum Publications)
contain individual articles that she obviously draws on, including her own
excellent article.

Also, on the wheel, Yigael Yadin did an excellent book with illustrations
on the development of it, the chariot, and other weapons during the
attested part of our IE prehistory. The entire horse issue might well be
informed / constrained by some of his excellently documented points (with
illustrations from sculpture, e.g.).

CFJ


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Tue Jan 26 15:37:50 1999
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (Patrick C. Ryan)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 09:37:50 -0600
Subject: IE creole?
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.093750.0600.PROTOLANGUAGE@EMAIL.MSN.COM>

Dear Rick and IEists:

-----Original Message-----
From: Rick Mc Callister <rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu>
Date: Tuesday, January 26, 1999 6:23 AM

>I think Semitic was already in Mesopotamia by that time.
>In any case, if Semitic-speakers were passing technology to the west &
>north, the terms could have easily passed through intermediaries to IE
>speakers

[ moderator snip ]

For some additional food for thought, a very interesting article appeared in
Carsten Peust's Goettinger Beitraege zur Sprachwissenschaft, Heft 1, 1998,
entitled: Traces of an Early Indo-European Language in Southern Mesopotamia,
written by Gordon Whittaker.

Although I do not "buy" its premise, I think many of you might find it
stimulating.

cpeust at gwdg.de

Pat


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Tue Jan 26 15:59:11 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 09:59:11 -0600
Subject: Help me out guys, I'm not getting this one at all.
In-Reply-To: <36fa748f.1260565964@mail.wxs.nl>
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.095911.0600.RMCCALLI@SUNMUW1.MUW.EDU>

	What about the argument [Ringe et al.] that Germanic split from
Balto-Slavic and picked up vocabulary, etc. from Celtic?

[snip]

>The problem is the position of Germanic and Armenian.  Apart from
>what are probably recent and superficial contacts between Germanic
>and Celtic (in Western Europe) or Armenian and Anatolian (in Eastern
>Anatolia), there are clear connections between Germanic and
>Balto-Slavic and between Armenian and Greek/Albanian.  Going by the
>archaeological evidence, these contacts could go back as far as the
>period 3500-3000 BC, when we have the Corded Ware culture in N/E.
>Europe (Germanic/Balto-Slavic) and the Balkan "Battle-Axe" Cultures
>(Armenian/Greek/Albanian[/Phrygian/Daco-Thracian]).

[snip]


From mcv at wxs.nl  Tue Jan 26 15:53:31 1999
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 15:53:31 GMT
Subject: PIE pathways.
In-Reply-To: <199901252018.OAA23511@orion.means.net>
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.155331.GMT.>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

"Mark Odegard <Odegard at means.net>" <Odegard at means.net> wrote:

>The more I think about it, It's not the Dnieper where you'll find
>the earliest IEs, but the Dneister, from Moldova up to
>Transcarpathian Ruthenia and west into to the Plains of Hungary.

Interesting.  What would you say about the timeline?

The Dniestr area is excluded from the PIE homeland by Mallory,
given the fact that the (Sub-)Neolithic cultures that we find
there until 3000 BC (Bug-Dniestr, Cucuteni-Tripolye) are closely
allied to the "Old European" cultures of the Balkans (Vinc^a,
etc.).  It wasn't until the demise of the Tripolye culture, c.
3000 BC, that the region was fully drawn into the
steppe/battle-axe cultural zone (Yama [Yamnaya],
Ezero-Cernavoda).

The area of the Hungarian plains was also initially settled by
agriculturalists from the south (Vardar/Sava).  Ultimately, if we
can believe the archaeological and genetic evidence, they were of
Anatolian origin.  By 5500 BC, Hungary became the nucleus of the
LBK culture, which expanded into Central, Northern and Eastern
Europe (Low Countries to Poland).  So if this area was IE before
3500 BC, it follows that PIE must be descended from the languages
of the earliest Anatolian farmers (as per Renfrew, more or less),
and that the languages of the first temperate farmers of Europe
(LBK) must have been Indo-European.

To illustrate, here is the chart from Champion et al.
"Prehistoric Europe" for the Neolithic/Chalcolithic (7000-3500 BC
calibrated):

   7000 6750 6500 6250 6000 5750 5500 5250 5000 4750 4500 4250
4000 3750 3500
Th Proto/Pre-Sesklo--- Sesklo------------ Dhimini------------ Larisa/Rakhmani
Bu    Karanovo I/II------------ Karanovo III/IV Karanovo V/VI----- Kar. VII--
Yu      Starc^evo-------------- Vinc^a----------------------- Bubanj---------
Ro      Cris,------------------ Vadastra- Boian Gumelnit,a-------- Cernavoda-
Hu      Ko"ro"s---------------- LBK------ Tisza Tiszapolgar-- Bodrogkeresztur
Mo           Bug-Dniestr---------------------- Cucuteni-Tripolye-------------
Uk                                   Dniepr-Donets- Sredny Stog--------------
Po/                             LBK----------- SBK----------- TRB------------
Cz                              LBK----------- Lengyel------- TRB------------
Ge                              LBK----------- Roessen------- TRB------------
NF                              LBK----------- Roessen------- Michelsberg----
SC                              Ertebo/lle-Ellerbek---------- TRB------------
Br                                             Windmill Hill-----------------

(The regions are: Th=Thessaly, Bu=S.Bulgaria, Yu=Yugoslavia,
Ro=Romania, Hu=Hungary, Mo=SW Ukraine/NE Romania (Moldova),
Uk=Ukraine (steppe) [based on Mallory]
Po/Cz=Poland/Czechoslovakia, Ge=Germany/Low Countries,
NF=Northern France, SC=S.Scandinavia, Br=Britain).

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Tue Jan 26 16:16:49 1999
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 16:16:49 +0000
Subject: Darwin and IE
In-Reply-To: <36AD1634.F7A7BBB7@montclair.edu>
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.161649.0000.LARRYT@COGS.SUSX.AC.UK>

On Mon, 25 Jan 1999, H. Mark Hubey wrote:

> As for the specifics, a language that is isolating and has
> prepositions probably cannot become agglutinating. Look at English.
> Do you think that it will become agglutinating?

> No, it won't. Look at the way phrases are constructed; "a house", "a
> blue house", "a large blue house". How could it agglutinate? Do you
> think that the definite article will get glued as a prefix? Suppose
> it does and we have "ahouse". Then how will "a blue house" look
> like, "ahouse blue"? That would require a change in which the
> modifier would have to go after the noun. I don't see how that could
> happen unless all of a sudden all over the world, all English
> speakers caught on to this craze of poetic speaking like "four walls
> do not a prison make", "my house beautiful", "my fiancee's eyes
> blue", etc.  IT won't happen! Maybe if the language had
> postpositions, it could happen but differently.

As a matter of fact, *exactly* the scenario described here has happened
countless times in languages.  It has been observed in more languages
than you can shake a stick at, and it has happened in languages with
prepositions and in languages with postpositions -- or, more to the
point, in languages with preposed determiners and languages with
postposed determiners.  As it happens, one of the principal
investigators of this phenomenon is Joseph Greenberg, who published a
classic paper on it in 1978 and returned to the subject in 1991.  This
work, unlike Greenberg's mass comparisons, is generally admired by
linguists.

Let's look at Basque.  In Basque, the order of elements in noun phrases
is Noun - Adjective - Determiner.  An example:

	etxe    zuri    hori
 	house	white	that
	`that white house'

In earlier Basque, there was no definite article, but there were three
demonstratives: <hau(r)> `this', <hori> `that (just there)', and *<har>
`that (over yonder'.  But then the distal *<har> came to be used
unstressed as a definite article; in the process, it was reduced in form
and independence to a suffix <-a>.  Here's the result in modern Basque:

	etxe `house'
	etxea `the house'
	etxe zuria `the white house'
	etxe zuri txikia `the little white house' (<txiki> = `little')
	etxe zuri txiki polita `the pretty little white house'
		(<polit> = `pretty')

See the result?  The article <-a> is simply suffixed to what is
otherwise the final item in the noun phrase, regardless of whether that
is a noun or an adjective.

And it really is an agglutinated suffix.  It is so tightly bound to the
preceding item, whatever that is, that, in western dialects, the usual
western rules applying to vowel sequences apply here as well.  In
western dialects, we have the changes <ea> --> <ia>, <ia> --> <iya>, and
<ua> --> <uwa> or <uba>.  So, in western dialects, we have:

	etxe `house'
	etxia `the house' (= <etxea> elsewhere)
	etxe zuriya `the white house' (= <etxe zuria> elsewhere)
	buru `head'
	buruwa OR buruba `the head' (= <burua> elsewhere)

So, *exactly* the change that Mr. Hubey has just declared impossible is
attested in Basque -- among many other languages.

Of course, this hasn't happened in English -- yet.  But it might.
Already I notice that many of my students -- and one or two of the
contributors to this list -- write `a lot of' as `alot of', suggesting
that they feel the article to be fused to the following item in this
case, at least.  There is nothing to stop English from doing the same
thing that Basque has done, but at the other end of the noun phrase.

More generally, English is showing signs of some very interesting
developments.  Not only do we now have nouns like `house-hunting' and
`baby-sitting', we even have verbs like `house-hunt' and `baby-sit'.
This isn't just agglutination: it's incorporation.  If this development
continues, English may wind up looking rather like an Eskimo language.
Every major change in a language starts from tiny beginnings like this
one.

English has the same pathways open to it as any other language, and its
speakers may choose to follow any of those pathways, sooner or later.
Who can say which choices will be made by our descendants?  Declaring a
perfectly well-attested change to be impossible, merely because it
hasn't happened yet, is unhelpful.

Suppose we could talk to an Anglo-Saxon.  How would he respond if we
told him his language was about to lose its entire case-system for
nouns, its entire agreement system for adjectives, its subjunctive, and
virtually the entire set of verb-agreement endings?  Or if we told him
that his language was about to acquire a whole new set of modal
auxiliaries, a common verb-ending <-ing>, a complete set of overt
progressive verb-forms, a <going to> marker of futurity, and a host of
other grammatical innovations in this vein?  I'll bet he'd say "That's
impossible!" and walk away from the obvious lunatic.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Tue Jan 26 16:39:37 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 10:39:37 -0600
Subject: let's get back to IE linguistics/ was Hubonics
In-Reply-To: <36AD0D25.9AFA5171@montclair.edu>
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.103937.0600.RMCCALLI@SUNMUW1.MUW.EDU>

	Like most disciplines, linguistics proceeds from an accumulated
body of knowledge. If you have the intelligent arguments and credible
evidence to challenge the foundations of linguistics, fine. But those who
ride on the shoulders of giants aren't going to be swayed by ankle-biters.
If you have an argument, state it cogently and coherently with reliable
evidence by reputable scholars. If you want to engage in polemics and
name-calling, then please go to the Clinton-Starr list.

[snip]
>You can take your choice. I have made mine.
>
>Best Regards,
>Mark
>-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
>hubeyh at montclair.edu =-=-=-= http://www.csam.montclair.edu/~hubey
>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Tue Jan 26 16:44:28 1999
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 11:44:28 EST
Subject: Evolution
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.114428.EST.>

In a message dated 1/26/99 8:54:14 AM, DLW wrote:

<<I must, with some reluctance, support Mr. Hubey on this one.
There are reasons to think that biological evolution is relevant to
linguistic evolution. >>

Yes, but it then becomes very important to understand evolution science and
the key difference between the two kinds of studies.  Here's an example:

<<For example, it has recently been determined that the three kinds
of zebras (there I go with zebras again) are not in fact closely related
to each other.>>

Modern conclusions can be misread if we don't take them in historical context.

One of the big breakthroughs of Darwinian theory was that it freed biological
history from total morphological relationships.  Lamarck and popular thinking,
reinforced by the system of phylum and genera, assumed that common
morphological traits meant common descent or relation.  There was really
nothing else to go by than the idea that if two types of animals looked alike
they were more closely related than animals that looked different from one
another.
The popular version was that you will look more like your father than your
distant cousin and extending that to bigger realm of animal relationship, etc.

What the theory of natural selection did in this case was shift focus from
strict inheritance to the environment as dictating morphology.  So that the
closeness of body structure or the appearance of a unique structure (like
zebra stripes) does not necessarily tell us the history of descent.  In the
extreme case, concepts like parallel evolution or independent occurence can
actually mean that a trait shared in common (like wings in birds and bats) do
not demonstrate common ancestry but instead common adaptation.  (Even modern
genetics, without the confirmed Darwinian hypothesis of random mutation, would
not have been able to predict this little trick of Mother Nature.)

The big example of evolution theory at work isn't zebras.  It's the recent
conclusion, against all common sense, that birds (Avis) are the descendants of
dinosaurs.  There was no DNA ("genetic") evidence for this, it is based on
paleobiological taxonomic evidence.

Compare this to historical linguistics.  The breakthrough here was to
establish a genuine morphology (by which I mean also for these purposes
phonology) of descent.  The breakthrough with Grimm's Law was that form and
traits could give you a predictable pattern of descent.

This is not parallel to the science of evolution so much as it is the science
of genetics.  Both genetics and linguistics focus on internal structure.
Natural selection focuses on external forces.

Linguistics is a powerful internally consistent tool.  But once you try to
apply external forces to its analysis, you are diluting or misapplying it.

Just as random mutation breaks the laws of genetic inheritance, non-linguistic
factors disrupt the unity assumption of linguistics.  Of course, this in no
way says that either genetics or linguistics are flawed.  It just means you
have to know when they apply and when to use them and when something has
intervened - like mutation or a counter-linguistic historical event.

As far as language structure being subject to natural selection, there is an
important difference between biology and language structure.  Language
structure - like genetic structure - must be conservative about forms.  This
is because language's function is communication.  Communication demands
predictability.  I must know by your words you meant the same thing today that
you meant yesterday .  Or communication fails.

Biological evolution, on the other hand, is anti-conservative.  The diversity
of forms is totally dependent on "innovations" and nothing else.  Genetics is
conservative like language structure.  It conserves forms.  Evolution is the
opposite.

Regards,
Steve Long


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Tue Jan 26 16:49:46 1999
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 16:49:46 +0000
Subject: rate of language change
In-Reply-To: <36AD1CFA.C17214FC@montclair.edu>
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.164946.0000.LARRYT@COGS.SUSX.AC.UK>

On Mon, 25 Jan 1999, H. Mark Hubey wrote:

[on the recent rapid change in French]

> Has there been any syntactic change?

Has there?  Has there ever!  Amazing things are happening to French
syntax.

In standard French, `John has bought the car' is this (sorry; no
diacritics):

	Jean a achete la voiture.

But what you'll probably hear in France is this:

	Jean, il l'a achetee, la bagnole.

Literally, it would seem, `John, he's bought it, the car.'

French is becoming ever more like a native North American language, with
massive verbal agreement.

In standard French, a sentence can't end with a preposition.  But, in
spoken French, the following sort of thing is common:

	Paul, Marie a couche avec.

	`Paul, Marie has slept with.'

With a nice big fat preposition <avec> `with' at the end of the
sentence.

In standard French, `There's the woman whose bag was stolen' is this:

	Voila la femme a qui on a vole le sac.

But what people say in Paris is often this:

	Vla la meuf qui s'est fait peta son keus.

With an utterly different construction.

A few years ago, a linguist who works on French was astonished to hear
somebody say this:

	Paul, Marie, elle a couche avec.

	`Paul, Marie, she has slept with.'

Only a minority of my French students regard this as acceptable when
they are asked directly, but clearly some people are saying it and
others find it acceptable.  And you won't find this construction in any
reference grammar of French.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk


From nicholas.widdows at traceplc.co.uk  Tue Jan 26 16:43:45 1999
From: nicholas.widdows at traceplc.co.uk (Nicholas Widdows)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 16:43:45 -0000
Subject: Darwin but not alas IE
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.164345.0000.NICHOLAS.WIDDOWS@TRACEPLC.CO.UK>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

> I don't make any mistakes about it; it is vague. IN fact, its critics
> complain that it is tautological, and I am not saying that it is only me.
> "The survival of the fittest" has no predictive value; it certainly isn't
> even close to Saussure's or Maxwell's work. The only thing we have now alive
> are those who survived and therefore they must have been the fittest. That
> sounds like two words meaning the same thing because they are equivalent.

Lest any linguist who happens not to be a scientist is reading this, and
still imagines that Mr Hubey deserves credence on science in general,
can I point out that he has just convicted himself of gross ignorance of
elementary biology. "Survival of the fittest" (a term neither coined nor
liked by Darwin) is not a tautology. When first coined it meant
straightforwardly that the strongest, the sharpest-clawed, or the
fleetest-footed survive; which is hard to argue with. Much later,
biologists wanted to quantify how much survival things did, so they
coined a brand-new concept, which they might have called "intrinsic
survival potential" or "W-zero" or a dozen other things, but as often
happens, they exapted a common term and called it "fitness". That was
the tautology. This concept proved unworkable in the 1960s and was
abandoned. It was replaced by various technical concepts called things
like "inclusive fitness", still tautologous by definition but no longer
clashing with the familiar emotive English term, which is indeed now
independent of the biologists' technical terms, and the two can be
correlated objectively. One of the clearest refutations of this nonsense
about tautology is in Richard Dawkins's _The Extended Phenotype_, which
devotes *an entire chapter* to the different meanings of "fitness".

Naked mole rats, mammals that are eusocial colonies like bees, were
successfully predicted from evolutionary theory, to name just one
example as impressive as laryngeals.

To relate this however tenuously to language, not to understand fitness
is the equivalent of, perhaps, not understanding that phrase structure
grammars now use transformations. I'm sorry to be off-topic, and I don't
think this line should be pursued, but a mistake this blatant was an
opportunity too good to pass up.

Nicholas Widdows
[The opinions in this are mine and those of all biologists, but not
necessarily those of Trace PLC.]
"The Lord hath delivered him into my hands!" -- Thomas Huxley


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Tue Jan 26 18:05:50 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 12:05:50 -0600
Subject: Language Succession
In-Reply-To: <35513ed2.36ac26eb@aol.com>
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.120550.0600.RMCCALLI@SUNMUW1.MUW.EDU>

	I get the feeling that in England, the fact that the conquest [from
Kent to Cumberland & Cornwall] took a good 500 years may have had a hand in
this. They were presumibly able to "digest" the conquest in small enough
chunks that they could impose a minority language upon them one shire at a
time, whereas the Franks, Goths, Bungundians, Lombards & Normans conquered
large territories all at once.

[snip]
>In cases where the immigrant language _did_ supplant that of the natives --
>early Anglo-Saxon England, areas of South Slav language in the Balkans, and so
>forth -- I think a different model than "elite dominance" is required.

>In particular, the immigrants would have to come in complete family units, and
>with a diverse enough social structure that most households would not be
>required to practice everyday bilingualism.  Numbers would count.

>And there would have to be some mechanism to assimilate speakers of the native
>language _as individuals_ within the immigrant households, so that even if the
>native speakers were numerous in relation to the incomers in the countryside
>as a whole, in the actual micro-setting of language acquisition (the
>households of the speakers of the new language) the native speakers would be
>isolated among a majority speaking the new tongue.


From Georg at home.ivm.de  Tue Jan 26 17:56:19 1999
From: Georg at home.ivm.de (Ralf-Stefan Georg)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 18:56:19 +0100
Subject: rate of language change
In-Reply-To: <36AD1CFA.C17214FC@montclair.edu>
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.185619.0100.GEORG@HOME.IVM.DE>

>"Breathtaking speed"? Are you serious? There wasn't much to notice in
>the first place; that is why nobody noticed it except for a few people
>whose job is to split hairs.

It is the very nature of linguistic change, as well as of any other
invisible-hand-process that the microscopic steps it takes are rarely
noticed by the speakers. Yes, they are noticed by those whose job it is to
split hairs. Splitting-hairs is a scientist's job, after all, or am I
mistaken here ?

"Breathtaking speed" is of course a metaphor and should be held against the
object of interest, i.e. in our case language. For any geologist, the
glaciers in the Andes recede at a breathtaking speed. I fail to see what is
wrong with these metaphor (but, of course, as always  I'm also lying ;-).

St.G.

Stefan Georg
Heerstrasse 7
D-53111 Bonn
FRG
+49-228-69-13-32


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Tue Jan 26 17:59:45 1999
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 12:59:45 EST
Subject: <Language> Re: Caucasus and Kaska
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.125945.EST.>

In a message dated 1/26/99 12:19:34 PM, John McLaughlin quoted M. Hubey:

<<1) frozen accidents (i.e. initial conditions
2) system characteristics
3) external forces

I write this as often as I can, but it does not seem to do anything.>>

[In response John McLaughlin wrote:]
<<Mainly because it means nothing to linguists and real language.>>

Well, to the extent Mr Hubey list does mean something to language, it is
painfully general.

The effect of intial conditions and other external forces on language is a
mighty tall order, involving at the very least all local and general cultural
evidence in any way, shape or form, over a long, long time.

The great thing about linguistics is that it is a narrow but clean and valid
path through that big mess, thanks to the rather consistent ways humans
structure languages. (And thanks to linguists, too, of course.)  It can't
account for everything but it does provide a pretty good amount of
consistency, valid hypotheses and predictability to a difficult subject:
cultural history.

If one is going to examine all the external forces that influenced language in
history, however, it would be best to bring one's lunch.

Regards,
Steve Long


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Tue Jan 26 18:18:16 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 12:18:16 -0600
Subject: Cases in Indo-European
In-Reply-To: <007601be48ad$4d629140$8ffaabc3@niywlxpn>
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.121816.0600.RMCCALLI@SUNMUW1.MUW.EDU>

	This is not always true. In the last 30 years or so, the white
Southern US dialect has been giving way to standard US English --the
"written" norm here, of course, is television. While -r dropping is common
among whites 50 or older in Mississippi, it is almost non-existent among
white students where I teach. With the exception of "y'all", most of them
sound like they're from the Midwest.

	The same phenomenon is seen in Costa Rica and quite a few other
places in Latin America, where --on the whole-- younger generations speak a
much more standard version of the language than their parents.

	Re the written word, it's said the Midwestern English is closer to
standard English because Germans and other immigrants learned their English
at school from a textbook rather than from their parents. This is a facile
explanation, of course.

>So a written norm does not greatly affect the process of language change, it
>simply hides it.

>Peter

[ Moderator's comment:
  This is not due to *written* language, but rather to *spoken* language heard
  widely for the first time in the history of humanity:  What young Southerners
  and young Latin Americans have in common is that they can now frequently hear
  the prestige (or at least neutral) form of their language, frequently enough
  that they can learn it as a natural language.  *Written* language never had
  this effect; rather, like _katharevousa_, the spoken language continued to
  diverge from the "standard" until the latter was done away with.

  For the record, I am a native speaker of Southern US English of more than 30
  years ago.
  --rma ]


From mcv at wxs.nl  Tue Jan 26 20:18:05 1999
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 20:18:05 GMT
Subject: rate of language change
In-Reply-To: <36AD1CFA.C17214FC@montclair.edu>
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.201805.GMT.>

"H. Mark Hubey" <HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu> wrote:

>Has there been any syntactic change?

Sure.  Colloquial French has been interpreted as VSO (e.g. in the
database of Johanna Nichols' "Linguistic Diversity in Space and
Time", based on Stephen J. Matthews 1989 "French in Flux", in:
Walsh, Thomas J. "Synchronic and Diachronic Approaches to
Linguistic Variation and Change", and Martin Harris 1978 "The
Evolution of French Syntax: a Comparative Approach").

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam


From petegray at btinternet.com  Tue Jan 26 20:47:40 1999
From: petegray at btinternet.com (Peter &/or Graham)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 20:47:40 -0000
Subject: IE creole? Hmmm...
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.204740.0000.PETEGRAY@BTINTERNET.COM>

Glen said:
>Phonology
>means nothing in the end ... The grammatical
>connections to Uralic suggest a true genetic relationship to me.

(and on ergativity:)
>. This does not make the creole idea any more
>plausible than an IE-Uralic genetic relationship.

Granted.

Peter


From petegray at btinternet.com  Tue Jan 26 20:59:37 1999
From: petegray at btinternet.com (Peter &/or Graham)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 20:59:37 -0000
Subject: IE creole?
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.205937.0000.PETEGRAY@BTINTERNET.COM>

Stefan wrote:
>*if* PIE-PSem. contacts are an inevitable conclusion
>from the linguistic data ...

Contact of some kind at some stage seems preferable to me than coincidence.
The parallels are too striking:
(a) basic semantic meaning carried by consonants, while vowels indicate the
function of the word.
(b) basic word (or root) structure of two consonants, with a later extension
of one (or two) further consonants.
(c) basic verb form is marked for aspect rather than tense, and is the
punctative (or simple, or equivalent) as opposed to the continuous.
(d) strong preference for either grammatical suffixes or prefixes, but not
both on the same word.
(e) development of a variety of various "stems" of verbs from the basic
root.   (We shouldn't assume this is a function of language in general -
there are many languages which do not do anything like this)
(f) original dual as well as singular and plural;  later (almost certainly
independently) losing ground to sing / plural
(g) striking similarity in the phonological systems of PIE and P-Sem (though
not identity!)

I'm sure that list could be extended.   Word borrowings (septem etc) also
indicate contact at some time.

Peter


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Tue Jan 26 21:38:11 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 16:38:11 EST
Subject: (no subject)
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.163811.EST.>

>Or of the Caucasus, the Kalahari, or the Russian Far North. The most
>elaborate and complicated phoneme-systems are to be found far away from the
>main theatre of history.

>Stefan Georg

-- exactly.  This applies to other gramatical structures as well -- note the
extreme conservatism of Lithuanian in preserving the elaborate PIE
declensions.

Languages in use in the 'centers' of history, which are usually multilingual,
get 'worn down' towards simplicity.  It's out in the remote fringes that the
most elaborate complexities remain.


From iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu  Tue Jan 26 21:41:35 1999
From: iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 15:41:35 -0600
Subject: Various
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.154135.0600.>

	Well, I am so weary from slogging through all this stuff I
scarcely know where to begin in responding to the few things said that
relate to anything I said ...

	Let's see ... evidence that the Anatolians entered from the west?
Like what?  Last I heard there was no clear archeological evidence of any
such thing, just the usual muddle and quot homines tot opiniones.

	Turkic being not IE, which I have known probably longer than Mr.
Gordon has been alive, has nothing to do with anything I said.  As for
waves, the Turks have been moving back and forth in waves across the
steppe for some time now, without much separation having occurred.  What
is necessary for separation (I am disappointed to have to make such a
basic point) is something that stops people from talking to each other.
Note the social divisions that have caused some divergence between white
and black English in America.  Steppes do not (necessarily) do it.

	As for what I would mean by the Hittites moving "early" into
Anatolia, roughly before 3500 B.C.

	There are parallels between linguistic and biological evolution.
I did not say they were absolute.  They are worth looking into, and better
understanding.  Time and energy for an impromptu micro-essay are lacking
at this point.  For the time being all I can say is I do not agree with
what was said.  The differences I perceive are different ... but at this
point, even I do not want to hear about them.

	By the way, the phenomenon of spelling pronunciation, which one
member noted in connection with Danish, shows quite clearly that it is not
some sort of Eternal Verity that written language is irrelevant to the
development of spoken language.

	And yes, the French changes-in-progress are grammatical, not just
lexical.  The language is seemingly becoming polysynthetic under our very
noses.  Should be interesting to watch.  But the written form of French is
so far from the spoken language that it is understandable if speakers in
effect disregard it.

	I am getting a lot of double-messages here, and once again ask
members to please, if they can, stop it.  I also implore members to calm
down.  Matters of marginal relevance are probably best dropped.
	
					DLW


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Tue Jan 26 22:13:53 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 17:13:53 EST
Subject: Contact Pidgins
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.171353.EST.>

>The situation here is what I call "reconvergence".  It's effects
>are similar to creolization, but it is not creolization.  In other words,
>the situation develops as if there had been a Germanic creole in the mix,
>without this actually being true.

-- this strikes me as a distinction without a difference.

English itself displays some of the features of a creolized pidgin (loss of
inflection, etc.).  And English has undergone repeated situations of languge-
contact on its native ground -- with Romano-British, with Old Scandinavian,
and with French.   Comparison with the closely related Frisian is instructive.

Afrikaans has undergone a strikingly similar simplification in a situation of
language contact and bilingualism -- from 17th century Netherlandish, still
highly inflected, to a grammar that is even more radicallysimplified than that
of English.  (Eg., replacement of wiij with onz, etc.)

I agree that creolization/pidgin is an overworked term, but it certainly has
some validity for prehistoric situations.


From glengordon01 at hotmail.com  Tue Jan 26 21:57:08 1999
From: glengordon01 at hotmail.com (Glen Gordon)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 13:57:08 PST
Subject: Darwin and IE
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.135708.PST.GLENGORDON01@HOTMAIL.COM>

>Like what kind of accident? Like the mythical king of Spain who started
>to lisp?

>Or do you mean "frozen accidents" of Gell-Man?

I had a frozen accident once. It was really cold outside and there was
no public washroom for miles. Um, beg pardon but how does all this still
relate to IE? Maybe another list would be appropriate so that I don't
have to sift through so many emails.

--------------------------------------------
Glen Gordon
glengordon01 at hotmail.com

Kisses and Hugs
--------------------------------------------


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Tue Jan 26 22:29:10 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 17:29:10 EST
Subject: (no subject)
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.172910.EST.>

>manaster at umich.edu

>There are people who assume that PIE was spoken in Anatolia or nearby.

-- I don't think this need be taken very seriously, though.  Apart from the
fact that when written records begin Anatolia is largely non-IE-speaking, and
that all attested IE languages in Anatolia are plainly intrusive, it's
extremely difficult to make sense of chronologically.

PIE has a late-neolithic, early Copper Age vocabulary.  Thus it can't date
much beyond 4000 BCE, and the mid-fourth-millenium makes more sense.


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Tue Jan 26 22:24:44 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 17:24:44 EST
Subject: Tarim Basin Mummies
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.172444.EST.>

>chrislord at sandonlodge.freeserve.co.uk (Chris Lord)

>Has anyone else seen the UK Daily Telegraph today, or heard from elsewhere
>about the 1,000 BC mummies found in Chinese Turkestan, who had apparently
>Celtic-ish clothes, and were of Caucasian appearance?

-- you can get a good overview of this in v.23, nos. 3&4 of the Journal of
Indo-European Studies, and also in LATE BRONZE AGE AND IRON AGE PEOPLES OF
CENTRAL ASIA,  Victor Mair, ed.

Essentially, the hyperarid and alkaline soils of the Tarim basin (what's now
Chinese Turkistan) preserve organic materials, both bodies and artifacts like
clothing.

>From about 2000 BCE or so up until the 5th to 7th century CE, the Tarim Basin
was inhabited by Europoid populations -- many of them strikingly similar to
Central and Northern Europeans, both in appearance and according to DNA
testing.

Their textiles also bore strong resemblances to those much further west, using
weighted-warp loom technology, and including such things as herringbone twill
plaids. (And those goofy-looking hats with feathers that Bavarians wear.)

This is also, of course, the area where Tocharian speech prevailed prior to
the expansion of Uighur into the area.  How far back that goes, we can't
absolutely tell -- the mummies weren't buried with letters.  However, given
the historical accounts (Chinese sources from periods that _are_ definitely
Tocharian-speaking refer to big-nosed, blond and redheaded peoples in the
area) and the archaeology (no severe discontinuities after the early Bronze
Age) it seems reasonable to assume that the Europoid mummies were Tocharian
(or proto-Tocharian) speakers.

Especially as it seems definite that Tocharian broke off from PIE very early.


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Tue Jan 26 22:39:47 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 17:39:47 EST
Subject: (no subject)
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.173947.EST.>

>HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu (H. Mark Hubey)

>You don't have to take my word for it. AT least take the word of a
>Nobel Laureate in physics:

>1) frozen accidents (i.e. initial conditions
>2) system characteristics
>3) external forces

>I write this as often as I can, but it does not seem to do anything.

-- perhaps that's because a physicist has no particular authority in matters
of linguistics.

Or about as much as a chemist would in economics.


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Tue Jan 26 22:33:47 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 17:33:47 EST
Subject: (no subject)
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.173347.EST.>

>petegray at btinternet.com (Peter &/or Graham)

>So a written norm does not greatly affect the process of language change, it
>simply hides it.

-- not necessarily.

Until the modern period, universal literacy in our sense -- a standard written
language taught in the schools -- didn't exist.

Nor, of course, was there any recorded sound.

It's notable that there has been a massive convergence in dialect forms in
modern English over the past hundred years -- travelling in the American
South, for instance, you can tell a person's generation immediately by the
degree of deviation from Standard English.

The same has happened in places like Italy, where the standard language has
largely supplanted a series of dialects that were barely mutually
comprehensible, or (in the case of Sicilian and Tuscan) not mutually
comprehensible at all.


From tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de  Wed Jan 27 00:06:21 1999
From: tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de (Theo Vennemann)
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 01:06:21 +0100
Subject: IE creole?
Message-ID: <WED.27.JAN.1999.010621.0100.TVN@CIS.UNIMUENCHEN.DE>

There are people (have been for 99 years) assuming that Semitic or closely
related languages were spoken in the British Isles.

On Mon, 25 Jan 1999 manaster at umich.edu wrote:

>There are people who assume that PIE was spoken in Anatolia or
>nearby.

>On Sun, 24 Jan 1999 GregWeb at aol.com wrote:

>>Could someone explain how PIE itself, not its daughter languages, could have
>>been in contact with a semitic language, let alone proto-semitic.  I thought
>>that Semitic languages would be moving nto Mesopotamia from the southwest at
>>a time when PIE was still north of that entire area.  I know that daughter
>>languages of PIE were later in contact with Semitic languages, but I do not
>>see how geographically PIE and proto-Semitic or any semitic language would
>>have been in contact so as to influence the development of PIE itself.


From donncha at eskimo.com  Wed Jan 27 00:15:59 1999
From: donncha at eskimo.com (Dennis King)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 16:15:59 -0800
Subject: Language Succession
In-Reply-To: <35513ed2.36ac26eb@aol.com>
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.161559.0800.DONNCHA@ESKIMO.COM>

JoatSimeon at aol.com:

>The general rule would seem to be that a thin stratum of immigrant
>conquerors loses its language and takes up that of the majority.

The experience of Old Norse speaking invaders/settlers in the Hebrides
and the Isle of Man seems to bear this out.  In Lewis and Harris, the
Vikings, if it is safe to call them that, were temporarily dominant
enough to leave a large number of Norse placenames on the ground, which
have survived to the present in Gaelicized form.  Furthermore, the
Gaelic of the islands has some eccentric phonological features, such
as pre-aspiration of voiceless stops and devoicing of voiced stops,
which appear to be a Norse legacy.  Otherwise, the Norse language
didn't survive there.

The situation on Man seems to have been more complex and a lot more
interesting.  Manx Gaelic lost a lot of grammatical features that
Irish and Scottish Gaelic have retained, such as the copula, which
was replaced by the substantive verb, the distinction between the
palatal and non-palatal consonant series, the autonomous [unspecified
subject] verb forms, most declensional forms, and so on.

All these losses have been noted in semi-speakers of certain Irish
and Scottish Gaelic dialects which are on the verge of death.  The odd
thing about Manx is that these were features of the language way back
when it was still vital and intact, in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Why these signs of "decay" in a vital Gaelic dialect?

The interesting theory lays this at the feet of the Norse,  who
politically dominated the island ca. 900.  After a few generations of
intermarriage, there would have been three languages going: Norse,
Gaelic, and Norsified Gaelic (with all the defects of modern semi-
speakers).  The speakers of proper Gaelic would have been people of
low status with whom the Norse did not see fit to intermarry, while
the speakers of "broken" Gaelic would be the offspring of higher status
Norse-Manx alliances.  These families would have continued to dominate
the island, and after some generations have lost their Norse, by which
time their "broken" Gaelic would have become established as the prestige
language.

If this scenario is true, a corollary to the rule "that a thin stratum
of immigrant conquerors loses its language and takes up that of the
majority" would be that a slightly thicker stratum transforms the
majority language as they adopt it.  Was this what happened to English
after 1066 and all that?

Dennis King


From manaster at umich.edu  Wed Jan 27 00:51:00 1999
From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 19:51:00 -0500
Subject: IE creole?
In-Reply-To: <v01510100b2d4078bb629@[129.187.26.32]>
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.195100.0500.>

Sure, Arabic, Hebrew, Maltese...

On Wed, 27 Jan 1999, Theo Vennemann wrote:

> There are people (have been for 99 years) assuming that Semitic or closely
> related languages were spoken in the British Isles.

[ moderator snip ]


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Wed Jan 27 01:06:46 1999
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 20:06:46 EST
Subject: Darwin and IE
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.200646.EST.>

In a message dated 1/26/99 12:33:18 PM, M. Hubey wrote:

<<and I am not saying that it is only me. "The survival of the fittest"
has no predictive value; it certainly isn't even close to Saussure's or
Maxwell's work. The only thing we have now alive are those who survived and
therefore they must have been the fittest. That sounds like two words meaning
the same thing because they are equivalent.>>

I have a feeling that you may not be thoroughly familiar with this particular
subject.  "The only things we have now alive are those who survived and
therefore they must have been the fittest," I believe is the official theme of
the NFL playoffs.  And although it may have some semblance to evolution, they
are not quite the same.  For one thing, a great many of the subjects studied
by evolutionary science are quite dead, and have been for a long time.
"Survival of the fittest" is a term of limited application that hasn't really
been at the core of evolutionary study for about 130 years.

Evolutionary science focuses on proof and processes that must be totally
confirmed by hard sciences, particularly geology and biochemistry.

I think that, with your appreciation of mathematics, computer sciences,
probability theory and the scientific method, you will be pleasantly pleased
by such studies as "Late Precambrian and early Cambrian Metazoa: statistical
evidence of periodic extinctions,"  "Statistical influence of siphonophore
behavior upon natural diets:  Evidence for agressive mimicry," "Cortical
cytoplasm and evolution," and my favorite, "The gall wasp genus Cynips: a
study in the origin of a specie," by none other than A.C. Kinsey (of the
Report fame) 1930.

It would be interesting to know what serious scientists today consider
evolutionary science vague or tautological.  I suspect there aren't too, too
many.

BTW, a great introduction to this science is contained in the books of Stephen
Jay Gould.  "Hen's teeth and Horse's Toes" is a good one.

Regards,
Steve Long


From hubeyh at Montclair.edu  Wed Jan 27 00:33:51 1999
From: hubeyh at Montclair.edu (H. M. Hubey)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 19:33:51 -0500
Subject: Cases in Indo-European
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.193351.0500.HUBEYH@MONTCLAIR.EDU>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

Larry Trask wrote:

> On Mon, 25 Jan 1999, H. Mark Hubey wrote:

> > Large scale changes cannot occur in large systems.

> I see.  So that's why the earth's atmosphere never throws up hurricanes
> or tornadoes.  And that's why El Nin~o has no discernible effect upon
> the world's climate.

This is good, so good in fact, that I couldn't wait. I will write the rest
later.

This example illustrates what miscommunication is and also what I have
been saying for a few years now.

Large scale changes do occur in the atmosphere but they are "externally
driven".
The weather is driven by

(1) the sun when it heats up our world,

(2) the fluctuations in the heat because of the distance from the sun to
the earth over a period of a year

(3) the fluctuations in the spots heated because of the tilting of the earth

> That's why stars -- large systems, wouldn't you say? -- never turn into
> novas or supernovas.

Time is necessary. Throw up 1,000 pennnies until you get 1,000 heads. Its
probability of occurrence is about 10^(-300) or so. That is a decimal point
with about 300 zeros after it. Yes, large scale changes can occur, but for
making real-life calculations this is what is called "vanishingly small",
small enough indeed to be thought of as zero.

> And that's why Middle Chinese -- a large system by linguistic standards
> -- hardly changed at all, and why all Chinese-speakers today can
> understand one another without difficulty.

This now brings up the third point. Rates. Rate of borrowing in Turkish
(Osmanli) was high (from Farsi and ARabic) and it has acquired an /f/. So
did Uzbek. Kazak and Kirgiz probably had to wait until Russian rule to
acquire it.

> And, of course, that's why practically nothing has happened to English
> in the last 500 years, and why we find it so easy to read `Piers
> Ploughman'.

Practically nothing has happened to English over the last 500 years and
that is why Shakespeare is taught even to those who want to have nothing
to do with it :-)
Maybe they should teach some math to those who don't want to have anything
to do with it instead of Shakespeare.

>

And finally, let us recall some high school physics: it was thought that
heavier objects fell to the ground faster. Actually sometimes they do.
Drop a leaf of paper or a leaf and an iron ball from the Pisa Tower and
see what happens. The thing that made Galileo famous is that he dropped
two iron balls, one heavier than the other to disprove the statement.
Obviously, the logical conclusion after that was to start to suspect
something else, like "air resistance" and its relation to the density of
the object and its shape. That was a very good start. Historical linguists
have yet to make the equivalent mental adjustment. Mind you, I am not
claiming to start doing what
Newton did, only to take the initial GAlilean step. One small step for
Trask, one giant leap for the rest of linguists :-)

PS. I deleted my friend Georg's post by accident, but I do find myself in
agreement with his comments. One small fight over a year and now we sometimes
agree :-)

M. Hubey
Email:          hubeyh at Montclair.edu    Backup:hubeyh at alpha.montclair.edu
WWW Page:       http://www.csam.montclair.edu/Faculty/Hubey.html


From hubeyh at Montclair.edu  Wed Jan 27 00:20:36 1999
From: hubeyh at Montclair.edu (H. M. Hubey)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 19:20:36 -0500
Subject: <Language> STATISTICS IN LINGUISTICS
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.192036.0500.HUBEYH@MONTCLAIR.EDU>

Patrick C. Ryan wrote:

> What is somewhat frustrating is that you do not seem to realize that this is
> a statistical relationship; if what you are saying was absolutely true, we
> would be entitled to say that the probabilities were 100 out of 100. But, I
> think you know that these laws, while very reliable, do not *always* yield
> the anticipated forms.

Dead hit!  Certain or sure statements are of the type "X is 2Y with probability
1".
Impossible events are written as "X is 3Z with probability 0". For example,
the prob of throwing up 1,000 pennies and getting all heads is close enough to
zero to say it is zero. To see what it is; it is (0.5)^1000. Since 2^3 is 8
which is about 10,
then this is like 1/(10^300) or 10^-300. That is like 0.00000......0001 where
the number of zeros is about 300. That is close enough to be called zero.

M. Hubey
Email:          hubeyh at Montclair.edu    Backup:hubeyh at alpha.montclair.edu
WWW Page:       http://www.csam.montclair.edu/Faculty/Hubey.html


From ALDERSON at toad.xkl.com  Thu Jan 28 23:31:36 1999
From: ALDERSON at toad.xkl.com (Rich Alderson)
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 15:31:36 -0800
Subject: Message backlog; apologies
Message-ID: <THU.28.JAN.1999.153136.0800.ALDERSON@TOAD.XKL.COM>

The debates on the Indo-European mailing list have resulted in a large backlog
of messages.  No messages received after 23:30 PST (07:30 UT) Tuesday night
have been processed yet, to allow an overworked mail system to cool down.

Tuesday's message storm (nearly 60 messages were queued to go out to the list)
resulted in my allowing a few messages to go out on both lists that probably
should have been sent back to the writers for further consideration, or at the
very least had their Subject: headers modified.

As I have stated in the past, I try to keep things collegial on the two lists
under my control, Indo-European and Nostratic.  While I have been associated
with academia all my life, and know that bitter feuds can erupt, I also know
that generally people who find each other's presence distasteful simply arrange
their lives to avoid confrontation.  Mailing lists are more difficult that way,
and sometimes provocations are seen where none are really intended, or are
given when a little reflection will keep the writer from responding in quite
the same fashion.

I hereby offer my public apology to Mark Hubey for allowing certain messages to
go out.  Mr. Hubey and I disagree strongly on almost every topic, and have come
to harsh words with each other in the past; nonetheless, I should have directed
personal attacks to private e-mail rather than propagating them.

I apologize to those who have been insulted here by Mr. Hubey, as well.

I also apologize to all the readers for this loss of control of these lists.
Two prior Indo-European mailing lists, and the previous Nostratic list, died
because of personality conflicts, as have many others in other disciplines (not
all linguistic); that won't happen again.  As I stated when I revived the lists
after the last meltdown, I am not by nature a patient person; I will, if I
must, be a much heavier-handed moderator.

Thank you all for your patience and your continued readership.

								Rich Alderson
								list owner and
								moderator
-------


From HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu  Wed Jan 27 03:59:22 1999
From: HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu (H. Mark Hubey)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 22:59:22 -0500
Subject: Cases in Indo-European
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.225922.0500.>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

Dr. John E. McLaughlin and Michelle R. Sutton wrote:

[ moderator snip ]

> Unfortunately, there's no linguistics behind it.  Take syntactic change, for
> example.  Thirty years ago, there was no discourse connector/predicate
> marker/etc.  'like'.  Now it is like becoming the most widespread marker in
> the American language.  Deal with it.  Our language is constantly changing in
> ways that you would consider large-scale.  Another example is the common
> rising intonation on the end of like all declarative sentences.  Like, you
> know, it's not a question, but it's just a statement (rising intonation right
> up like through the period).  Most Americans treat the written language as a
> separate tongue and speak in a different manner, splitting infinitives,
> dangling prepositions, piling on negatives, adding 'like', infixing 'f**king'
> in prestress position.  There are hundreds of things going on in standard
> American dialects that have no reflection in the writing system because
> Americans have perceived a difference.

Nice examples. I still have no idea what this is supposed to do. Let's
see, the system is not small. T2-T1 is not large but neither is the
change. Is the change externally driven?
I don't know. Is it from Hispanic? Is it from Black slang/lingo? Suppose
it is. Then this already existed in the language. It is like saying that
there are black sheep and white sheep and that 10% is black. Now 100
years later, there are still black and white sheep but their proportion
is smaller but now we got grey sheep. All it shows is that it is
spreading in a different way. It does not show that something that
wasn't there has cropped up.  If furthermore, you claim that Black
slang/lingo was not English, then you again have externally-driven
change.

Best Regards,
Mark
-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
hubeyh at montclair.edu =-=-=-= http://www.csam.montclair.edu/~hubey
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=


From HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu  Wed Jan 27 04:58:41 1999
From: HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu (H. Mark Hubey)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 23:58:41 -0500
Subject: Riding Horses
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.235841.0500.>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu wrote:

> I think it's pretty well-estabished that, incredible as it may
> seem, it did take a thousand years or so for people to ride horses, or

Short note: how is that established? There is a difference between the
earliest evidence found of humans riding horses, and the earliest date
when humans rode horses.

Suppose someone sent you to some planet to get an idea of the kinds of
living things that exist.  You go there but you can't find anyone;
they don't come out during the day, and you can't catch them at night.
So you dig a hole and set a trap. After six months you finally capture
one.  It is 4 feet tall. Is your conclusion that the average height of
these species is 4 feet tall?  You don't even know if this is the only
species that lives on this planet? Of course, you see that if you
caught 100 of them and averaged their heights, you can be reasonably
sure that the average height is whatever is the average of the sample
(of 100 of them). The diggings and finds are all biased in a certain
direction. Most of the world's archaeologists, linguists, etc are in
the West.  Most of the rich countries are in the West. They have dug
all over. I doubt that anyone looks for horses in Siberia. The tumuli
are dug up in the WEst. Did humans always bury horses in graves? Maybe
the same people who rode reindeer also rode horses. This is like the
story of finding modern human bones, and Neandertal bones. When I was
in high school the fashionable facts were that modern humans evolved
40,000 years ago.  Neandertal bones did not go back to 800,000 years.
Maybe they haven't dug as extensively in Asia as they have in the
Ukraine, and the Middle East.

Best Regards,
Mark
-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
hubeyh at montclair.edu =-=-=-= http://www.csam.montclair.edu/~hubey
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=


From mclasutt at brigham.net  Wed Jan 27 05:20:06 1999
From: mclasutt at brigham.net (Dr. John E. McLaughlin and Michelle R. Sutton)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 22:20:06 -0700
Subject: Cases in Indo-European
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.222006.0700.MCLASUTT@BRIGHAM.NET>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

H. Mark Hubey wrote:

[ moderator snip ]

> Nice examples. I still have no idea what this is supposed to do. Let's
> see, the system is not small. T2-T1 is not large but neither is the
> change. Is the change externally driven?
> I don't know. Is it from Hispanic? Is it from Black slang/lingo? Suppose
> it is.

No, it's not externally driven and none of these changes have anything to do
with Hispanics or Blacks.  Guess what?  Whites did this.  I know it may sound
amazing to you, but language just changes.  We don't need input from anyone
else.  The 'like' and rising intonation changes came out of pure white-bread
Valley Girl California.

> Then this already existed in the language.

Changes are not the result of "preexisting conditions".  They often begin de
novo in one place at one time with a native speaker of a given language.  They
are usually not the result of contact or imperfect learning by immigrants.

> It is like saying that there are black sheep and white sheep and that 10% is
> black. Now 100 years later, there are still black and white sheep but their
> proportion is smaller but now we got grey sheep. All it shows is that it is
> spreading in a different way. It does not show that something that wasn't
> there has cropped up.  If furthermore, you claim that Black slang/lingo was
> not English, then you again have externally-driven change.

These changes do not derive from Black English and were not in the language 100
years ago.  Language just changes without outside influence (no matter how long
that "influence" may have lain dormant).  You can't seem to understand this at
all even though historical linguists have repeatedly made the point with many
examples on many lists with you.  Them's the facts.  You can't change them just
because you don't like them or they don't fit your presuppositions.

John McLaughlin
Utah State University


From Odegard at means.net  Wed Jan 27 01:53:12 1999
From: Odegard at means.net (Mark Odegard <Odegard@means.net>)
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 01:47:12 -6
Subject: Paleoclimatology site.
Message-ID: <WED.27.JAN.1999.014712.6.>

If any of you feel insecure in your understanding of
paleoclimatology (I know I do), this web site is helpful:

http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/nerc.html

This will take you to a page that lets you click on Europe, or any
other continent. This is as good an introductory overview as I've
found. There are some good maps showing what kind of vegetation you'd
find at a particular period.

To put this squarely on topic to this list, for the period of 5500 BCE,
the Balkans are shown as hardwood forest, while the areas west and
north of the Black sea are steppe.
--
Mark Odegard   mailto:odegard at means.net


From tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de  Wed Jan 27 08:31:21 1999
From: tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de (Theo Vennemann)
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 09:31:21 +0100
Subject: IE creole?
Message-ID: <WED.27.JAN.1999.093121.0100.TVN@CIS.UNIMUENCHEN.DE>

Before the Celts.

>On Wed, 27 Jan 1999, manaster at umich.edu wrote:

>Sure, Arabic, Hebrew, Maltese...

>On Wed, 27 Jan 1999, Theo Vennemann wrote:

>> There are people (have been for 99 years) assuming that Semitic or closely
>> related languages were spoken in the British Isles.

[ moderator snip ]


From mcv at wxs.nl  Wed Jan 27 12:35:08 1999
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 12:35:08 GMT
Subject: <Language> Re: Caucasus and Kaska
In-Reply-To: <36AD2A97.B9A193DD@montclair.edu>
Message-ID: <WED.27.JAN.1999.123508.GMT.>

"H. Mark Hubey" <HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu> wrote:

>1. The SAn lived in North-East AFrica and were pushed south by Bantu
>speakers (West Africans)

What's North-East Africa?  There may be some genetic evidence for
San in the Horn of Africa (Somalia, Ethiopia), in which case they
were linguistically displaced there by Afro-Asiatic speakers.
There are *no* Bantu speakers in North-East Africa.  The Bantu
expansion started very recently, some 2,000 years ago, from the
Nigeria-Cameroon area into Central Africa (Congo), East Africa
(Kenya-Uganda-Tanzania) and eventually Southern Africa.

>2. The SAn are not "black" but "yellow" (reddish?, copper-colored after
>tanning?)

So?
	
>3. Egyptians painted themselves red (not black and not white)

If by this you're trying to suggest that the ancient Egyptians
were not San, you're right.

>4. The 1st wave out of Africa was probably 1-2 million years ago

Homo erectus?

>5. The earliest Neandertal bones in Europe are now 800,000 years old
>(Spain)

>6. The big problem is whether the 2nd wave out of Africa wiped out the
>Neandertals this is a problem in genetics, paleontology, etc

My understanding is that it is now pretty well established that
the Neanderthals are not ancestral to modern humans.

>7. Kabardian has 1 vowel. (other caucasian languages are poor in vowels
>and have lots of consonant clusters. So do IE languages. So do AA
>languages. So does Khoisan.

Kabardian doesn't have one vowel.  Neither did PIE or PAA.
Neither does any Khoisan language.

>8. Lieberman says that Neandertals could not speak. Then he changes his mind
>and says that they would not be able to speak like us but would speak like
>little children and could not make the "supervowel i".

>9. mtDNA test say that "Eve" as African.  Y-chromosome test say that "Adam"
>was African; Sudanese, Ethiopean and Khoisan.

>Questions: if Neandertals could not make vowels like us, what kind of a
>language would they have had?

No way to know.

> If the Khoisan lived in Africa for 1-2
>million years why are they yellow instead of black?

They weren't living in the African rainforests?

>Why is the fault
>line of consonant-clustered languages run south from the CAucasus down
>the ME to EAst Coast of Africa? What is all this saying?

I don't know.  Sounds meaningless.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Wed Jan 27 13:56:39 1999
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 08:56:39 EST
Subject: "Guilty of Tautology"
Message-ID: <WED.27.JAN.1999.085639.EST.>

In a message dated 1/27/99 5:33:23 AM, DLW wrote:

<<He is, I believe, guilty of tautology, for in effect he defines "modern
language" as what we can speak but Neanderthals could not,...>>

This is just a side note.  M. Hubey has also used the word "tautology" as if
it were always a flaw and sometimes a crime.  It should be remembered that all
self-contained logic system are tautological.  This is the nature of analytics
and mathematics.  Geometry only has to be consistent with predefined elements
and assumptions, nothing external.

The very basis of our math, 1 + 1 = 2, is tautological.  But we have found
long ago that such tautologies can be very effective in helping us manipulate
the environment.

Regards,
Steve Long


From GregWeb at aol.com  Wed Jan 27 14:58:59 1999
From: GregWeb at aol.com (GregWeb at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 09:58:59 EST
Subject: Semitic and Finno-Ugrian??
Message-ID: <WED.27.JAN.1999.095859.EST.>

I still have my doubts that a North-Semitic language could have reached the
Black Sea in time to influence PIE itself, but, perhaps, the Semitic influence
was transferred, not directly, but through Kartvelian.   Does that make sense
as a possibility?

In any event, it seems clear that any Semitic influence was just that, an
influence, like French influenced English after the Normans, and that there
was not some common PIE-Semitic protolanguage.


From GregWeb at aol.com  Wed Jan 27 15:37:24 1999
From: GregWeb at aol.com (GregWeb at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 10:37:24 EST
Subject: Date of dispersals
Message-ID: <WED.27.JAN.1999.103724.EST.>

OK, perhaps, I can refine my thinking as follows.  Some PIE speakers move into
the western Ukraine and into the Balkans, beginning before 4000 B.C.E., but
there are not many and they do not move far fast, so that they still maintain
good contact in 3500 B.C.E. to develop the referenced vocabulary in the
original, reconstructed stage, which I understand to be the stage immediately
before the innovations that separate the rest of PIE from the Hittites and
their fellow early IE Anatolians.   But by the time that the innovations occur
that show the separation, the Hittites, etc. have moved too far for the
innovations to reach them, perhaps, by then being into, or almost into,
Anatolia.   Meanwhile, some of the same early migrants remain in the Balkans
along the western Black Sea shore and get some, but not many, of the
innovations before heading into Anatolia later as  the Phrygians.


From iglesias at axia.it  Thu Jan 28 00:42:49 1999
From: iglesias at axia.it (Frank Rossi)
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 16:42:49 PST
Subject: In search of Trojans again
Message-ID: <WED.27.JAN.1999.164249.PST.IGLESIAS@AXIA.IT>

Last year on the previous Nostratic list, I raised some questions
concerning the assumed relationship between Rhaetian (or Rhaetic) and
Etruscan.

Since then I've been following the discussions on Indo-Tyrrhenian,
Indo-Anatolian and Indo-European (as defined by MCV), and the thread "In
search of the Trojans", in which the initial question was whether the
language of Troy was Luwian.

Speculation 1: Assuming instead that the language of the Trojans was a
descendant of Indo-Tyrrhenian (the Trojans may also have used Luwian and
other Anatolian languages just as the people in Italian Switzerland and
Luxembourg use French and German), I have noticed an interesting parallel
between the legends concerning the foundation of Rome and Padua as
"reported" by Virgil in the Aeneid.

It seems to me that the "Johnny-come-lately" speakers of Indo-European
Latin and Venetic may have appropriated the more prestigious legendary past
of the neighboring Indo-Tyrrhenian speakers (Etruscans and Rhaetians,
respectively). In other words, the Etruscan and Rhaetian languages may have
been brought to Italy by "refugees from Troy" before 1000 BCE. Thus,
according to this view, Etruscans and Rhaetians originally spoke the same
language, but it diverged over the following centuries. The languages may
also have re-converged later due to the influence of the more prestigious
Etruscan culture as it spread into the Po valley bringing with it, among
other things, the alphabet used by the Rhaetians.
(There may have been earlier Indo-Tyrrhenian (Rassenic) languages, such as
North Picene ?, already in Italy from an earlier date. See for example,
Katachumen's posting of January 11).

Speculation 2:

1) According to Herodotus, the Etruscans came from Lydia, south of Troy.
2) This was accepted by Virgil, who used the terms Lydian and Etruscan
interchangeably.
3) During Roman times, the inhabitants of Sardi, the capital of Lydia, were
officially recognized as "brothers and blood relations of the Etruscan
people".

This suggests to me that the Anatolian language Lydian may have had a
Trojan (Indo-Tyrrhenian) substrate and therefore probably preserved enough
Trojan elements to justify the above claims.

What then were the languages spoken in the Aegean (Greece and western
Anatolia) *at the time of the Trojan war*? I assume a patchwork of
different languages in different places:
a) Languages, with decreasing numbers of speakers, descended directly from
Indo-Tyrrhenian: Trojan ? (which gave rise to Etruscan and Rhaetian by
emigration), Lemnian (which formerly may have been spoken in Attica too).
b) Indo-Anatolian languages (descended from Indo-Tyrrhenian) that had come
back into the area from the north (through the Balkans as suggested by MCV).
c) Indo-European languages, with increasing numbers of speakers, that had
come back into the area from the north (Balkans, Steppes) later still:
pre-Greek, psi-Greek ?, Mycenean Greek.
d) Further east in Anatolia there may also have been pockets here and there
of unrecorded languages, with decreasing numbers of speakers, possibly
related to North Caucasian (going back to Indo-Tyrrhenian times and
earlier) and other languages with self-sustaining numbers of speakers,
probably related to Kartvelian (which must been spoken somewhere in the
area to explain the presence of Georgian).

I am aware that all this is hypothetical, but I would appreciate any
comments.
Regards
Frank Rossi


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Wed Jan 27 15:55:23 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 09:55:23 -0600
Subject: <Language> Re: Caucasus and Kaska
In-Reply-To: <36AD2A97.B9A193DD@montclair.edu>
Message-ID: <WED.27.JAN.1999.095523.0600.RMCCALLI@SUNMUW1.MUW.EDU>

	Cavalli-Sforza postulated that a people with genetical features
similar to the "Bushmen" lived in the Horn of Africa. He was unsure whether
they were a mixed group resulting from intermarriage between Asians and
Africans or whether they actually were a separate group stretching from
Ethipia to South Africa.

	As far as is known, the "San" have always been in southern Africa.
There are groups who postulated as relatives of the "San" who were pushed
from Kenya to the South.

	The term San, I believe, is considered objectional in that it's
based on a term meaning "wretch" or something similar.

>1. The SAn lived in North-East AFrica and were pushed south by Bantu
>speakers (West Africans)

	These arguments over color sound like 19th century romanticist
ethnocentrism

>
>2. The SAn are not "black" but "yellow" (reddish?, copper-colored after
>tanning?)
>
>3. Egyptians painted themselves red (not black and not white)


From mcv at wxs.nl  Wed Jan 27 15:51:34 1999
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 15:51:34 GMT
Subject: Non-IE words in Early Gmc.
In-Reply-To: <v01510102b2d35a532e07@[129.187.26.32]>
Message-ID: <WED.27.JAN.1999.155134.GMT.>

Theo Vennemann's bibliography reminded me of something I read
years ago about non-IE Germanic substrate.  I think it was by
Polomi, in a Festschrift kind of thing (or was it a Festschrift
for Polomi?), but I've lost the reference.  Does that ring a bell
with anybody?

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam


From Georg at home.ivm.de  Wed Jan 27 16:33:36 1999
From: Georg at home.ivm.de (Ralf-Stefan Georg)
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 17:33:36 +0100
Subject: Xinjiang mummies were Celts
In-Reply-To: <C17908DFEFE3D111B5A0006008728B25115B3D@tes_srv5.tes.traceplc.co.uk>
Message-ID: <WED.27.JAN.1999.173336.0100.GEORG@HOME.IVM.DE>

At 10:55 Uhr +0000 26.01.1999, Nicholas Widdows wrote:
>The textile expert Elizabeth Wayland Barber has identified the
>European-appearance mummies found in the Xinjiang desert as Celts from
>Central Europe, according to a report in yesterday's _Guardian_. I don't
>know how much of this is new, but the report presented it as a major
>reassessment in the history of Eastern and Western civilizations, so
>here goes. In her book _The Mummies of Urumchi_, to be published next
>month, she says that their woollen plaids could only have been woven on
>warp-weighted looms, which orginated in "Europe via the Middle East"
>(whatever that means: Europe first then ME?).

And that is how one identifies Celts ? O tempora ...

Stefan Georg
Heerstrasse 7
D-53111 Bonn
FRG
+49-228-69-13-32


From manaster at umich.edu  Wed Jan 27 17:07:14 1999
From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu)
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 12:07:14 -0500
Subject: IE creole?
In-Reply-To: <v01510100b2d47f00f049@[129.187.26.188]>
Message-ID: <WED.27.JAN.1999.120714.0500.>

I know, I was kidding...

On Wed, 27 Jan 1999, Theo Vennemann wrote:

> Before the Celts.

> >On Wed, 27 Jan 1999, manaster at umich.edu wrote:

> >Sure, Arabic, Hebrew, Maltese...

> >On Wed, 27 Jan 1999, Theo Vennemann wrote:

> >> There are people (have been for 99 years) assuming that Semitic or closely
> >> related languages were spoken in the British Isles.

[ Moderator's comment:
  Just trying to lighten the mood a little, by letting this exchange go on.
  --rma ]


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Wed Jan 27 17:14:02 1999
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 17:14:02 +0000
Subject: rate of language change
In-Reply-To: <36AD1CFA.C17214FC@montclair.edu>
Message-ID: <WED.27.JAN.1999.171402.0000.LARRYT@COGS.SUSX.AC.UK>

On Mon, 25 Jan 1999, H. Mark Hubey wrote:

[LT]

> > Britain and the USA are also highly literate, yet changes in all
> > varieties of English are proceeding apace.  In little more than a
> > generation, the loss of /h-/ in the word-initial cluster /hw-/ (as in

> Wow. I don't even notice the difference much in this neighborhood and
> neither does anyone else. The only thing I noticed here is that some
> people, mostly Hispanics, or those that live in Hispanic neighborhoods
> are speaking a clear-l instead of the standard dark-l. Is that "great
> change".

[LT]

> > `white') has spread out across the USA with breathtaking speed.

> "Breathtaking speed"? Are you serious? There wasn't much to notice in
> the first place; that is why nobody noticed it except for a few people
> whose job is to split hairs.

No, not at all.

I am a native speaker of a [hw-]ful variety of English, and I constantly
notice the absence of that [h-] in other people's speech, even after 28
years in England, where that [h-] is long dead.  It's very prominent to
my ears -- and not just because I'm a linguist.

Several weeks ago, I was interviewed by a British woman who asked me the
following question, apparently: "Is this connected to that recent work
on Wales?"  I was absolutely flummoxed for a few seconds, until I
finally worked out, after asking her to repeat the question, that she
was saying "whales".

My mother, who had no training of any kind in linguistics, phonetics or
English language, and not much education of any kind, was also, of
course, a [hw-]-speaker.  She constantly noticed it when the young folks
"dropped the h", and she didn't like it: she considered it sloppy.

About three or four decades ago, [hw-] was general in American speech,
and the loss of [h-] was confined to three smallish and widely separated
areas.  Then, suddenly, h-dropping began spreading across the country
with explosive speed.  Today, I am reliably informed by an American
linguist who's been monitoring this, h-dropping is close to universal,
and the former [hw-] is now confined to what he described as "a handful
of old fogeys".

This new style has even reached the remote valleys of the Allegheny
Mountains, where I come from.  In my home region, all the older
generation, including me, have [hw-].  But, among the younger
generation, that [h-] is completely gone.  All three of my younger
siblings have only [w-], and never [hw-].  And my sister is only
two-and-a-half years younger than me.

Now *that* I call fast.  And losing an entire consonant from
word-initial position strikes me as far from trivial.  It's rather as
though I had grown up surrounded by people pronouncing the /k/ in words
like `knee' and `knot', and then suddenly the whole country had stopped
pronouncing the /k/, except for me and a few other old-timers.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Wed Jan 27 17:40:26 1999
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 12:40:26 EST
Subject: STATISTICS IN LINGUISTICS
Message-ID: <WED.27.JAN.1999.124026.EST.>

In a message dated 1/27/99 11:55:41 AM, proto-language at email.msn.com wrote:

<<Predictive power, IMHO, is based on statistics.>>

Predictive power is based on an effective understanding of cause and effect
relationships.

Statistics are just one way to prove that understanding is correct.  Without a
proper hypothesis, whether gathered statistically or not, there is nothing for
statistics to help prove.  A lingusitic model is a hypothesis, properly used a
statistical sample can help prove if that model is accurate.

However, where there are few occurences to sample and possibly no new
occurences - as in ancient languages - statistical analyses do not carry much
"predictative power".

Also recall if you will that I posted on this list the fact that the Peresus
Project showed a higher occuresnce of purus>red in Greek than ereuthem>red.
This was due to the way Lidell-Scott defined red.  Statistics can only yield
results that fact gathering and prior analysis permit.

Regards,
Steve Long


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Wed Jan 27 17:57:22 1999
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 17:57:22 +0000
Subject: rate of language change
In-Reply-To: <36AD1CFA.C17214FC@montclair.edu>
Message-ID: <WED.27.JAN.1999.175722.0000.LARRYT@COGS.SUSX.AC.UK>

On Mon, 25 Jan 1999, H. Mark Hubey wrote:

> I don't think it useful to even dig into this deeper until there is an
> "operational" definition of "rate of change" of language. So far nobody
> has done it, and most people have attacked me for even entertaining the
> thought that the rate of language change should be measured along with
> lots of other properties and characteristics of language. I suspect that
> some people prefer the present state of affairs because if measurements
> are lacking nobody will be able to catch them stating falsehoods and
> completely unsupported bald assertions.

Mr. Hubey, this is as ignorant as it is offensive.  (Well, you did say
you wanted "vigorous" discussion, didn't you?  ;-) )

To begin with, all statements made by responsible linguists -- among
whom I count myself -- are based directly upon the scrutiny of data.
We have a large and constantly growing body of data on language change,
obtained not only from the scrutiny of documents but also, and
increasingly, from the careful examination of language changes in
progress.

Our predecessors did not know how to study language changes in progress.
Today, we know a good deal about how to do this, thanks mainly to the
efforts of the sociolinguists, to whom I take my hat off.  At any given
moment, there are hundreds of linguists studying language changes in
progress and publishing their findings.

Naturally, we are always interested in rates of change, and we now have
a good deal of data.  That's how I was able to report, in an earlier
posting, that we can find no correlation between the rate of language
change and the degree of sophistication or literacy of a society.

Anyway, the exercise is far from trivial.

First, at any given moment, any given speech variety is in the middle of
a whole bunch of changes.  Some of these may even be competing changes:
different changes which are "trying" to apply to the same words or forms
to produce different outcomes.

Second, some changes are blindingly fast, some are slower, and some are
positively glacial.

Third, changes don't affect every member of a community simultaneously:
they affect some members earlier than others.

Fourth, not all individuals are affected in the same way.  An affected
individual typically exhibits variation between a conservative form and
an innovating form (and frequently also one or two intermediate forms),
and uses each form with some particular frequency.  This frequency
depends both upon the individual and upon the context of speaking.

Consequently, we can't even talk meaningfully about "measuring the rate
of change" until we first clarify exactly what it is we want to measure.

Linguists have now developed techniques for examining the manner and
rate of language change.  We have statistical approaches which, properly
used, can reveal a great deal about these matters.  We have discovered
fascinating correlations between language change and a whole host of
social factors, such as social class, sex, age and context, and even
such things as speakers' attitudes toward their social group and toward
other social groups.  And we have discovered a number of previously
unknown phenomena, such as lexical diffusion, the lower-middle-class
crossover, near-mergers, metatypy, esoterogeny, and the Bill Peters
effect.  (Sorry about the fancy terms, but these are necessary labels
for important and fascinating phenomena.)

You will hear no "falsehoods" from me or from any reputable linguist.
The occasional error, no doubt, but no falsehoods.

And you will also hear no "completely unsupported bald assertions" from
us -- in great contrast to your own postings, I might add.  Everything
we report is based upon the scrutiny of hard linguistic data.
Naturally, I can't reproduce those data here -- life is too short.  But
the data, and the conclusions derived from them, are in the public
domain, and can be examined by anyone who is interested.

[LT]

> > There's a moral here: you can't figure out how languages change by
> > sitting in your armchair and thinking about it.  You have to go out and
> > look at the data.

> Don't be ridiculous. This is one of the standard lines that people like
> you have learned to spout without even having the slightest idea of what
> measurement is about and how to interpret data.

Ooh...Mr. Hubey.

If *you* want to learn something about language change, I suggest you
read some knowledgeable books on the subject, those written by
professional linguists and containing hard data.  May I suggest starting
with my own textbook of historical linguistics, perhaps especially with
chapter 10?  Try reading this, and then try the exercises at the end.
Exercise 10.7 is particularly appropriate, I think.  But all the
exercises here present some data on language change and then invite the
reader to interpret those data.

Let me know how you get on.

> As far as I am concerned you are faceless and nameless.

Interesting, since you know my name so well that your blood pressure
probably rises every time you see it on your mail spool.  And I look
like Richard Dreyfuss -- remember?

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk


From glengordon01 at hotmail.com  Wed Jan 27 18:22:50 1999
From: glengordon01 at hotmail.com (Glen Gordon)
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 10:22:50 PST
Subject: Linguistics vs. the Other UnHuman Sciences
Message-ID: <WED.27.JAN.1999.102250.PST.GLENGORDON01@HOTMAIL.COM>

To Patrick, Claire and others,

>>OK, "initial conditions are irrecoverable with current methods". The
>>best historical linguistics can do at the moment is about 15,000
>>years (at the most - many would say less).

>This is but the assumption beyond the assumption. It has also not
>been proved.

Poor Claire. Patrick would do well to stop this unskilled nick-picking
of words. The above reads "at the moment" meaning "present" and is a
fair assessment of the state of historical linguistics at present, not
about what can be done in the future. It wasn't an assumption or an
"assumption beyond an assumption" (huh?); it was an accurate
observation.

>>Think of the number of dead languages which are preserved in only a
>>few words, and think of how many more there must be for which we
>>have no knowledge whatsoever.

>It is certainly not necessary to know every language that ever has
>been spoken to be able to say with a fair degree of surity whether a
>vocabulary item was liable to have been present in the substratum of
>all language.

Again, I don't think that was exactly Claire's point. The further in
time one tries to delve to recover the state of a language, the more
difficult it becomes because of less and less to work with. This can be
hindered by the lack of knowledge we have of a daughter language group
that may have died before it was ever recorded. This unrecorded language
may have different characteristics that would shed light on a better and
hence more accurate reconstruction of its parent language. This is
simple fact. Doesn't mean that it's impossible to reconstruct the said
language, it just makes it very uncertain, as we all know.

Perhaps, what should be noted is that as opposed to the other sciences
mentioned here (aside from psychology), linguistics deals with the human
factor. A science dealing with this human factor cannot be regimented
into a cookie-cutter approach. Until we can explain with concise
equations how humans react, linguistics will never work the way these
other sciences do. The End.

Hubey, Patrick? Get crackin' with those equations, I want them by the
end of the millenium, and stop scaring people with your arguments
against generally accepted methodology. :)

--------------------------------------------
Glen Gordon
glengordon01 at hotmail.com

Kisses and Hugs
--------------------------------------------


From manaster at umich.edu  Sat Jan 30 11:01:09 1999
From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu)
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1999 06:01:09 -0500
Subject: agglutination in Scandinavian languages, etc.
In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19990128151525.0080ee50@mail.web4you.dk>
Message-ID: <SAT.30.JAN.1999.060109.0500.>

I do not see how this list can flourish if it becomes
a place in which people get a remedial education in
historical linguistics.  I am impressed that there
are people, like Larry and Carol, who have the energy
to undertake this thankless job, but I for one would like
to have a list where issues of Indo-European historical
linguistics could be discussed instead.  And I don't
think that there is another one besides this one(:-).

So, please, can we switch to talking about IE, a novel
idea for a list devoted to IE I know, but still...

[ Moderator's response:
  An occasional refresher in the basics of historical linguistics is called for
  from time to time, but I am calling a halt to the long discussions of method
  which have swamped this list for the last week.  For those who wish to pursue
  them further, Mark Hubey has a mailing list on which they are on-topic, at
  language-list at iliad.montclair.edu.
  --rma ]

Speaking of which, does anybody have a handy list of
clear examples showing what happens to PIE *-tn- and *-dn-
in Slavic?  The bigger the list, the better.

AMR


From oldgh at hum.au.dk  Fri Jan 29 10:50:49 1999
From: oldgh at hum.au.dk (George Hinge)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 10:50:49 MET
Subject: Greek question
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.3.91.990127171032.27536A-100000@travelers.mail.cornell.edu>
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.105049.MET.OLDGH@HUM.AU.DK>

Wayles Browne:
> Nyx has stem nykt-os. So why do some derivatives have nykh- as
> in nykhios, pannykhis etc? Frisk's etym.dict. just says one
> stem is 'neben' the other. Has anyone figured out anything
> more informative?

Chantraine, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue grec, s.v.:

"L'aspiree de ennychios, pannychios, etc., est propre au grec et
reste mal expliquee. M. Lejeune, Phonetique, p. 37, n. 1, suppose
qu'elle peut representer eun gwh- modifie sous l'action de u, ou un
gh. Voir encore Pokorny 762 pour d'autres donnees plus ou moins
sures. Selon une hypothese plausible de Panagl, KZ 85, 1971, 49 sq.
l'aspiree serait issue par fausse interpretation du nom. nyx ou le t
n'apparait pas et ou le x comportait une prononciation aspiree, dans
des hypostases comme ennychios, etc."

I am not satisfied with either of the explications cited in
Chantraine (I don't have a Pokorny); Lejeune does not solve the
problem, he just transplant it to the PIE phase. And I don't see how
the native speaker would make a false interpretation of nyx,
when he had -kt- in all the oblique cases (except the dative plural,
of course).

**********************************
 George Hinge
 The Department of Greek and Latin
 The University of Aarhus, Denmark
 oldgh at hum.aau.dk
**********************************


From w.behr at em.uni-frankfurt.de  Fri Jan 29 10:46:23 1999
From: w.behr at em.uni-frankfurt.de (WB (in Frankfurt today))
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 11:46:23 +0100
Subject: Gmc. *fugla- (was: Non-IE words in Gmc.)
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.114623.0100.W.BEHR@EM.UNIFRANKFURT.DE>

Rick Mc Callister's _very_ nice list of Germanic words in search
of an (IE?, Semitic?, "Atlantic"? ...) etymology reminds me of a
poem by the celebrated Austrian poeta doctus Raoul Schrott from
his recent anthology _Tropen_, in which he talks about a solitary
bird, who is just as lonesome as the German word _Vogel_, "which
has no etymology". This probably refers to the treatment of the
word in standard dictionaries like Pokorny, Pfeifer et al., Kluge
etc., where dissimilation from *flugla- or the connection with
Lith. pau~ks^tis, Latv. puty'tis, OCSl p6tica (< IE *po:u-, *pu[:]-,
"little, small" --> "small animal") are rightfully rejected. Yet I
am sure  here must have been other suggestions & speculations in
the literature. Any pointers?

Thanks & cheers, Wolfgang

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  Wolfgang Behr, Lecturer in Chinese History & Philosophy
  Dept. of East Asian Studies, Ruhr-University Bochum, FRG
  mail: OAW, Universitaetsstr. 150, UB-5, 44780 Bochum, FRG
  Fax +49-234-709-4449; <Wolfgang.Behr at ruhr-uni-bochum.de>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


From tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de  Fri Jan 29 11:05:37 1999
From: tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de (Theo Vennemann)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 12:05:37 +0100
Subject: IE-Semitic connections
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.120537.0100.TVN@CIS.UNIMUENCHEN.DE>

>Well, we have a problem then because there was definitely some kind of
>contact (whether direct or indirect) between IE and Semitic. Both IE
>*s(w)eks "six" and *septm "seven" show painfully clear evidence of that,
>and yet I can't find any language group from which IE could have
>borrowed these words except for North Semitic itself.

>You say Akkadian may have came from the southwest but are the Akkadians
>the only offspring of North Semitic? Do we really know where other
>branches of North Semitic might have gone?

Those and related problems do not exist if the earliest Semitic-IE contacts
are assumed to have occurred in Europe.

In particular, you receive an elegant solution for Germanic and Etruscan
(and Basque) showing t-less forms of the seven-word: independent borrow-
ing of the t-less Semitic form.

Theo Vennemann
29 January 1999


From mcv at wxs.nl  Fri Jan 29 12:45:28 1999
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 12:45:28 GMT
Subject: IE creole?
In-Reply-To: <l03130302b2d1267d2e2c@[207.120.0.95]>
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.124528.GMT.>

Rick Mc Callister <rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu> wrote:

>	Pidgins [e.g. Mobilian,] existed among stone-age farmers in the New
>World. Plains Sign Language existed among hunters and gatherers. So I don't
>se how creoles would have been impossible.

It's not clear whether Mobilian Jargon, Plains Sign Language and
other New World pidgins/contact languages predate European
contact.

>	Given the greater number and presumed greater diversity of
>languages, there would have been many more opportunities for creoles to
>arise.
>	Many hunter-gatherer bands would have been so small that exogamy
>was most likely necessary for many of them to survive. Small bands were
>always forming confederations, splitting apart and forming new
>confederations, assimilating smaller or defeated neighbors, etc.
>	If half or so of the population spoke a foreign language, then some
>degree of creolization or language mixing would have been inevitable.

I'm not convinced that creoles as such ever arose before the era
of European colonial expansion.  The conditions that you outline
above (great linguistic diversity, exogamy, etc.) did lead to
widespread bi- or multilingualism, "Sprachbuende", trade/contact
languages spoken or understood over wide areas vs. "in-group"
languages spoken only within a single small tribe, and of course
language death and replacement.  But I don't believe that
episodes of true creolization or true language mixing were very
common at all before the exceptional circumstances of European
expansion.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam


From mcv at wxs.nl  Fri Jan 29 12:51:00 1999
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 12:51:00 GMT
Subject: Hurrians
In-Reply-To: <11ec0296.36af751c@aol.com>
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.125100.GMT.>

JoatSimeon at aol.com wrote:

>The whole of northern Mesopotamia,
>northern Syria, and eastern Anatolia was Hurrian/Urartian speaking at least as
>far back as the 3rd millenium BC.

There were no Hurrians in Northern Mesopotamia and Syria until
2200 BC or so.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam


From mcv at wxs.nl  Fri Jan 29 13:04:49 1999
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 13:04:49 GMT
Subject: Greek question
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.3.91.990127171032.27536A-100000@travelers.mail.cornell.edu>
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.130449.GMT.>

ewb2 at cornell.edu wrote:

>Nyx has stem nykt-os. So why do some derivatives have nykh- as
>in nykhios, pannykhis etc? Frisk's etym.dict. just says one
>stem is 'neben' the other. Has anyone figured out anything
>more informative?

I guess this could be explained by the so-called "Pelasgian"
theory as a word taken from a non-Greek IE substrate/adstrate
language, where *k(w) > kh (and *gh(w) > g, *g(w) > k, etc., as
in Armenian).

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Fri Jan 29 14:35:09 1999
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 14:35:09 +0000
Subject: rate of change
In-Reply-To: <36AFD630.EC77BB72@montclair.edu>
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.143509.0000.LARRYT@COGS.SUSX.AC.UK>

[ Moderator's comment:
  Just finishing up this topic.
  --rma ]

On Wed, 27 Jan 1999, H. Mark Hubey wrote:

> First we have to agree to measure rate of language change. Then we
> have to measure it. Then we can run all the statistical tests on
> data that linguists don't want :-)

*First* we have to agree on what *exactly* it is that we want to try to
measure.  "Measuring the rate of language change" is every bit as
diffuse a concept as "measuring the rate of social change".

Take a *much* simpler example.  How fast has baseball changed in the
20th century?  We've seen changes in the nature of the ball, many
changes in the rules, the introduction of the DH in one league but not
in the other, the introduction of new pitches, the replacement of "play
for one run" by "big bang" (except for Gene Mauch, of course), new
fielding strategies, new ballparks, night games, specialist coaches,
specialist relief pitchers, the uppercut swing, warning tracks, padding
on the walls, larger and better-conditioned players, bigger and better
gloves, larger rosters, the farm system, TV, salary inflation, black and
Hispanic players, intense competition from other sports, new statistics,
repeated changes in the strike zone, a commissioner, free agency,
colored uniforms, new fabrics, and zillions of other things.  How does
all of this add up to something we could quantify as "the rate of change
in baseball"?

And language change is a *lot* more complicated than baseball change.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Fri Jan 29 14:41:47 1999
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 14:41:47 +0000
Subject: rate of language change
In-Reply-To: <36AFD7B9.78A544BB@montclair.edu>
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.144147.0000.LARRYT@COGS.SUSX.AC.UK>

On Wed, 27 Jan 1999, H. Mark Hubey wrote:

[on change in contemporary French]

> This is interesting. Is it possible it is due to the rising of
> educational levels

Hardly.  Greater education means greater exposure to standard French --
yet spoken French is moving *away from* standard French, not toward it.

> and greater susceptibility of the upper classes
> and movers&shakers (fashion/trendsetters) to the Anglo-American
> culture (dare I say, cultural-imperialism :-))?

No.  French is not changing in a way that makes it more like English.
English words, of course, are pouring into French, but the conspicuous
syntactic changes are, on the whole, making the language *less* like
English than it was before.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk


From mcv at wxs.nl  Fri Jan 29 14:59:42 1999
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 14:59:42 GMT
Subject: IE-Semitic connections
In-Reply-To: <19990127184541.8302.qmail@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.145942.GMT.>

"Glen Gordon" <glengordon01 at hotmail.com> wrote:

>Well, we have a problem then because there was definitely some kind of
>contact (whether direct or indirect) between IE and Semitic. Both IE
>*s(w)eks "six" and *septm "seven" show painfully clear evidence of that,
>and yet I can't find any language group from which IE could have
>borrowed these words except for North Semitic itself.

The contrast between the initial consonants of the words for "6"
and "7" does indeed suggest a NE Semitic origin.  Akkadian, and
no other Semitic language, has a contrast between 6 s^is^s^(et)
and 7 sebe(tt), i.e. shibilant vs. sibilant.  We find the same
contrast in Sanskrit (s.at. ~ sapta), Avestan (xs^vas^ ~ hapta),
Welsh (chwech ~ saith), Lithuanian (s^es^i ~ septyni) and Slavic
(s^estI ~ sedmI).  Possibly in Armenian (vec` ~ ewt`n) and Greek
(hex/wex ~ hepta) as well.  The same happens in Etruscan (s'a ~
semph) and Basque (sei ~ zazpi).  (But in Kartvelian it's exactly
the other way around: ekvsi ~ s^vidi, usgwa ~ is^gwid etc.).
No contrast is found in Latin, Irish, Germanic and Tocharian
(Albanian gjashte" ~ shtate" is unclear.  The Hittite for "6" is
unknown).  Germanic additionally lacks the /t/ that is found
elsewhere in *sebm.

>I take the word *eg'oh in IE to be a realisation of
>the North Semitic word *anaku (Hey, does anyone have any better theories
>on that word? I rest my case).

I fail to see much of a connection between *eg^oH ~ *eg^(h)om and
ana:ku.  The word is post-Anatolian (which has *amu-), unless
Hittite uk (besides ammuk) is related, which I doubt.  It appears
to be composed of the pronominal root *(H1)e-, the emphatic
particle *-g(h)e- (as in Greek ego:-ge, eme-ge etc., German mich,
dich, sich, Ven. meXo, Hittite ammuk, tuk, etc.) and the first
person singular marker *-m or *-H(2).  More or less the same
elements as in Hittite ammuk (pronominal a-, 1p.sg. enclictic
-mu-, emphatic -k), but ordered and ablauted differently.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam


From mcv at wxs.nl  Fri Jan 29 15:08:13 1999
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 15:08:13 GMT
Subject: NSemitic borrowings: in response to Greg Web
In-Reply-To: <19990127235256.3328.qmail@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.150813.GMT.>

"Glen Gordon" <glengordon01 at hotmail.com> wrote:

>Miguel
>believes as well that Etruscan semph is an odd sort of metathesis of the
>IE form *septm

Well, what I actually suggested was metathesis of *sepm ~ *sebm,
without the /t/, as in Germanic [and Samoyed (???)].

It doesn't *necessarily* follow that the word was borrowed from a
t-less model.  A cluster /ptm/ might easily have been reduced
anywhere along the line to /bm/ (Germanic), /mp/ (Etruscan) or
/dm/ (Slavic).

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam


From iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu  Fri Jan 29 15:15:56 1999
From: iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 09:15:56 -0600
Subject: Various
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.091556.0600.>

	I agree whole-heartedly with Rossi's speculations.  I don't think
they are "provable" (an over-used word in this field), but I agree.
Trojan <-> Etruscan/Tuscan <-> Tyrrhenian <-> Tursha.  They are all
variants of the same word.  I just wonder whether "Tarsus" and "Taurus" go
in there.

	Polome (if that is what "Polomi" meant) did indeed do a study of
non-IE substrate in Germanic.  I do not know precisely where.

					DLW


From mcv at wxs.nl  Fri Jan 29 15:39:18 1999
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 15:39:18 GMT
Subject: IE in Balkans and Semitic?
In-Reply-To: <19990128024117.12603.qmail@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.153918.GMT.>

"Glen Gordon" <glengordon01 at hotmail.com> wrote:

>>As I understand Miguel et al., IE-speakers were on the western or NW end of
>>the Black Sea: Hungary & Rumania, and I suppose Moldova & W Ukraine.

>It's still very western. What about horses? Were their horses in
>Anatolia/Balkans at the timing you suggest, Miguel? I thought they were
>pretty much in the Steppes.

There were horses in the LBK/TRB zone (Low Countries-Poland).
Not domesticated, though, and a different sub-species from steppe
horses.  I'm not aware of any horses in the Balkans, but the
Balkans are close enough to the steppe and N. Europe for the
animal to have been known there (after all, European languages
have words for lion, elephant and rhino).

>But then, come to think of it, is there an
>Anatolian version of *?ekwos ?

There is Hier. Luwian <asuwa-> "horse".  Now on account of the
-s- this looks suspiciously like an Indo-Iranian borrowing at
first sight. However, the Hier. Luwian word for "dog" appears to
have been <suwana->, and a borrowing from Indo-Iranian seems much
less likely when it comes to dogs.  So maybe *k^u > su is the
native Luwian development, and <asuwa> comes from PIE *ek^wos
directly.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Fri Jan 29 15:55:47 1999
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 15:55:47 +0000
Subject: Why *p>*f?
In-Reply-To: <8ae84d96.36b005ef@aol.com>
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.155547.0000.LARRYT@COGS.SUSX.AC.UK>

On Thu, 28 Jan 1999 X99Lynx at aol.com wrote:

> That brings up a question that has been bothering me for a while. We
> know the rule PIE *p > P-German *f.  As in eg "five" -
> *penkwe>*fimfi (or as in pisce>fish). Now I take that to be a found
> or discovered rule.

Yes.  It is a historical occurrence which linguists discovered.

> In other words, there is nothing in linguistics
> that demands this particular sound change in and of itself.

Absolutely correct.

> It's just acknowledged to have happened that way very consistently
> between the two languages then and afterwards in a whole set of
> instances.

More precisely, */p/ changed to /f/ in an ancestor of all the Germanic
languages in most (not all) circumstances, but remained /p/ in most (not
all) other IE languages.  We can't tell if /p/ changed to [f]
simultaneously in all words, or only gradually, a few words at a time.
The traditional view endorses the first, but many linguists today would
put their money on the second.

> So not as a linguistic matter, but as a matter of "external forces,"
> why *f? Why not *b or *bh or *pw or any other approximate sound or
> why not just stick with *p?

It is not possible to answer questions like these.  If *anything*
happens to /p/ in a language, we know from experience that it's more
likely to change to /f/ or /h/ than to, say, /bh/ or /m/ or /k/.
But we can't predict that a change will happen at all, and we can't
predict which particular change will happen.  Language change is far too
contingent and far too social.

In High German, providing we follow the traditional view, and not
Vennemann's bifurcational theory, */p/ changed to /pf/ -- an
extraordinary development, rarely if ever seen elsewhere.

> (And if it was caused by a group rearrangement of sounds, then what
> external forces caused that particular rearrangement?)

This change was part of a much larger set of systematic changes commonly
called `Grimm's Law'.  But there is no reason to suspect any "external
forces".

> Was it contact with a third language?

Possible, but unlikely.  Anyway, having no knowledge of any such "third
language" (second language, actually), we cannot usefully explore this
possibility.  Anyway, */p/ changed to /f/, */b/ changed to /p/, and
*/bh/ changed to /b/, and what kind of second language could have that
kind of effect?  Germanic had /p/ and /b/ before the changes, and it had
/p/ and /b/ after the changes, so you can't "explain" the changes by
appealing to an unknown language which lacked /p/ or /b/.

> Was it a physical characteristic, the lips, say, of the people who
> made the change?

*Certainly* not.

> Was it a factor of the weather?

Even more certainly not.

> Was it religious or neurological?

Absolutely not.

> Was it random and is that a good enough explanation?

We don't use the word `random'.  If we could observe the change in
progress, we would *probably* find that a handful of people began
pronouncing /p/ as [f], that some other people started to copy them for
some social reason, and that finally everyone was using the new
pronunciation.  This is the way most language changes appear to proceed
when we get the chance to watch them happening.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Fri Jan 29 16:32:22 1999
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 16:32:22 +0000
Subject: rate of language change
In-Reply-To: <008f01be4aee$ddc1f3a0$e1ecabc3@niywlxpn>
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.163222.0000.LARRYT@COGS.SUSX.AC.UK>

On Thu, 28 Jan 1999, Peter &/or Graham wrote:

> Larry said:
> > Paul, Marie, elle a couche avec.
> >you won't find this construction in any
> >reference grammar of French.

> There are two different things here:  the preposition at the end, and the
> naming of players before the sentence proper.   I want to reply about the
> naming of players.

> (a) I don't know what this last device is called - it's clearly a form of
> topicalisation - does it have a special name?

OK.  The underlying sentence is this:

	Marie a couche avec Paul.

You can express this in two other ways, both of them acceptable to my
French students:

	Paul, Marie a couche avec.

	Marie, elle a couche avec Paul.

The first of these illustrates topicalization, and the second
illustrates left-dislocation.  My original example illustrates both of
these at the same time, which is what makes it so strange.

There is also right-dislocation:

	Marie a couche avec lui, Paul.

I believe this is also normal in spoken French.  Indeed, spoken French
commonly uses both left- and right-dislocation in the same sentence, as
in one of my other examples:

	Jean, il l'a achetee, la bagnole.

> (b) There are grammars which mention it.   I know that only because I have
> read about it, but I can't remember where.   Examples were such things as
> "Marie, le livre, elle l'a lu."

And this is *double* left-dislocation!  It's a fine example of the
rather dramatic changes occurring in French sentence structure.  If this
becomes the norm, then French will effectively have a sentence structure
like this:

	Marie le livre ellalu.

That is, Subject-Object-Verb word order, with a verb exhibiting both
subject agreement and object agreement -- exactly what we find in
Basque, for instance.

This is a magnificent example of how a language can change its
grammatical structure drastically, including even its word order, in a
very short time.  And, of course, with *no* "external influence".

What is happening in French is what we call `markedness shift' -- that
is, originally marked constructions are increasingly being preferred in
cases in which speakers formerly preferred the originally unmarked
construction, with the (possible) result that the former marked patterns
are becoming unmarked (ordinary), while the former unmarked pattern is
becoming marked (confined to certain special circumstances).  French
hasn't gone all the way yet, but it might.

> (c) I happened to met it in Italian this very morning on the train,
> in a slush novel - though I haven't seen it mentioned in grammar
> books for that language.  Anyone know how common it is in Italian?

I know little about Italian, but Anna Giacalone Ramat has reported that
spoken Italian has grammatical features not to be found in the reference
grammars.  Her example is the `personal a' -- now standard in Spanish,
supposedly absent in Italian, but actually (she says) very common.

> And does it occur in Spanish?

Spanish has lots of "pleonastic" pronouns, but I'm not aware that
Spanish is doing what French is doing.  Maybe somebody else knows.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Fri Jan 29 17:07:40 1999
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 12:07:40 EST
Subject: Why *p>*f?
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.120740.EST.>

In a message dated 1/29/99 10:56:03 AM, Larry Trask wrote:

<<Yes.  It is a historical occurrence which linguists discovered....
It is not possible to answer questions like these.>>

Thanks for explaining this.

Of course, I had two reasons for asking.  The first was to offer Mr Hubey a
problem in "external causes" that might be easily handled before the bell
rings:

(In a message dated 1/27/99 8:48:31 PM, M. Hubey wrote:
<<<If one is going to examine all the external forces that influenced language
in history, however, it would be best to bring one's lunch.>

Nah. An undergrad in linguistics will solve the problem before the bell
rings.>>)

I thought this might be a good one.

My point about external cultural influences on language structure was that
they can be incredibly complex and unpredictable, and therefore not suited to
meaningful simulation models.  Simply because there is no telling where the
vector of change may come from.

In the case of *p>f, the non-linguistic cause could be anything.  And my point
is that such questions are at best on the fringes of linguistics and should
not interfere with the narrow but rigorous approach of the discipline.

<<We don't use the word `random'.  If we could observe the change in
progress, we would *probably* find that a handful of people began
pronouncing /p/ as [f], that some other people started to copy them for
some social reason, and that finally everyone was using the new
pronunciation.  This is the way most language changes appear to proceed when
we get the chance to watch them happening.>>

It seems that's all that needs to be said linguistically. But if we are truly
trying to figure "external causes," we couldn't just stop at that handful of
people who began pronouncing /p/ as [f].  We'd have to ask why.  Why did it
start?  If variance had started more than once, why did this particular
variant catch on?  Why did any variant catch on?  What social reason?
Fashion?  Totalitarism?  Did it represent a sub-culture or an affiliation?  Or
a imitation of a forign accent?  And it seems we don't have any any real
historical evidence to rely on.  Can we analogize modern social change to
prehistoric societies? Etc., etc., etc. (BTW, perhaps "random" could stand for
"it doesn't matter for our purposes," as it does in some other sciences.)

Going back to my original point to Mr. Hubey, <<If one is going to examine all
the external forces that influenced language in history, however, it would be
best to bring one's lunch.>>

Thankfully linguistics doesn't need to do any of that.  And does quite a good
job with the tools it has, from what I can see.

Regards,
Steve Long


From tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de  Fri Jan 29 17:55:41 1999
From: tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de (Theo Vennemann)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 18:55:41 +0100
Subject: rate of language change
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.185541.0100.TVN@CIS.UNIMUENCHEN.DE>

> ...
>This new style has even reached the remote valleys of the Allegheny
>Mountains, where I come from.  In my home region, all the older
>generation, including me, have [hw-].  But, among the younger
>generation, that [h-] is completely gone.  All three of my younger
>siblings have only [w-], and never [hw-].  And my sister is only
>two-and-a-half years younger than me.

>Now *that* I call fast.  And losing an entire consonant from
>word-initial position strikes me as far from trivial.  It's rather as
>though I had grown up surrounded by people pronouncing the /k/ in words
>like `knee' and `knot', and then suddenly the whole country had stopped
>pronouncing the /k/, except for me and a few other old-timers.

Dear Larry,

It may not be a useful part of your educational effort, but from a linguistic
point of view the loss of word-initial h is a slow process which began before
stronger consonants in Old English and worked its way down the consonantal
scale until it hit the position before w. Even though w is not quite finished
yet (there are still some old-timers--your term--saying hw- such as yourself),
the sound change is now working on the pre-vocalic position. By the time of
its completion the entire sound change will probably have taken a little more
than a thousand years. This sound change has been most carefully described
and explained in chapter 1 (et passim) of the following book:

Lutz, Angelika. 1991. Phonotaktisch gesteuerte Konsonantenveraenderungen
in der Geschichte des Englischen (= Linguistische Arbeiten, 272). Tuebingen:
Max Niemeyer.

See also, by the same author:

"Lautwandel und palaeographische Evidenz: Die Wiedergabe von /h/ (<
germ. /x/) in der Lindisfarne-Glosse", Anglia, 111 (1993), 285-309.

"On the historical phonotactics of English", in Luick Revisited: Papers read
at the Luick-Symposium at Schloß Liechtenstein, September 15-18, 1985,
ed. by Dieter Kastovsky and Gero Bauer (Tuebingen: Narr, 1988), 221-239.

Respectfully yours, as always,
Theo.


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Fri Jan 29 20:04:22 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 15:04:22 EST
Subject: (no subject)
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.150422.EST.>

>(Glen Gordon)

>Well, we have a problem then because there was definitely some kind of
>contact (whether direct or indirect) between IE and Semitic.

-- and probably the word for "axe", too.  However, these could equally easily
be wander-words, or relayed through other languages.  They don't imply
geographical propinquity in the same way as the much more numerous PIE-Finno-
Ugrian loans.

>You say Akkadian may have came from the southwest but are the Akkadians
>the only offspring of North Semitic?

-- East Semitic, actually.  So far, it's all we have.


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Fri Jan 29 18:09:24 1999
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 13:09:24 EST
Subject: Modality-Independent Evolution
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.130924.EST.>

In a message dated 1/29/99 3:42:35 AM, DLW wrote:

<<A language is not some sort of abstract system that develops in the ethereal
realm, free from functional considerations. >>

And the physical world is not an abstract system, but physics is.
Linguistics, like any discipline, limits its purview to handle a manageable
and pertinent number of variables.  Within this scope, it shows admirable
predictive power.

<<Language is constrained and influenced by external forces, such as
the need for clear perception and for "ease of articulation".>>

That's just a small start.  Language is a cultural, a biological and a
physical event.  And a full functional analysis brings into play all the
consequences of anyone speaking language, anywhere.  And that includes not
only the effects on the world and others and on oneself but also the context
in which they happen.  And there probably are cases where language is meant
NOT to promote either clear perception or "ease of articulation."

Once one travels beyond the methodology of linguistics, the variables one
ought to consider honestly become very large in number.

<<Biological evolution is fundamentally conservative, as it must be.>>

Just read some new work coming out of the fact that there are 10million to
100million viruses in a single teaspoon of ocean water, with over 600,000
species (if you'd call them that.)  There may be more animal life at the
bottom of the sea than there is on the surface of the earth.  There may be as
many as 1,000 new microbe species created every day.

The number one consequence of evolution is biological diversity.  The
mechanism of genetics attempts to conserve forms from one generation to the
next.  Over the long run, it has been no match for evolution.  Or we'd all be
unicellular microbes right now.  That was the point of Origin of the Species.

<<...but fundamentally the basis for any new entity is the old entity,
biological or linguistic.>>

That is somewhat true, but the mechanisms are entirely different.  In between
the old and new - there is much more that goes on in biology.  A word, not
being an entity or a species, does not have to go through natural selection to
emerge differently.

<<Using Darwian rather than Lamarckian ways of thinking does not
help at all in the difficult business of sorting out which traits are
archaisms and which are innovations.>>

But it does.  Culture is Lamarckian.  Traits can be passed on in less than a
lifetime and can be the result of intention.  There is no intention in natural
selection, only a continuous output of diversity.  Innovations and "archaisms"
are all the same to evolution - there is no sorting out between them.

<<They just had no way of knowing that the trait in question was an
archaism.>>

I don't know the study.  But recorded cases of stripes showing up in horses
are called "avatars" and have to do with generations-skipping recessive traits
in genes.  If the stripes are archaic, it would probably mean they came from a
common ancestor, but may have skipped many generations (in horses or zebra
ancestors.)  Its either that or parallel development - e.g., bats and birds
both have wings, but their common ancestor did not.  Wings developed
independently in both.  One or the other.  Nothing more.

<<It was DNA studies that led to the conclusion that "there is no such thing
as zebras"...>>

Quite to the contrary, there are still zebras.  They may just no longer
qualify as a species.

[ Moderator's comment:
  I think they qualify as 3 species, but not a single genus.  But I'm not a
  biologist, I'm a linguist, so I must state that this is a provisional, if
  moderately informed, opinion.
  --rma ]

<<"the intergrade problem">>  This is a taxonomic problem.  It doesn't affect
the analysis of descent.  Hybrids do this all the time and in them it is a
genetic matter.

The comparison of biological evolution to language studies probably has much
validity, but its hard to see how it directly affects linguistics, which
applies a special but different methodology and for good reasons.

Regards,
Steve Long


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Fri Jan 29 18:22:30 1999
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 18:22:30 +0000
Subject: rate of language change
In-Reply-To: <v01510102b2d7512e0b92@[129.187.26.156]>
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.182230.0000.LARRYT@COGS.SUSX.AC.UK>

On Fri, 29 Jan 1999, Theo Vennemann wrote:

> It may not be a useful part of your educational effort, but from a
> linguistic point of view the loss of word-initial h is a slow
> process which began before stronger consonants in Old English and
> worked its way down the consonantal scale until it hit the position
> before w. Even though w is not quite finished yet (there are still
> some old-timers--your term--saying hw- such as yourself), the sound
> change is now working on the pre-vocalic position. By the time of
> its completion the entire sound change will probably have taken a
> little more than a thousand years.

Theo is, of course, quite right: the consonant /h/ has been gradually
disappearing from English over many hundreds of years.  In some
varieties in England, it is now totally gone.  Elsewhere, it remains to
varying degrees.

This story is so fascinating that I've presented a popular summary of it
in ch. 5 of my little book Language: The Basics.

But my point is that, while the American loss of [h-] in [hw-] is
admittedly just part of a much larger development, this particular part
has been happening with astounding speed.  A generation ago, most
Americans still had [hw-].  Today, only a handful of us still do, and we
are not, on the whole, a youthful group.

In great contrast, some of the other steps in the erosion of [h] seem to
have occurred with almost agonizing slowness, with [h]-ful and [h]-less
pronunciations coexisting side by side for centuries.

[snip references]

Many thanks for the references, Theo.  I'm not acquainted with Lutz's
work.  I've taken most of my historical information on this from the
various works of Jim Milroy -- who himself cites some of Lutz's work, of
course.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk


From mcv at wxs.nl  Fri Jan 29 18:27:07 1999
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 18:27:07 GMT
Subject: rate of language change
In-Reply-To: <36AFD7B9.78A544BB@montclair.edu>
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.182707.GMT.>

"H. Mark Hubey" <HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu> wrote:

>Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote:
>>
>> Colloquial French has been interpreted as VSO (e.g. in the
>> database of Johanna Nichols' "Linguistic Diversity in Space and
>> Time", based on Stephen J. Matthews 1989 "French in Flux", in:
>> Walsh, Thomas J. "Synchronic and Diachronic Approaches to
>> Linguistic Variation and Change", and Martin Harris 1978 "The
>> Evolution of French Syntax: a Comparative Approach").
>
>This is interesting. Is it possible it is due to the rising of
>educational levels and greater susceptibility of the upper classes
>and movers&shakers (fashion/trendsetters) to the Anglo-American
>culture (dare I say, cultural-imperialism :-))?

No.

To use Larry's example, in Anglo-American you don't say "John he
it has bought the car" or "He it has bought John the car" ("il
l'a achetee, Jean, la bagnole").

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam


From donncha at eskimo.com  Fri Jan 29 18:50:53 1999
From: donncha at eskimo.com (Dennis King)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 10:50:53 -0800
Subject: Atlantic substrate of Insular Celtic
In-Reply-To: <v01510105b2d64b18bbd2@[129.187.26.236]>
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.105053.0800.DONNCHA@ESKIMO.COM>

Theo Vennemann wrote:

> Insular Celtic is structurally an Atlantic language (it is structurally
> more similar to Arabic than to any non-Insular Celtic Indo-European
> language), whereas Germanic is not.

I can see, first off, that I really need to get hold of your
"Etymologische Beziehungen im Alten Europa", which Dr. Hildegard
Tristram recommended to me once before.

In the meantime, would you be willing to summarize for us some
telling evidence in favor of the Atlantic substrate hypothesis?
I'd be especially interested in any specific words in Old Irish
you can trace to such a substrate.

Best regards,
Dennis King


From iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu  Fri Jan 29 19:15:16 1999
From: iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 13:15:16 -0600
Subject: Modality-Independent Evolution
In-Reply-To: <5d422dd7.36b1f954@aol.com>
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.131516.0600.>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

On Fri, 29 Jan 1999 X99Lynx at aol.com wrote:

>In a message dated 1/29/99 3:42:35 AM, DLW wrote:

><<A language is not some sort of abstract system that develops in the ethereal
> realm, free from functional considerations. >>

> And the physical world is not an abstract system, but physics is.

	So is any model.  I do not think we are disagreeing about anythng
here.

><<Language is constrained and influenced by external forces, such as
> the need for clear perception and for "ease of articulation".>>

> That's just a small start.

	Yes.  As opposed to a big start?

> Once one travels beyond the methodology of linguistics, the variables one
> ought to consider honestly become very large in number.

	Yes.  The same is true for biology, weather prediction ...

> <<Biological evolution is fundamentally conservative, as it must be.>>

> Just read some new work coming out of the fact that there are 10million to
> 100million viruses in a single teaspoon of ocean water,

	That is a result of the very large time (and size of the system)
involved.  But the process of reproduction remains fundamentally
conservative, despite specific mechanisms designed (in effect) to make it
less absolulely so, permitting progress/change, which is what I was
working up to, if I may be spared having to respond to obstructionistic
sniping along the way.  Trust me, I am not a complete idiot (only a
partial idiot) and do have something to say.

> The number one consequence of evolution is biological diversity. The
> mechanism of genetics attempts to conserve forms from one generation to the
> next.  Over the long run, it has been no match for evolution.  Or we'd all be
> unicellular microbes right now.  That was the point of Origin of the Species.

	Yes.  I am well aware of that.  As, usual, it seems we are not in
fact disagreeing about anything.  I would urge a more careful reading, so
that we do not waste everybody's time re-stating the obvious to an already
impatient audience.

><<...but fundamentally the basis for any new entity is the old entity,
> biological or linguistic.>>

> That is somewhat true, but the mechanisms are entirely different.

	Of course they are different.  The question is to what extent
there are "abstract" modality-independent similarities in the general
patterns that result.

> In between the old and new - there is much more that goes on in biology.  A
> word, not being an entity or a species, does not have to go through natural
> selection to emerge differently.

	I was not talking about words, I was talking about languages.

><<Using Darwian rather than Lamarckian ways of thinking does not help at all
> in the difficult business of sorting out which traits are archaisms and which
> are innovations.>>

> But it does.  Culture is Lamarckian.  Traits can be passed on in less than a
> lifetime and can be the result of intention.

	What we have here is failure to communicate.

> There is no intention in natural selection, only a continuous output of
> diversity.  Innovations and "archaisms" are all the same to evolution there
> is no sorting out between them.

	That is true of any species or language, judged synchronically.

><<They just had no way of knowing that the trait in question was an
> archaism.>>

> I don't know the study.  But recorded cases of stripes showing up in horses
> are called "avatars" and have to do with generations-skipping recessive
> traits in genes.  If the stripes are archaic, it would probably mean they
> came from a common ancestor, but may have skipped many generations (in horses
> or zebra ancestors.)  Its either that or parallel development - e.g., bats
> and birds both have wings, but their common ancestor did not.  Wings
> developed independently in both.  One or the other.  Nothing more.

	Theoretically the stripes could be a convergence.  This is
roughly equivalent to functional considerations in language leading to
similarities thay may be mistaken as indicating common descent.

><<It was DNA studies that led to the conclusion that "there is no such
> thing as zebras"...>> > >

> Quite to the contrary, there are still zebras.

I meant zebras as a sub-group within equids, as I believe was quite clear.

	<<"the intergrade problem">>

> This is a taxonomic problem.  It doesn't affect the analysis
> of descent.

	It is result of the process of descent.

> The comparison of biological evolution to language studies probably has much
> validity,

	Yes.

> but its hard to see how it directly affects linguistics,

	Yes.  (Especially if one is trying hard not to.)  Sometimes in
order to tell whether a road is a dead-end, you have to go down it.  My
main point is that there is (potentially) more here than "all that
Schleicher stuff".  The Ringge (sp?) thing, I note in closing, could with
appropriate modifications be just as applicable to biology as to
linguistics.

					DLW


From iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu  Fri Jan 29 19:21:39 1999
From: iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 13:21:39 -0600
Subject: (no subject)
In-Reply-To: <36AFDBCB.A88E9DFE@montclair.edu>
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.132139.0600.>

On Wed, 27 Jan 1999, H. Mark Hubey wrote:

>I hope nobody thinks that humans started speaking overnight 500,000 years ago
>with 20 vowels and 40 consonants and 20,000 roots. If anyone thinks that it is
>not worth discussing.

	I get the impression at times that Chomsky and his ilk think that.
The grammar gene leading to the "abstract organ" which presumably permits
and creates language.  Evolution is not their strong suit, for very good
bad reasons ...

					DLW


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Fri Jan 29 19:38:44 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 14:38:44 EST
Subject: (no subject)
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.143844.EST.>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu (H. Mark Hubey)

>Short note: how is that established? There is a difference between the
>earliest evidence found of humans riding horses, and the earliest datewhen
>humans rode horses.

-- lack of evidence such as bits, teeth with bit-wear markings, cheekpieces,
the age distribution of equid remains found in association with human
settlements or mortuary deposits, etc.

Such evidence is abundant and unambiguous in places where we _know_ horses
were domesticated and used for traction/riding.,

>They have dug all over. I doubt that anyone looks for horses in Siberia.

-- sigh.  You haven't heard of the Pazyryk Scythian tombs?  In short:  yes,
they do look in Siberia.

[ Moderator's comment:
  We can now consider this discussion closed.  Thank you.
  --rma ]


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Fri Jan 29 20:00:07 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 15:00:07 EST
Subject: (no subject)
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.150007.EST.>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

>HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu (H. Mark Hubey)

>Semitic is formed from the mixture of Hamitic (African branch) moving up from
>the East Coast of Africa to the Arabian peninsula

-- well, no, actually.  Semitic and Hamitic are both descendants of a proto-
language.   Languages change in and of themselves, you know, even the most
conservative of them.  It's inherent.

>Africa was drying up and the people had to leave.

-- I'm not an anti-migrationist as such, but this is getting ridiculous,
positively 19th-century.

>No, this is basically Gamkrelidze &Ivanov scenario.

-- yeah, and it's a standing violation of Occam's Razor.  Don't multiply
hypotheses uncessarily.

>There was a large-scale and long-term disturbance due to environmental
>catastrophe stretching over millenia.

-- population groups don't need environmental disturbances to motivate them to
move.  They do it all the time in response to their _social_ environment --
eg., economic opportunities, military/political upheavals, etc.

>Some Thracian speakers cross over the Bosphorus

-- define "Thracian".  This is primarily a geographical term.

>They are also in the region where we see IE, AA, Caucasian, and maybe proto-
>Altay-Uralic too.

-- you've been looking at too many large-scale maps.

>The large river that flowed thru Arabia had to be fed from melting glaciers
>from the Caucasus mountain range.

-- this is geographically incoherent.

[ Moderator's comment:
  We can now consider this discussion closed.  Thank you.
  --rma ]


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Fri Jan 29 20:08:20 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 15:08:20 EST
Subject: Anatolian "horse"
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.150820.EST.>

glengordon01 at hotmail.com (Glen Gordon)

>But then, come to think of it, is there an Anatolian version of *?ekwos ?

-- yes.  Hieroglyphic Luwian "Azuwa".  Cognate with Lithuanian asvienis, Vedic
asva, etc.


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Fri Jan 29 20:34:27 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 15:34:27 EST
Subject: Chariots
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.153427.EST.>

>vidynath at math.ohio-state.edu (Vidhyanath Rao)

>If by chariots we want to mean highly maneuverable vehicles, it is
>questionable whether the Sintasha vehicle was in fact one.

-- I don't think so.  It's a light bentwood-construction vehicle with two
spoked wheels pulled by paired draught horses.  Anyone looking at it will
immediately say "chariot".

Quacks like a duck, waddles like a duck, it's a duck.

>There seems to be a tendency to think that yoking horses (by the neck,
>no less) would magically transform an ox-cart into a chariot.

-- light bentwood and wicker construction and twin spoked wheels doesn't look
much like an oxcart.

And all chariots used neck-yokes, until the invention of the horse collar.


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Fri Jan 29 20:52:42 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 15:52:42 EST
Subject: Dating of Changes in Germanic and Insular Celtic
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.155242.EST.>

tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de (Theo Vennemann)

>I was happy to read about those cases of superstratum influence. That is
>exactly the way I view the Atlanticization of Germanic: Germanic as"broken"
>Indo-European.

-- this would be an attractive hypothesis, except that the characteristic
sound shifts in Proto-Germanic seem to be quite late; no earlier than about
500-600 BCE.  Prior to that PG would have sounded much more typically IE.

So if the changes were due to influence from another language, we'd be left
with the rather odd notion that the linguistic ancestors of Germanic only
moved into its historic territory in Scandinavia and northern Germany late in
the 1st millenium BCE!  Or that the other "Atlantic" language persisted in the
area for thousands of years after the first IE speakers arrived.

There's no archaeological discontinuity in northern Europe after the Corded
Ware/Battle Axe horizon arrives, and no historical record of such an invasion
either.

And where would it come from?  By 600 BCE, the other branches of IE were
differentiated.  You can't get proto-Germanic by "broken Baltic", after all.
(Eg., Balto-Slavic had long since undergone satemization by that date.)

>Insular Celtic however is different. It is not "broken" but "transformed"
>Indo-European

-- again, we have a chronological problem here.  The earliest Insular Celtic
recorded (Ogham inscriptions, etc.) is a perfectly standard early, inflected
IE language -- not much different from Gaulish or Lepontic and structurally
similar to Latin, Lithuanian or Sanskrit.

The extremely radical restructuring to the Old Irish stage for Gaelic seems to
have occurred only after about 200-300 CE.

Since the Celts must have entered the British Isles a fair spell before that,
if a substrate is responsible, why did the changes not show up until so late?

>Having developed on an Insular Celtic substratum,

-- however the Old English stage -- say as late as the 900's CE -- shows
virtually no Celtic influence lexically.  A grand total of about 12 loan-
words, if memory serves me correctly.

In fact, as late as the end of the 1st millenium CE, Old English and Low
German were still mutually comprehensible.  By which time Celtic was _long_
extinct within the vast majority of the area of English speech.

How was this Insular Celtic influence transmitted across centuries when the
languages were no longer in close contact?  If the Old English which emerges
in the 700's CE, when we have written records, is still so close to its West
Germanic cousins, and if it remains so in 1000 CE, how does the existance of a
Celtic substratum 500 years earlier carry over into the grammatical
restructuring of the period 1000-1500 CE?

It seems to me that it would be wiser to attribute the later restructuring of
English to purely internal forces, or possibly to contact with Scandinavian
and French, or to a mixture of the two causes.

In this context, it's interesting that Frisian, the closest relative of
English, underwent some of the same structural changes.  And _it_ certainly
wasn't in contact with Insular Celtic at any time!


From petegray at btinternet.com  Fri Jan 29 20:48:15 1999
From: petegray at btinternet.com (Peter &/or Graham)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 20:48:15 -0000
Subject: Germanic and B-S
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.204815.0000.PETEGRAY@BTINTERNET.COM>

On this topic it is worth noting that Germanic has in part some features
which are present on one side and absent on the other:  e.g.

(a) nouns in -o- make derivatives in -a-  (B-S, not Celtic, partly in Germ)

(b) adjectives make abstract nouns in -tu:t  (Celtic, not B-S, partly in
Germ)

This supports a wave model more than a generic model.  An early separation
of Germanic (or Germ-Armenian), with later influence from both Celtic and
B-S, seems a good explanation.

Peter


From glengordon01 at hotmail.com  Fri Jan 29 22:46:13 1999
From: glengordon01 at hotmail.com (Glen Gordon)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 14:46:13 PST
Subject: rate of language change
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.144613.PST.GLENGORDON01@HOTMAIL.COM>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

>[ Moderator's comment:
>  Actually, many people in the U. S. *do* notice it.  My wife, who is not a
>  linguist, has commented on not only the change of [hw-] to [w-], but also
>  the more recent change of [hj-] to [j-] in words such as _huge_.  It is not
>  noticed by those who do not have it.

I notice it but I and many others rarely use /hw/ in Manitoba anymore. I
find the /hw/ pronunciation overly pronounced. I prefer to mangle all my
words if possible. The /hj/ > /j/ change and the /hw/ > /w/ are not
hand-in-hand since here, the pronunciation of "huge" is definitively
/hju:d3/, not /ju:d3/, unless one is constipated. :)

--------------------------------------------
Glen Gordon
glengordon01 at hotmail.com

Kisses and Hugs
--------------------------------------------


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Fri Jan 29 23:22:43 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 17:22:43 -0600
Subject: Xinjiang mummies were Celts
In-Reply-To: <l03010d00b2d4f00945d6@[195.247.226.99]>
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.172243.0600.RMCCALLI@SUNMUW1.MUW.EDU>

As soon they find some bagpipes and a plate of haggis, --may be a bottle of
single malt-- that'll confirm it for sure :>

At 5:33 PM +0100 1/27/99, Ralf-Stefan Georg wrote:

[ moderator snip ]

>And that is how one identifies Celts ? O tempora ...


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Fri Jan 29 23:24:34 1999
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (Patrick C. Ryan)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 17:24:34 -0600
Subject: STATISTICS IN LINGUISTICS
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.172434.0600.PROTOLANGUAGE@EMAIL.MSN.COM>

Dear Steve and IEists:

-----Original Message-----
From: X99Lynx at aol.com <X99Lynx at aol.com>
Date: Friday, January 29, 1999 12:49 AM

>In a message dated 1/27/99 11:55:41 AM, proto-language at email.msn.com wrote:

><<Predictive power, IMHO, is based on statistics.>>

>Predictive power is based on an effective understanding of cause and effect
>relationships.

The relationship between cause and effect is statistical. If the same cause
is regularly observed to produce the same effect, the statistic
(probability) is 100% theoretically. Why do you resist this simple truth?

>Statistics are just one way to prove that understanding is correct.

Statistics are the only way to prove that understanding is correct. When a
cause is never observed to produce an effect, the probability is 0%. Why is
that so hard to understand?

>Without a
>proper hypothesis, whether gathered statistically or not,

Hypotheses are not "gathered" statistically. A hypothesis is validated or
not by statistically verified the results of its predictions.

>there is nothing for
>statistics to help prove.

I agree. If you are doing or saying nothing, statistics are minimally
helpful.

>A lingusitic model is a hypothesis, properly used a
>statistical sample can help prove if that model is accurate.

Statistics is the only method that can suggest (not prove) that the model is
accurate.

>However, where there are few occurences to sample and possibly no new
>occurences - as in ancient languages - statistical analyses do not carry
>much "predictative power".

This is ridiculous! Any time you make a prediction, even without formally
applying statistical methods, you are operating statistically. Judgment is
about weighing factors of probability.

>Also recall if you will that I posted on this list the fact that the
>Peresus
>Project showed a higher occuresnce of purus>red in Greek than ereuthem>red.
>This was due to the way Lidell-Scott defined red.  Statistics can only
>yield
>results that fact gathering and prior analysis permit.

Statistics cannot overcome GI.

Pat


From glengordon01 at hotmail.com  Fri Jan 29 23:24:40 1999
From: glengordon01 at hotmail.com (Glen Gordon)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 15:24:40 PST
Subject: IE-Semitic connections
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.152440.PST.GLENGORDON01@HOTMAIL.COM>

>Those and related problems do not exist if the earliest Semitic-IE
>contacts are assumed to have occurred in Europe.

Why must we assume anything in the first place?? The Pontic-Caspian
theory accounts for much and yet for some reason, still unspecified by
Miguel et al, we are throwing it away for something very conjectural and
unbased on the linguistic evidence. As far as I know and reason, Semitic
existing outside of the Middle East at the time we are working with here
is not accepted by most linguists and it seems that some have trouble
with Semitic ever reaching even the Black Sea shores let alone Europe!!

>In particular, you receive an elegant solution for Germanic and
>Etruscan (and Basque) showing t-less forms of the seven-word:
>independent borrowing of the t-less Semitic form.

But how does this truly nail a highly theoretical Germanic-Semitic
contact as European and not perhaps through Anatolian influence as it
passed by that region or even by a simple change of *-t- due to a
confusing string of consonants in *-ptm? If *p here is inaspirate due to
the following *t, it's not hard to reason why /p/ would become /b/ since
there isn't such an inaspirate/aspirate stop distinction in Germanic.
(or is there?). There are many possibilities.

--------------------------------------------
Glen Gordon
glengordon01 at hotmail.com

Kisses and Hugs
--------------------------------------------


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Fri Jan 29 23:40:27 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 17:40:27 -0600
Subject: IE in Balkans and Semitic?
In-Reply-To: <19990128024117.12603.qmail@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.174027.0600.RMCCALLI@SUNMUW1.MUW.EDU>

I was thinking of the root of taurus & steer [I'll let someone else come up
with the exact root]. So maybe animal husbandry is the right term in this
case.

[snip]>
>I don't remember any Semitic agricultural terms in IE although I could
>be wrong. However, the whole problem with this scenario is that this
>imaginary intermediary does not seem to leave any evidence behind.
>I don't know of any language that adopted the same terms in the same
>form as those found in IE except for Semitic itself. What's more, the IE
>words aren't particularly "eroded"-looking, telling me that the  contact
>must have been direct.
[snip]


From glengordon01 at hotmail.com  Fri Jan 29 23:47:43 1999
From: glengordon01 at hotmail.com (Glen Gordon)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 15:47:43 PST
Subject: IE-Semitic connections
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.154743.PST.GLENGORDON01@HOTMAIL.COM>

Theo:

>In particular, you receive an elegant solution for Germanic and
>Etruscan (and Basque)...

In retrospect, I forgot about Basque "zazpi". Hmm, but I wonder what the
mainstream theory is on that word. Larry Trask mentioned that Latin "s"
becomes "z" in Basque borrowings. Latin, at least Vulgar Latin, as far
as I am aware, reduced /m/ before vowel to a nasal vowel. I can't see
how "zazpi" can be related to a t-less Semitic form because of the
second -z- which has to be a soft representation of a previous /t/ (what
else could it possibly be??) Hence zazpi might actually come from a late
version of Latin septem which perhaps was pronounced /sept(s)@~/ at the
time (@~ = nasal schwa).

To be honest it probably can't be explained as a Classical Latin
borrowing (cf. Lat apta- > hauta- "choose") but couldn't this be a late
Latin borrowing? It's definitively not from a t-less Semitic form. Maybe
an _m-less_ one at most and then we have to explain why Semitic *b
becomes Basque /p/!

--------------------------------------------
Glen Gordon
glengordon01 at hotmail.com

Kisses and Hugs
--------------------------------------------


From iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu  Sat Jan 30 00:36:35 1999
From: iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 18:36:35 -0600
Subject: Various
In-Reply-To: <19990128045914.13486.qmail@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.183635.0600.>

On Wed, 27 Jan 1999, Glen Gordon wrote:

> From DLW on IE and Anatolian entrance:

> >	Let's see ... evidence that the Anatolians entered from the
> >west? Like what?  Last I heard there was no clear archeological
> >evidence of any such thing, just the usual muddle and quot homines
> >tot opiniones.

> Well, perhaps not archaelogical but like the very thing Miguel pointed
> to about Parnassos, etc. What is your take on it then? Have I missed
> that comment of yours?

	Unless there some good IE etymology for these, they could be, dare
I say it, substratal in both groups.

> >	Turkic being not IE, which I have known probably longer than
> >Mr. Gordon has been alive, has nothing to do with anything I said.
> >As for waves, the Turks have been moving back and forth in waves
> >across the steppe for some time now, without much separation having
> >occurred.  What is necessary for separation (I am disappointed to
> >have to make such a basic point) is something that stops people from
> >talking to each other.

> Hmm, a little hostile. I can't be blamed for my parent's poor timing in
> copulation. I would have studied Turkic as long as you if I were as
> chronologically advanced as you. Let's work through this calmly before
> things get out of hand. "Turks have been moving back and forth," you
> say. You may notice that you mentioned "back and forth" in the sentence.
> You may also have noticed that I never said that the Anatolian
> population moved "back and forth" around the Black Sea. That would be
> absurd. In your scenario then, of course there would be no seperation
> because no one is going anywhere. The Turkic situation isn't the same at
> all.

	The Turkic peoples moved back and forth (or forth and back)
because there wasn't anything to stop them.  Nor would there have been for
our dearly beloved, the PIEs.  The question is how IE Anatolian got
separated from Greek.  "By crossing the Aegean" is the obvious answer, but
that doesn't necessarily leave enough time, depending on when the movement
is supposed to have occurred.  Note that in later times Greek itself
"crossed" into Anatolia, without that in itself causing much divergence.
MCV's suggestion that perhaps other IE intruded between the pre-Greeks and
pre-Anatolians (IE type) is much more plausible in this regard, but for
Western IE types who seem to have gone through a formative period in
Hungary (I believe it was these he was talking about) to have detoured by
way of the southern Balkans is itself problematic.

> The seperation (I am also disappointed to have to make such a basic
> point) is _time_ like I've said before. The more a person travels
> farther and farther away from someone, the harder it is to communicate
> (unless IndoEuropeans had telephones - "IE phone home?"). Same here, the
> Anatolian contact diminished to nill as the Anatolians moved farther and
> farther away, not back and forth, and mind you, they had a lake to hide
> behind. Why should that idea be resisted? Is there some data I'm
> missing?

	Actually, if you look at what you're saying here, you're really
talking again about space, not time.  And, as I said before, the Aegean
has historically served more as a uniter than divider.  Presumably the
view you are pushing has IEs on the other side of the Aegean at the time
in question.  The Black Sea is of course a true divider, but to think that
the IE Anatolians got into Anatolia without there being other IEs in their
wake closer than the far side of the Black Sea strains credulity.

> >Note the social divisions that have caused some divergence between
> >white and black English in America.  Steppes do not (necessarily) do
> >it.

> Um, any social divisions like these barely involve the clear cut
> linguistic divisions that we're speaking about here.

	I was pointing out that lack of contact (or reduced contact), for
whatever reason, is what causes divergence.  Of course when the barriers
are merely social, no separate languages will result.

> And the Steppes
> don't do anything. The Steppes just sit there like wasted land outside
> of the arena of this debate. Why are you using IE and the Steppes in the
> same sentence? Forget the Steppes (and keep forgetting the mountains
> too).

	Since mountains tend to lead to loss of contact, I will most
certainly not forget them.  You can keep forgetting them if you like,
continuing to imagine, seemingly, that languages diverge because it is
convenient for linguists of the future to posit it, but I for one will
have to be left ouf of this amnesia.

> The Anatolians aren't going across the Steppes to reach Western
> Anatolia from the Pontic-Caspian region if I know my geography at all.
> Are you sure you understood what I'm saying? Perhaps I explained my
> ideas poorly. There _is_ alot of email afterall.\

	What we have here is failure to communicate.

> >	As for what I would mean by the Hittites moving "early" into
> >Anatolia, roughly before 3500 B.C.

> Hopefully I'm not losing track of this debate but why do you think that
> this event should have been before 3500 BCE?

	Again, failure to communicate.  I don't think anything of the
sort.  As I recall, the evidence for the IE Anatolians moving in points to
around 2500-2000, not much time for separation from Greek if the Greeks
moved into Greece around 2000.  But archeology is not my strong point.
(I tend to forget it.  Imagine that.)

> And when you say Hittites do you
> mean Hittites or Anatolians, just to make things absolutely clear.

	I mean IE Anatolians, or their precursors, by all references to
either Hittites or Anatolians.  Sometimes I do not want to use the term
"Anatolians" because it might well be taken to have a geographic rather
than linguistic meaning.

					DLW


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Sat Jan 30 02:39:41 1999
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 21:39:41 EST
Subject: STATISTICS IN LINGUISTICS
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.213941.EST.>

I wrote:
<<Predictive power is based on an effective understanding of cause and effect
relationships.>>

Patrick C. Ryan replied:
<<Why does it seem to be so hard to understand that the relationship of cause
and effect is statistical?>>

Because it is not true.

The relationship of cause and effect is physical or chemical or cultural, etc.
Statistics can be extremely useful in establishing such relationships.  But
I'm afraid statistics do not equal cause and effect.

Here is your example:
<<If you have Cause A, and you predict successfully Effect B, every time, then
the relationship is <1> or 100% PROBABILITY.>>

You are definitely jumping the gun here.  You are already telling me there is
a cause and effect relationship BEFORE YOU'VE PROVEN IT.  You are presuming
cause and effect before have statistically shown it.

The best you can say here is that if A occurs and then B occurs, everytime,
there is some probability that A causes B.

HOWEVER, if your assumptions are flawed, you are not proving cause and effect
with this.  All that this demonstrates is a 100% CORRELATION. But NO cause and
effect relationship has been established.  And this should not be hard to
understand.

The classic classroom example is: EVERYTIME you see people carrying umbrellas,
it ends up raining.  Based on that, you conclude that umbrellas cause rain.
(Everytime equals "100% probability.")

Even a very high correlation does not equal causation.  This is very important
in a field like historical linguistics, where you do not have an independent
variable to manipulate and therefore don't have the hard experimental controls
you get in a lab.  With improper analysis, statistics are not just worthless.
They are damaging.

And of course the other thing that is inaccurate is "100% probability".  Until
there is an end of time, there is no such thing.  Because no matter how many
"n" times A leads to B, there is always "n + 1."  If you want to claim it, the
best you get is 99% in this world.

As far as historical linguistics goes, statistical analysis could be a very
powerful tool.  But all it is is a tool.  And if its limitations are
misunderstood, it can be and has been used to prove all kinds of nonsense.

Regards,
Steve Long


From glengordon01 at hotmail.com  Mon Jan 25 05:59:40 1999
From: glengordon01 at hotmail.com (Glen Gordon)
Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1999 21:59:40 PST
Subject: Pre-IE and migrations
Message-ID: <SUN.24.JAN.1999.215940.PST.GLENGORDON01@HOTMAIL.COM>

Miguel on Etruscan "semph" and Semitic borrowing:

>Well, we also find the lack of /t/ in Germanic (sibun, seven), so I'd
>say Etruscan semph *is* most likely due to metathesis (wacky or not)
>of something like *sepm or *sebm.

But this is one step up beyond Germanic. We should expect a much more
regular change than this. You're assuming metathesis as well as a loss
of *-t, as well as an Etruscan /ph/ = IE *p correlation which I, at
least, have not seen substantiated in data. This, in addition, is in
contrast to the beautifully preserved words I've seen in Etruscan that
can be very easily compared to IE without much explanation as to why.
This awkward change you propose, Miguel, is in violation of my
understanding of Etruscan-IE relationship. Two seperate contacts
(whether both Semitic or not) seems to be a less exhausting explanation
of the etymology of this word.

>Whether this requires contact with a wholly hypothetical western
>Semitic group, I wouldn't know. There's also the unexpected Samoyed
>forms... In any case, all of this looks to me as possible evidence of
>a Wanderwort, not of Voelkerwanderungen.

Well, the Wanderwort explanation wouldn't explain why the IE-related
Etruscan has a word for "seven" that is not reasonably relatable to IE's
*septm unless two seperate sources exist in this case.

At any rate, back to IE and Anatolia, if IE were in Anatolia for such a
long time, one would expect that Semitic, Caucasian or another non-IE
Anatolian language would "do a number" on IE just as Rick McCallister
describes Armenian's Turkic influence. Yet amongst all that contact over
what would have been many millenia prior to IE, we can still connect IE
to Uralic, a Steppe language?? It still doesn't sit well with me and I
think for good linguistical reason.

A European explanation is too far west because it doesn't take into
account the linguistic ties to the Black Sea area, including that of
North Semitic. Ironically, you would dismiss such a westerly adoption of
a Semitic word in Etruscan... Hmmm. There's a paradox.

>And since we're speculating, I have always thought the fact that the
>archaeological evidence for metal-working (copper) points to the
>Balkans as the oldest center looks supportive of my hypothesis that
>the Neolithic Balkans (Vinc^a culture etc.) were at least partially
>IE (Anatolian) speaking.

Why must IE be the "oldest center" for metal-working? It doesn't seem to
particularly point to anything at all.

>The Akkadian (eru^) and Sumerian (urudu) words for copper might well
>be borrowings from PIE *H1reudh- "red; copper".

...Or vice-versa.

>If so, this would be hard to reconcile with a
>Pontic-Caspian location of PIE until 3500 BC, given that the
>Pontic-Caspian was not a metallurgical center, and the copper that we
>find there was imported from the Balkans.

Again, why must it be a metallurgical center? If IE speakers weren't in
the midst of such a center, it would make sense that they had borrowed
words like this from North Semitic in absence of words of their own. I
don't think IE had much linguistical sway on its Mesopotomian neighbours
since little evidence suggests such a thing.

--------------------------------------------
Glen Gordon
glengordon01 at hotmail.com

Kisses and Hugs
--------------------------------------------


From sean at lares.dti.ne.jp  Sat Jan 30 07:05:45 1999
From: sean at lares.dti.ne.jp (Sho Sakuma)
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1999 16:05:45 +0900
Subject: gender
Message-ID: <SAT.30.JAN.1999.160545.0900.SEAN@LARES.DTI.NE.JP>

    Had there been any possible process of grammaticalization
that has dichtomizeted  the noun of the languages, belonging to
the branch of IE, into a label of gender as masculine or feminine?
...or adding neuter in a case. I just wondering what was the notion
to give the noun a subdivision with gender.

    It may be naturally assumptioned that the distinction originally
comes from a biological gender, but such illogicality that penetrates
a language, like a difference between German and French. For the former
assigns a label for the word indicating --moon-- masculine but the latter
attachs feminine for corresponding word --lune--.

    I have once presented same question in other list last year from a
very curious. One of those who gave me the reply with taking a example
from Japanese and reminded me a awkward point of the language. That we
count apples with the suffix --ko-, rabbits with --wa-, books with
--satu-, and Kentucky Fried Chicken with --piece-- is certainly seemed
to me strange feature of Japanese.

-------------------------------
 Sho Sakuma
 Kanto Gakuin University


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Sat Jan 30 10:48:37 1999
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1999 10:48:37 +0000
Subject: wh
In-Reply-To: <009d01be4bca$5d691f80$513863c3@niywlxpn>
Message-ID: <SAT.30.JAN.1999.104837.0000.LARRYT@COGS.SUSX.AC.UK>

On Fri, 29 Jan 1999, Peter &/or Graham wrote:

> Larry writes of initial /hw/ as if it were indeed /hw/.  I have seen
> this description of it in the text books, and been puzzled by it.
> In my dialect (NZ) it is a voiceless /w/.  There is no /h/ at all.

> I'm just checking back, I guess.   Do some speakers actually say /h/+ /w/?
> I always thought the textbooks were wrong.

Historically, this thing is /hw-/, and that's how it was spelled in Old
English, as in <hwit> `white'.  After the Norman Conquest, a new
spelling convention was introduced, our modern <wh>, apparently because
the thing was perceived by some people as a voiceless [w].

In fact, for most (all?) speakers who have this thing, it is indeed
phonetically a single sound, voiceless [w], represented in the IPA by an
inverted <w>.  This is true for me as well in casual speech, though in
emphatic speech I pronounce it, roughly, as an [h] followed by a
voiceless [w].

Now, some people who have it perceive it clearly as an /h/ followed by a
/w/, and that includes me.  But others who have it perceive it equally
clearly as a single consonant, voiceless /w/.  You are apparently one of
them.

Consequently, analyses differ.  Phonemically, most linguists write /hw/,
partly because that's the historical state of affairs and partly because
that conforms to some speakers' intuitions.  But there are some
linguists who prefer to say that the relevant accents do not have an
/hw/ cluster but rather an additional consonant phoneme, the inverted
<w>.  This second is the minority view, but it makes sense for some
speakers.  But it does require the use of the inverted <w>, which is
awkward if you haven't got a good phonetic font available.

In my posting, I might have used the phonetic symbols inverted <w> and
normal <w> to represent the two styles of pronunciation, but I can't
print the inverted <w>, and so I used [hw] and [w] instead.

It's interesting that we speakers who retain the traditional
pronunciation differ so sharply in our perceptions of what we're saying.
We have the same phonetics, but two very different understandings of
what we're "really" doing.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk


From alemko.gluhak at infocentar.hr  Fri Jan 29 20:27:31 1999
From: alemko.gluhak at infocentar.hr (Alemko Gluhak)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 21:27:31 +0100
Subject: IE *eg'om (was: IE-Semitic connections)
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.212731.0100.ALEMKO.GLUHAK@INFOCENTAR.HR>

On 27 Jan 1999, Glen Gordon <glengordon01 at hotmail.com> wrote:

> I take the word *eg'oh in IE to be a realisation of
> the North Semitic word *anaku (Hey, does anyone have any better theories
> on that word? I rest my case).

In Etimologic^eskij slovar' slavjanskih jazykov I, red. O.N. Trubac^ev, we
can read that *eg'o(:)(m) < *e g'o eme, something like "it's me!".

Alemko Gluhak
Zavod za lingvisticka istrazivanja
Hrvatske akademije znanosti i umjetnosti
(Linguistic Research Institute of the
Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts)
Ante Kovacica 5, HR-10000 Zagreb
gluhak at hazu.hr


From iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu  Sat Jan 30 14:05:46 1999
From: iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu)
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1999 08:05:46 -0600
Subject: Semitic in Britain
In-Reply-To: <v01540b00b2d5cb219e50@[193.149.87.161]>
Message-ID: <SAT.30.JAN.1999.080546.0600.>

On Thu, 28 Jan 1999, Gordon Selway wrote:

> The notion ties in with the hypothesis there was a long-standing
> pre-historic link along the African/European Atlantic littoral.

	Yes, sadly (because it is somewhat difficult to make sense of).  I
myself was struck in reading of West African languges how commonly they
have progressives, as do the "Atlantic" European languages. It seems
improbable either that this is an areal phenomenon, or that it is not ..

					DLW


From iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu  Sat Jan 30 14:17:12 1999
From: iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu)
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1999 08:17:12 -0600
Subject: Shires a Norman Invention?
In-Reply-To: <009001be4aee$debc3220$e1ecabc3@niywlxpn>
Message-ID: <SAT.30.JAN.1999.081712.0600.>

On Thu, 28 Jan 1999, Peter &/or Graham wrote:

> We should also add that the shires were themselves a Norman invention.

	There shire-reeves in AS times, so the above statement certainly
requires clarification, at least.

					DLW


From iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu  Sat Jan 30 14:26:13 1999
From: iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu)
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1999 08:26:13 -0600
Subject: English as an Atlanic Language
In-Reply-To: <v01510105b2d64b18bbd2@[129.187.26.236]>
Message-ID: <SAT.30.JAN.1999.082613.0600.>

On Thu, 28 Jan 1999, Theo Vennemann wrote:

> English is an exception. Having developed on an Insular Celtic substratum,
> it is (mildly) "transformed" Germanic. As a consequence, it is structurally
> more similar to Insular Celtic (and, by transitivity, to Atlantic) than the
> other Germanic languages, but not to the same high degree as Insular Celtic
> is to Atlantic.

	Yes.  Isn't it past time we retired the quaint notion that there
is no Celtic influence in English?  If we know where to look (grammar
rather than lexicon or phonology), Celtic influence is pervasive in
English.

					DLW


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Sat Jan 30 14:48:51 1999
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1999 14:48:51 +0000
Subject: rate of change
In-Reply-To: <36B30E91.D01D5FAC@montclair.edu>
Message-ID: <SAT.30.JAN.1999.144851.0000.LARRYT@COGS.SUSX.AC.UK>

On Sat, 30 Jan 1999, H. Mark Hubey wrote:

[LT]

> > And language change is a *lot* more complicated than baseball change.

> Probably also true. How about posting how you would go about measuring
> language change. Last time we had a similar problem on evollang list, it
> took months before I could get answers from you. Hopefully this time
> it will be a lot sooner.

I have never suggested that it is possible to measure "the rate of
language change" in a meaningful way.  As it stands, the concept is
simply far too diffuse to be usefully quantified.

Take a simple (but realistic) example.  Languages A, B and C all start
off very closely related.  Language A then undergoes very substantial
change in its phonology, but otherwise remains rather conservative.
Language B undergoes massive vocabulary replacement, but otherwise
remains rather conservative.  Language C undergoes major changes in its
morphology and syntax, but otherwise remains rather conservative.

Now we want to compare the rates at which the three languages have
changed.  How can we do that?  The rate of change is the degree of
change per unit time -- so we first have to measure the degree of
change.  But how?  Does acquiring six new phonemes count as a larger or
a smaller change than acquiring a new set of personal pronouns?  Does
acquiring ergative alignment count as a larger or a smaller change than
losing all final unstressed syllables?

How on earth can such questions be answered, except by assigning
arbitrary weightings?  "Let's see -- becoming ergative counts as four
doobies' worth of change, but losing final syllables counts as five
doobies."

It won't work.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk

[ Moderator's comment:
  We can now consider this discussion closed.  Thank you.
  --rma ]


From jorna at web4you.dk  Sat Jan 30 21:30:29 1999
From: jorna at web4you.dk (Carol Jensen)
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1999 22:30:29 +0100
Subject: Breakup of Persians and East Indians (Avestan and Vedic)
Message-ID: <SAT.30.JAN.1999.223029.0100.JORNA@WEB4YOU.DK>

I have often wondered why I have never read anything about the fight, if there
was one, between the Avestans and Vedics.

The languages are so close, they must have broken up shortly before the various
hymns were written down.

In the Avestan hymns, one learns of the reformer Zarasthustra. Now it is
obvious that what he has reformed is the Vedic religion. Was there a fight
before they split? Could it be the Persians referred to in the Vedic texts
("We broke down their walled town", etc.)

Anyone read anything, or have any thoughts on this?

Carol Jensen


From mcv at wxs.nl  Sat Jan 30 13:28:17 1999
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1999 13:28:17 GMT
Subject: rate of language change
In-Reply-To: <008f01be4aee$ddc1f3a0$e1ecabc3@niywlxpn>
Message-ID: <SAT.30.JAN.1999.132817.GMT.>

"Peter &/or Graham" <petegray at btinternet.com> wrote:

>[..] Examples were such things as
>"Marie, le livre, elle l'a lu."

>(c) I happened to met it in Italian this very morning on the train, in a
>slush novel - though I haven't seen it mentioned in grammar books for that
>language.  Anyone know how common it is in Italian?   And does it occur in
>Spanish?   German eschews it.

Marma, el libro, lo ha leido.  Hmmm, not sure I've ever said
that, but I daren't say it's ungrammatical.  A much more common
(though still "marked") construction would be: "Marma lo ha
leido, el libro".

[ Moderator's comment:
  Since this posting came in as "8-bit", I believe that the name "Marma" above
  should be read "Mari'a", to parallel the French example.
  --rma (living in a 7-bit universe) ]

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Sun Jan 31 02:49:47 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1999 20:49:47 -0600
Subject: Anglo-Saxon conquest
In-Reply-To: <e7048b36.36afeac9@aol.com>
Message-ID: <SAT.30.JAN.1999.204947.0600.RMCCALLI@SUNMUW1.MUW.EDU>

	The Angles, Saxons et al. arrived by c. 400. For the first 100
years or so, the Angles & Saxons were pretty much bottled up in the SE
[south of the Humber].  The real body blow was when they took Chester,
which I think was around 600. The NE fell pretty soon after that. But even
then, it would take a couple of hundred more years to take the NW & SW.

	Someone who has more precise dates [and facts] can fill us in.

	The point is that by the time the Angles & Saxons moved out of the
SE, the local population had presumibly been acculturated by the Angles &
Saxons and perhaps had even stopped speaking Briton. My guess is that
pretty much the same thing, although probably to a lesser degree, would
have happened when the Anglo-Saxons expanded from Mercia & Wessex. Many of
the "Anglo-Saxons" who moved into these areas were likely accultured
Britons looking for a better life.

	The fact that there were Christians among the Anglo-Saxons when
Augustine arrived suggests that the process of acculturation flowed both
ways.

[snip]
>
>-- mmmm, most of lowland England was overrun in one or two generations at
>most.
[snip]

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
MUW
Columbus MS 39701
rmccalli at sunmuw1.muw.edu


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Sun Jan 31 03:01:41 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1999 21:01:41 -0600
Subject: literacy
In-Reply-To: <009201be4aee$e0dcef40$e1ecabc3@niywlxpn>
Message-ID: <SAT.30.JAN.1999.210141.0600.RMCCALLI@SUNMUW1.MUW.EDU>

	TV & film are a type of literacy in the sense that they fix and
distribute certain linguistic forms. In literary studies, they are most
definitely considered as "text."

	Linguistics, of course, is another discipline.

At 6:35 PM +0000 1/28/99, Peter &/or Graham wrote:
>>It's notable that there has been a massive convergence in dialect forms in
>>modern English ...
>>The same has happened in places like Italy,

>We might ask if this is due to TV and film rather than literacy.

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
MUW
Columbus MS 39701
rmccalli at sunmuw1.muw.edu

[ Moderator's comment:
  It is, indeed, another discipline, one in which the spoken word is given
  primacy.  The point being made, by me as well as others, is that TV, film,
  and before them radio, provided *spoken* evidence of standard pronunciations
  that was previously lacking in the lives of most speakers of most languages
  around the world, and thus an homogenization of dialects is made possible
  that simply could not have happened earlier because of the communications
  media available.
  --rma ]


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Sun Jan 31 03:08:15 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1999 21:08:15 -0600
Subject: rate of language change
In-Reply-To: <008f01be4aee$ddc1f3a0$e1ecabc3@niywlxpn>
Message-ID: <SAT.30.JAN.1999.210815.0600.RMCCALLI@SUNMUW1.MUW.EDU>

At 6:18 PM +0000 1/28/99, Peter &/or Graham wrote:
>Larry said:
>> Paul, Marie, elle a couche avec.
>>you won't find this construction in any
>>reference grammar of French.

	My colleague in French blanched when she saw this. She said this
was the kind of French that "you heard in the Metro but that no one would
admit to speaking."

[snip]
>And does it occur in
>Spanish?

never --as far as I know except for occasionally in "Spanglish"
I don't know about Spain but I would seriously doubt it cropping up even there

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
MUW
Columbus MS 39701
rmccalli at sunmuw1.muw.edu


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Sun Jan 31 03:21:47 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1999 21:21:47 -0600
Subject: In search of Trojans again
In-Reply-To: <19990128195658.10197.qmail@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <SAT.30.JAN.1999.212147.0600.RMCCALLI@SUNMUW1.MUW.EDU>

	Hattic, Hurrian & Urartian are often said to be N. Caucasian
--which in modern times is almost always found on the north slope and north
of the Caucasus.

	I seem to remember reading that formerly, N Caucasian languages
were spoken even farther to the north. [which obviously doesn't preclude
them having a larger territory to the south as well].

	It's possible that Kartvelian may have divided Hattic et al.
[assuming they are NC] from N. Caucasian and pushed them to the west &
south, perhaps even as far as Greece --where they are some claims that
"pre-Pelasgian" languages may have been from the Caucasus. Kaska --just a
name on the map as far as I know-- has also been claimed as Caucasian.

	I'm not vouching for any of this. So I'll just stand back and let
the rest of you sort it out.

[snip]

>When you mention North Caucasian specifically going back to
>Indo-Tyrrhenian, are you suggesting a link between the waves of
>"Indo-Tyrrhenian" (damn, that word's hard to spell) and pockets of
>North Caucasian in Anatolia? Are you perhaps suggesting that a North
>Caucasian language had been spreading ahead of these waves and then
>finally got pushed into Anatolia as Indo-Tyrrhenian spread out and
>smothered the areas once North Caucasian? Or do you just mention North
>Caucasian in Anatolia for fun? I could have over-extrapolated as is my
>nature.
[snip]

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
MUW
Columbus MS 39701
rmccalli at sunmuw1.muw.edu


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Sun Jan 31 09:06:11 1999
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 31 Jan 1999 04:06:11 EST
Subject: Why *p-*f?
Message-ID: <SUN.31.JAN.1999.040611.EST.>

In a message dated 1/29/99 11:26:00 PM, Glen Gordon wrote:

<<Now, weather, genetic irregularities and religion are the most absurd ideas
for phonemic change I've ever heard.>>

My point - way back when - was that "external causes" just interfere with the
methodology of historical linguistics and should not be a main focus at all.
So I just sort of picked those examples out of the air.  But, once you do go
to cultural history, I suspect it is a little bit overconfident to dismiss any
cause too quickly.

An equally "absurd idea" perhaps is that such powerful forces as religion and
climate (weather over the long term) and disease could not affect language
structure when they can totally alter every other aspect of human culture.
Take a look at "Viruses, Plagues and History" by B.A. Oldstone for a notion of
how randomly and profoundly disease can alter every other aspect of human
life.

You'll allow that language structure changes "simply take place because the
human species is imperfect (or too lazy)."  But you seem certain that such
powerful things as religion can't do it.

But consider this in the development of Church Latin.  Early on, the elite
"Church Fathers" are becoming critical of local pastors who are using "bad
language" to speak to their congregations, "such as dolus for dolor, effloriet
for florebit, ossum for os."  Despite this St. Augustine, who was well trained
in Greek and Latin syntax, told his audience: "I often employ words that are
not [true] Latin and I do so that you may understand me. Better that I should
incur the blame of the grammarians than not be understood by the people (In
Psal. cxxxviii, 90)."  The breakdown in regularity is so bad that, despite
many prior translations of the Greek Septugant, St Jerome must issue forth the
official Latin Vulgate "in good language."  We still have his teacher's -
Donatus - essay on the extensive spread of "barbarisms" (not meaning
foreignisms) in latin which include, with examples: "...changing and
transposing of letters, syllables, tones and aspiration." (This piece is on
the web.)

Point is that if religion didn't start isolated language structure changes, it
could sure spread them (or try to stop them.)

<<Changes simply take place because the human species is imperfect (or too
lazy).>>

Interesting.  In some quarters, changes take place because people are striving
to be perfect or are too ambitious.  Could go either way, I suppose.  Can't be
too sure.

<<The change of *p to *f or *k to *x, etc. is nothing more than a tendency
towards "softening" the stop and is a very valid sound change.>>

So what happened to the softening of the stop in b>p? At this level, the only
basis for saying the sound change is valid is because it happened.  It's a
found rule, not a necessary one.  "Hardening" towards a stop could be just as
natural in other cases. It must have happened at some point for stops to even
exist.

I think the following might suggest evidence for an explanation for *p>f (from
the Linguist list 9/98):

<<Originally the Greek letter "phi" was pronounced like a "p" with a strong
puff of air afterwards--that is, more or less like "p" followed by "h" (this
was as opposed to the letter "pi", which was pronounced like the unaspirated
"p" you get in many languages other than English....  Much later, the letter
"phi" underwent a sound change and started being pronounced like "f"....

You can actually date the sound change by looking at Roman misspellings--when
uneducated Romans or Roman schoolchildren misspelled "philosophia" before the
sound change, they would spell it "pilosopia"--afterwards, it was
"filosofia".>>  - N. Richards

Now that's evidence.  P>f showing up among uneducated Romans (like soldiers)
as a variant of ph>f.

<<Deal with it. :)>>

Same to you.  And good luck.

Regards,
Steve Long

PS - you wrote:
<<You are probably doing it to English right now as we speak. There's no
religion involved, you don't have a cleft palette and it happens whether it's
sunny or cloudy.>>

Amazing.  Wrong on all three counts. A lot of folks around here are either
talking funny ever since the new preacher from North Carolina has us singing
songs that rhyme things like "the Lord" with "adode."  Or because they all
went hard of hearing due to that virus or maybe the weather, and now you've
got to harden those stops just to be understood.

So I doubt if my cleft palette had much to do with it.
Of course you'd have no way of knowing I have one with the limited information
you had. :)


From iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu  Sun Jan 31 14:10:47 1999
From: iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu)
Date: Sun, 31 Jan 1999 08:10:47 -0600
Subject: Darwin and IE and Respect
In-Reply-To: <80f90896.36b130c9@aol.com>
Message-ID: <SUN.31.JAN.1999.081047.0600.>

On Thu, 28 Jan 1999 X99Lynx at aol.com wrote:

>There is a pretty good commercial software simulation of natural selection
>processes called SimLife.  I don't know the publisher, it came out about 1994.
>It incorporates a lot of the variables known to influence evolution in a
>biosystem and does get nifty results.  There are a fair number of more
>powerful simulations at various academic institutions, including currently I
>believe at Harvard.

	The larger aspects of such simulations, i.e. those not
specifically tied to biology, are likely to have some applicablity to
linguistic evolution.  This might lead to things that would in effect
serve as more sophisticated elaborations of the Ringge model.  No, I do
not have one with me ...

					DLW


From manaster at umich.edu  Sun Jan 31 17:57:03 1999
From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu)
Date: Sun, 31 Jan 1999 12:57:03 -0500
Subject: rate of language change
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.03.9901261637520.680-100000@rsuno.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <SUN.31.JAN.1999.125703.0500.>

The real question is how old some of these constructions
are in French.  They are certainly not as recnet as
Larry seems to assuming.

On Tue, 26 Jan 1999, Larry Traskmentioned (inter alia)

> 	Jean, il l'a achetee, la bagnole.

> 	Paul, Marie a couche avec.

> 	Vla la meuf qui s'est fait peta son keus.

> 	Paul, Marie, elle a couche avec.


From manaster at umich.edu  Sun Jan 31 18:42:12 1999
From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu)
Date: Sun, 31 Jan 1999 13:42:12 -0500
Subject: MSS
Message-ID: <SUN.31.JAN.1999.134212.0500.>

Does anybody know what's going on with the editors
of MSS and why they would not be responding to
repeated letters?  Alexis MR


From tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de  Sun Jan 31 20:51:12 1999
From: tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de (Theo Vennemann)
Date: Sun, 31 Jan 1999 21:51:12 +0100
Subject: Language Succession
Message-ID: <SUN.31.JAN.1999.215112.0100.TVN@CIS.UNIMUENCHEN.DE>

[ moderator snip ]

>>English is an exception. Having developed on an Insular Celtic substratum,
>>it is (mildly) "transformed" Germanic. As a consequence, it is structurally
>>more similar to Insular Celtic (and, by transitivity, to Atlantic) than the
>>other Germanic languages, but not to the same high degree as Insular Celtic
>>is to Atlantic.

>>Theo Vennemann, 28 January 1999.

>Would you care to enlarge on the last paragraph, especially? For the whole
>group, I mean. As many of us do not know Arabic, and I at least cannot see
>how English is closer structurally to Arabic than German or Danish, it
>would be very interesting.

>Carol

I would like to write about this, and I will have to for lectures in the Fall,
but I do not have time now to do this just for fun. I am not a specialist in
Semitic, Insular Celtic, or English, whereas there are scholars on this List
who can give you lots of facts without having to do much reading. If you
want to wait, I will probably be able to provide much material later this
year. In the meantime, I repeat some of the titles I have referred to on the
List before.

--- John Morris Jones. 1900. "Pre-Aryan syntax in Insular Celtic." In: John
Rhys and David Brynmor-Jones, The Welsh people: Chapters on their origin,
history, laws, language, literature and characteristics, London: T. Fisher
Unwin, Appendix B, pp. 617-641.
--- Julius Pokorny. 1927-30. "Das nicht-indogermanische Substrat im Iri-
schen", Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie 16: 95-144, 231-266, 363-394;
17: 373-388; 18: 233-248.
--- Orin David Gensler. 1993. A typological evaluation of Celtic/Hamito-
Semitic syntactic parallels. Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, University
of California, Berkeley. [Available from University Microfilms Inter-
national, Ann Arbor, Michigan, no. 9407967.]

These works mostly compare Insular Celtic to Hamito-Semitic, but to some
extent they refer to features of English that agree with features of languages
of these groups but differ from Germanic. Gensler has an extensive biblog-
raphy. You may also want to consult the following book:

--- Heinrich Wagner. 1959. Das Verbum in den Sprachen der Britischen
Inseln (Buchreihe der Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie, 1). Tuebingen:
Max Niemeyer.

You may further want to look out for Celtic Englishes II, the successor
volume of the following (which is also worthy of attention):

--- Hildegard L. C. Tristram (ed.). 1997. The Celtic Englishes (Anglistische
Forschungen, 247), Heidelberg: C. Winter.

Of course, you may also go ahead and see what Semitic and Insular Celtic
look like, e.g. by reading the following books:

--- E. Lipinski. Semitic languages: Outline of a comparative grammar (= Orien-
talia Lovaniensia Analecta 80). Leuven 1997.

Donald Macaulay, The Celtic languages. Cambridge UP 1992, 1998.

There are many others, but these will get you started.

Kind regards,
Theo Vennemann.
31 January 1999


From vidynath at math.ohio-state.edu  Sun Jan 31 21:04:06 1999
From: vidynath at math.ohio-state.edu (Vidhyanath Rao)
Date: Sun, 31 Jan 1999 16:04:06 -0500
Subject: How weird is Hittite? Not weird enough :)
Message-ID: <SUN.31.JAN.1999.160406.0500.VIDYNATH@MATH.OHIOSTATE.EDU>

"Glen Gordon" <glengordon01 at hotmail.com> wrote:
> What's up with the *e- past tense?? Isn't THAT "weird"?

How was tense expressed in PIE that included Anatolian?

I don't find it obvious that the secondary endings expressed tense
originally: The PE are SE extended with -i (meaning ``here and now''?).
The imperative looks like just SE (in 2nd pl) or SE extended with -u
(3rd), except in 2nd sing. Optative is built on SE. If SE expressed
tense, how did these evolve? In particular, present = past + ``here and
now'' looks strange.

------

I also find Szeremenyi's objections to the view of PIE in any stage had
morphologically expressed aspect convincing and think that they apply to
any stage that includes both Greek and Indo-Iranian . In particular I am
not sure that Greek and Indo-Iranian show similar verb systems.

I started expanding on the above, but it got too long. So I will simply
summarize what I have to add to Szeremenyi's objections:

(1) The classification of verbal forms of RV are based on blind
application of the Greek system and not on the syntax of RV itself.

(2) In particular, in Vedic, moods are not orthogonal to the `tenses'.
The distribution of modal forms is highly skewed with sigmatic optatives
and imperatives all too rare. Nor is there any demonstrable syntactical
or aspectual difference between the moods of the `aorist' and the
present. This leads to the conclusion that moods were originally formed
directly from the root, but the present stem eventually took over this
function.

(3) The line between `aorist' and `imperfect' is very diffuse in
RV and a good part of it attributable to the behavior of root forms. Nor
is there any evidence of that present is marked while the aorist is
unmarked in RV. It is the root forms, especially root presents, that show
obscure archaisms.

(4) The aorist vs imperfect opposition in middle Vedic and Sanskrit behaves
more like `completive' (terminology of Bybee et al, ``The evolution of
grammar'') vs simple past than like perfective vs imperfective.

(5) There seems to be no reasonable pathway that would lead to both
the Vedic and Greek verbal system from one in which both the imperfect
and the sigmatic aorist were fully gramaticized.

-Nath


From alemko.gluhak at infocentar.hr  Sat Jan 30 15:24:24 1999
From: alemko.gluhak at infocentar.hr (Alemko Gluhak)
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1999 16:24:24 +0100
Subject: IE in Balkans and Semitic? -- Sem. agricultural terms in IE
Message-ID: <SAT.30.JAN.1999.162424.0100.ALEMKO.GLUHAK@INFOCENTAR.HR>

----------
> Von: Glen Gordon <glengordon01 at hotmail.com>
> An: indoeuropean at xkl.com
> Betreff: IE in Balkans and Semitic?
> Datum: 1999. sijeèanj 28 03:41

Glen Gordon wrote (28 Jan 1999, IE in Balkans and Semitic?):

> I don't remember any Semitic agricultural terms in IE although I could
> be wrong.

In Gamq.relidze--Ivanov, you can find f.e.

IE *tauro- + Sem. *t_awr- "bull"
IE *ghait.- + Sem. *gadj- "goat"
IE *agwno- "lamb" + Sem. *`igl- "young animal"
IR *qe/op- + Sem., comp. Akkad. uk.u:pu, OHebr. k.ôp_, Aram. k.o:p_a:
"monkey"
IE *bhar(s)- "grain, cereals" + Sem. *burr-/*barr-
IE *dhoHna:- "cereals, grain" + Sem. *duh,n- "millet"
IE *Handh- "edible plants" + Sem. *h.int.(at-) "wheat"
etc. 

See also V.M. Illic^-Svityc^'s article 1964 and other IE-Sem articles.

Alemko Gluhak
Zavod za lingvisticka istrazivanja
Hrvatske akademije znanosti i umjetnosti
(Linguistic Research Institute of the
Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts)
Ante Kovacica 5, HR-10000 Zagreb
Hrvatska/Croatia
gluhak at hazu.hr


From alderson at netcom.com  Wed Jan 27 01:52:26 1999
From: alderson at netcom.com (Richard M. Alderson III)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 17:52:26 -0800
Subject: Searchable archives
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.175226.0800.ALDERSON@NETCOM.COM>

Thanks to the generosity of the moderators of the LINGUIST list, postings to
the current incarnations of the Indo-European and Nostratic mailing lists
will be available in searchable archives.  The archives will be available at
the following URL:

	http://listserv.linguistlist.org/archives/

In addition, the previous postings will be made available in these archives
after a bit of manual editing to add the required headers.

This announcement is going out to the Indo-European, Nostratic, Historical
Linguistics, and Linguist mailing lists; I apologize to those who thereby
see it more than once.  If you know of colleagues who would be interested
but who do not subscribe to any of these lists, please feel free to forward
this announcement to them.

Rich Alderson


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Tue Jan 26 01:55:36 1999
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (Patrick C. Ryan)
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 19:55:36 -0600
Subject: <Language> Re: Caucasus and Kaska
Message-ID: <MON.25.JAN.1999.195536.0600.PROTOLANGUAGE@EMAIL.MSN.COM>

Dear Claire and EvolLinguists:

-----Original Message-----
From: Claire Bowern <C.Bowern at student.anu.edu.au>
Date: Monday, January 25, 1999 7:24 PM

>Re Hubey's posting and the moderator's comments

<snip>

>1) frozen accidents (i.e. initial conditions)
>2) system characteristics
>3) external forces

> is something students learn in first year linguistics. It is a principle
>well known.

If linguistics really took "initial conditions" into realistic
consideration, we would have been spared the pouring of much ink!

Pat


From C.Bowern at student.anu.edu.au  Tue Jan 26 02:08:03 1999
From: C.Bowern at student.anu.edu.au (Claire Bowern)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 13:08:03 +1100
Subject: <Language> Re: Caucasus and Kaska
In-Reply-To: <00be01be48cf$c5b116e0$c09ffad0@patrickcryan>
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.130803.1100.C.BOWERN@STUDENT.ANU.EDU.AU>

>If linguistics really took "initial conditions" into realistic
>consideration, we would have been spared the pouring of much ink!

>Pat

Fair enough, but since truly initial conditions are irrecoverable,
"earliest known stage" will have to do! This is, incidentally, another good
example of why languages are different from thermodynamic models.

Claire


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Tue Jan 26 02:18:46 1999
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (Patrick C. Ryan)
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 20:18:46 -0600
Subject: <Language> Re: Caucasus and Kaska
Message-ID: <MON.25.JAN.1999.201846.0600.PROTOLANGUAGE@EMAIL.MSN.COM>

Dear Claire and EvolLinguists:

-----Original Message-----
From: Claire Bowern <C.Bowern at student.anu.edu.au>
Date: Monday, January 25, 1999 8:01 PM

>>If linguistics really took "initial conditions" into realistic
>>consideration, we would have been spared the pouring of much ink!

>>Pat

>Fair enough, but since truly initial conditions are irrecoverable,
>"earliest known stage" will have to do! This is, incidentally, another good
>example of why languages are different from thermodynamic models.

>Claire

But, Claire, to decide that "initial conditions are irrecoverable" is pure
dogma. It has not been proved.

Sadly, I notice in your final sentence yet another attempt to distance the
methodology of linguistics from non-linguistic sciences.

The "Big Bang" is not really recoverable except theoretically, but a lot of
very intelligent people are doing valuable work  on the hypothesis that it
"happened".

Pat


From mclasutt at brigham.net  Tue Jan 26 02:18:36 1999
From: mclasutt at brigham.net (Dr. John E. McLaughlin and Michelle R. Sutton)
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 19:18:36 -0700
Subject: <Language> Re: rate of language change
Message-ID: <MON.25.JAN.1999.191836.0700.MCLASUTT@BRIGHAM.NET>

H. Mark Hubey wrote:

> Larry Trask wrote:

> > On Sat, 23 Jan 1999, H. Mark Hubey wrote:

> > > No, I am assuming that everyone would agree that in a highly
> > > literate society language changes would be small and minimal,

> Has there been any syntactic change? Or has there been a substitution of
> some English terms (probably mostly Americanisms) like show, footlight,
> etc.?

Perhaps you should look at some references before you write sophomoric
responses to Larry T.'s very-well constructed posts.  Larry is NOT talking
about simply borrowing terms and to think that he would try to sandbag anyone
with such simplistic examples (the kind you can read in any op-ed column in
any American newspaper) is ludicrous.  I learned Hungarian from a bunch of
1956 refugees.  Whenever I've tried to converse with modern Hungarians,
however, it becomes quite clear that the language has changed at many
levels--lexical (of course), phonological, syntactic, and morphological.

> > Britain and the USA are also highly literate, yet changes in all
> > varieties of English are proceeding apace.  In little more than a
> > generation, the loss of /h-/ in the word-initial cluster /hw-/ (as in

> Wow. I don't even notice the difference much in this neighborhood and
> neither does anyone else.

One of the "tricks" of linguistic change is that one rarely sees it from the
inside.  I doubt that you live in a community of phoneticians so I'm not
surprised that your neighbors have noticed the change as well.  Incidently, I
grew up in a dialect area that lost /hw/ clusters a few decades ago.  I
thought, though, that being a linguist I could reproduce them adequately on a
speech sample tape I made a couple of years ago.  No matter how hard I
pronounced the 'h', linguists who still had /hw/ in their dialect couldn't
hear it.

> The only thing I noticed here is that some
> people, mostly Hispanics, or those that live in Hispanic neighborhoods
> are speaking a clear-l instead of the standard dark-l. Is that "great
> change".

Yes, it's always them 'furinners. :-)

> > `white') has spread out across the USA with breathtaking speed.  In many

> "Breathtaking speed"? Are you serious? There wasn't much to notice in
> the first place; that is why nobody noticed it except for a few people
> whose job is to split hairs.

I do believe that splitting phonetic hairs is exactly the job of a linguist,
especially one that is interested in historical change.  It's called "paying
attention to detail".  Poor linguists who don't get quickly weeded out of the
pack.

> > American cities, a number of vowels (up to six) have been changing their
> > qualities so rapidly and dramatically as to impede communication with
> > speakers not participating in these shifts.  In less than about ten

> I don't believe that.

Read any of Labov's studies about sound change in Philadelphia.

> I live right here in the USA and speak to all
> kinds of peoples and don't have any problems.

But you also don't spend a lot of time analyzing how their speech physically
differs from yours.  There are probably half a dozen syntactic structures that
go unnoticed by you everyday because you're trying to politely listen to what
the person is saying rather than how they're saying it.  It's called
communication.  But look at the structure and you'll see vast differences
between every native speaker of English.

> > There's a moral here: you can't figure out how languages change by
> > sitting in your armchair and thinking about it.  You have to go out and
> > look at the data.

> Don't be ridiculous.

Ahem.  All linguistics proceeds from field work and hard data.  To think
ANYTHING else is vanity.  Where is your hard field data to prove your
assertions.  I don't think I've ever read any post or paper of yours that
exhibited hard data.

Let me give you some more hard data.  My wife and I grew up here in Brigham
City, Utah and we didn't distinguish between [E] and [I], so 'pen' and 'pin'
are identical in our speech (context usually always distinguishes them).  We
do, however, both have a healthy distinction between [e] and [E], in 'sail'
and 'sell', for example.  Our daughters are also growing up right here in
Brigham City.  Not only has the collapse of [E] and [I] solidified in their
speech, but the collapse of [e] and [E] has also started and is spreading.
This change happened while I was not living here so has not affected my own
speech, but is firmly planted in my daughters' speech.  I say [sEl] and [sel],
but they say [sEl] for both.  Context distinguishes them.  That's a pretty
significant change in vocalic structure in just a couple of decades.

John McLaughlin
Utah State University


From HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu  Tue Jan 26 02:22:27 1999
From: HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu (H. Mark Hubey)
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 21:22:27 -0500
Subject: <Language> Re: Caucasus and Kaska
Message-ID: <MON.25.JAN.1999.212227.0500.>

Claire Bowern wrote:

> >If linguistics really took "initial conditions" into realistic
> >consideration, we would have been spared the pouring of much ink!

> >Pat

> Fair enough, but since truly initial conditions are irrecoverable,
> "earliest known stage" will have to do! This is, incidentally, another good
> example of why languages are different from thermodynamic models.

> Claire

Actually, this is a very relevant and interesting post. It is like a
breath of fresh air in a room full of cigar smoke. Whether the earliest
stages are really irrecoverable is not known. And the second statement
is trivially true, but is more relevant to this discussion because it
hides something everybody talks about but rarely comes out in the open.
That is one of the problems with social sciences. The determinism is
masked by the randomness. I say this because standard analytical tools
always use randomness for all forms of uncertainty; errors, real
randomness, chaos, many causes all rolled up into one, etc.
Interestingly enough, thermodynamics is even more useful here because it
really has two faces. IT is also called "statistical physics"! The
classical thermodynamics is the part where the randomness is averaged
out to produce simple deterministic equations. Aha! That is what I have
been trying to point out. Despite all the uncertainty, randomness,
chaos, there is still something we can do. We can create simple and
deterministic models and use them as stepping stones to create more
realistics and more accurate models which definitely (at the cost of
more mathematics) predict the real world much better than the simple
models. Think of Darwinism. What has it ever predicted? Nothing.

Best Regards,
Mark
-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
hubeyh at montclair.edu =-=-=-= http://www.csam.montclair.edu/~hubey
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=


From HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu  Tue Jan 26 02:24:09 1999
From: HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu (H. Mark Hubey)
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 21:24:09 -0500
Subject: <Language> Re: Caucasus and Kaska
Message-ID: <MON.25.JAN.1999.212409.0500.>

Patrick C. Ryan wrote:

> Dear Claire and EvolLinguists:

> >1) frozen accidents (i.e. initial conditions)
> >2) system characteristics
> >3) external forces

> > is something students learn in first year linguistics. It is a principle
> >well known.

> If linguistics really took "initial conditions" into realistic
> consideration, we would have been spared the pouring of much ink!

We would have poured much ink in debates about initial conditions :-)

But I do agree (mostly).

Best Regards,
Mark
-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
hubeyh at montclair.edu =-=-=-= http://www.csam.montclair.edu/~hubey
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=


From HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu  Tue Jan 26 02:38:15 1999
From: HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu (H. Mark Hubey)
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 21:38:15 -0500
Subject: <Language> Re: Caucasus and Kaska
Message-ID: <MON.25.JAN.1999.213815.0500.>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

Claire Bowern wrote:

> Re Hubey's posting and the moderator's comments

> Check out the Khoisan languages of Namibia and Botswana - huge numbers of
> consonants but hardly the main theatre of history as Hubey would consider
> it. Look also at Kaytetye and Arrernte, in Central Australia. This is one
> correlation that is demonstrably weak, to put it politely.

I am aware of that, and that is, in fact, one of the pieces of data I
use and have used for a long time. The problem is actually bigger than
IE-linguistics. It involves genetics, anthropology, paleontology,
genetics, and other language families. First, the quick facts;

1. The SAn lived in North-East AFrica and were pushed south by Bantu
speakers (West Africans)

2. The SAn are not "black" but "yellow" (reddish?, copper-colored after
tanning?)
	
3. Egyptians painted themselves red (not black and not white)

4. The 1st wave out of Africa was probably 1-2 million years ago

5. The earliest Neandertal bones in Europe are now 800,000 years old
(Spain)

6. The big problem is whether the 2nd wave out of Africa wiped out the
Neandertals this is a problem in genetics, paleontology, etc

7. Kabardian has 1 vowel. (other caucasian languages are poor in vowels
and have lots of consonant clusters. So do IE languages. So do AA
languages. So does Khoisan.

8. Lieberman says that Neandertals could not speak. Then he changes his mind
and says that they would not be able to speak like us but would speak like
little children and could not make the "supervowel i".

9. mtDNA test say that "Eve" as African.  Y-chromosome test say that "Adam" was
African; Sudanese, Ethiopean and Khoisan.

I probably forgot some others. I've been writing for hours and I am
getting tired.

Questions: if Neandertals could not make vowels like us, what kind of a
language would they have had? If the Khoisan lived in Africa for 1-2
million years why are they yellow instead of black? Why is the fault
line of consonant-clustered languages run south from the CAucasus down
the ME to EAst Coast of Africa? What is all this saying?

> Your quotation from the Nobel Laureate about what should be taken into
> consideration when looking at language change:

> 1) frozen accidents (i.e. initial conditions)
> 2) system characteristics
> 3) external forces

>  is something students learn in first year linguistics. It is a principle
> well known. It also doesn't help here because you are taking a very weak

I am happy that it is so. What I wonder about is why the rest of the linguists
did not apparently learn this during their first year in linguistics and why I
never read that in any book.

> correlation (geographical location and number of consonants) based on a
> dodgy hypothesis and trying to find an explanation for it. Remember that

That point will eventually be settled.

> correlation is not causation; I'm sure that's taught in the physical
> sciences too.

That part is hard in the social sciences.

> Also, I wouldn't want a physicist to take any notice of what I said about
> his field, so, Mr Hubey, don't be surprised if real linguists take
> exception to being lectured at in their own field by a computer scientist.

I take exception that anyone would actually think that like the clubs that kept
out blacks, that anyone could keep me from doing linguistics. I would be more
than happy if you did computer science or physics or engineering.  Please join
any list or newsgroup and post away.

PS. I actually admire your honesty. It saves me the trouble of hinting
at such thoughts among linguists :-)

Best Regards,
Mark
-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
hubeyh at montclair.edu =-=-=-= http://www.csam.montclair.edu/~hubey
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=


From C.Bowern at student.anu.edu.au  Tue Jan 26 02:58:38 1999
From: C.Bowern at student.anu.edu.au (Claire Bowern)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 13:58:38 +1100
Subject: <Language> Re: Caucasus and Kaska
In-Reply-To: <00e101be48d2$358cbb20$c09ffad0@patrickcryan>
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.135838.1100.C.BOWERN@STUDENT.ANU.EDU.AU>

>But, Claire, to decide that "initial conditions are irrecoverable" is pure
>dogma. It has not been proved.

OK, "initial conditions are irrecoverable with current methods". The best
historical linguistics can do at the moment is about 15,000 years (at the
most - many would say less). Language has been around for at least 100,000
years; possibly, if recent finds in Flores are substantiated, much further
back than that. That's a very big gap, and I am not convinced that
theorising beyond the available data, whether using the latest whizz-bang
mathematical models or meticulous comparison, is very useful. Especially, I
might add, when there is so much to be done where the data are good!

>Sadly, I notice in your final sentence yet another attempt to distance the
>methodology of linguistics from non-linguistic sciences.

>The "Big Bang" is not really recoverable except theoretically, but a lot of
>very intelligent people are doing valuable work  on the hypothesis that it
>"happened".

You misunderstand me. I'm not trying to distance the methodology of
linguistics from other sciences, on the contrary, I agree that there is a
lot of room of methods which incorporate more mathematical rigour, and this
is indeed happening, for example in dialectometry and in comparative
Pama-Nyungan. What I do object to, however, is the idea that mathematicians
work with the same sort of data that linguists do. Linguistic data,
especially in historical linguistics, is inherently unreliable (this hasn't
been said for a while so might as well repeat it). Think of the number of
times a single language in a subgroup preserves what is probably the
proto-form. For all of you out there who have done original reconstruction
- think of the amount of guesswork involved in determining the likely
proto-forms and finding possible sources of the innovations. Think of the
number of dead languages which are preserved in only a few words, and think
of how many more there must be for which we have no knowledge whatsoever.
Mathematicians don't have to deal with irregular gaps in their systems.
Historical linguists do.


From HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu  Tue Jan 26 03:06:06 1999
From: HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu (H. Mark Hubey)
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 22:06:06 -0500
Subject: PIE and Horses
Message-ID: <MON.25.JAN.1999.220606.0500.>

X99Lynx at aol.com wrote:

>My point earlier was that DNA (or RNA) testing doesn't necessarily tell you
>when domestication occurs unless there is some clear genetic event associated
>with domestication.

I was only interested in knowing if we could know where domestication
occurred.

>BUT about PIE and the Anatolians, what is interesting about the horse is that
>it is undergoing (possibly) domestication and the introduction of the bit
>right around the time that various conjectured movements are happening around
>and about the Black Sea.  So from circa 3000 bce to 2000 bce roughly, you have
>a horse culture being diffused through the same region, but maybe moving north
>to south.  Sheep, goats, pigs have all been domesticated well before this and
>are pretty well dispersed into Europe, having moved south to north.  But
>horses and horse back riding and charioteering should be just starting to move
>at this point.  Plus you have the horse culture associated catacomb tombs
>starting to appear all along the steppes north of the Black Sea, east of the
>Crimea.

We are still not sure about the date of the domestication of the horse.
It was obviously in Western Europe or the people who painted them on the
cave walls in France came from someplace that had horses 25,000 years
ago. Was it or was it not domesticated? Why did it take so long?

Best Regards,
Mark
-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
hubeyh at montclair.edu =-=-=-= http://www.csam.montclair.edu/~hubey
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=


From HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu  Tue Jan 26 03:16:25 1999
From: HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu (H. Mark Hubey)
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 22:16:25 -0500
Subject: <Language> Re: Caucasus and Kaska
Message-ID: <MON.25.JAN.1999.221625.0500.>

Claire Bowern wrote:

> Pama-Nyungan. What I do object to, however, is the idea that mathematicians
> work with the same sort of data that linguists do. Linguistic data,
> especially in historical linguistics, is inherently unreliable (this hasn't
> been said for a while so might as well repeat it). Think of the number of

Mathematicians, physicists, engineers, computer scientists,
psychologists, sociologists, economists all know and use methods that
depends on unreliable data.

Indeed, the methods of working with such types of data is invented
usually by mathematicians or mathematical scientists.

> times a single language in a subgroup preserves what is probably the
> proto-form. For all of you out there who have done original reconstruction
> - think of the amount of guesswork involved in determining the likely
> proto-forms and finding possible sources of the innovations. Think of the
> number of dead languages which are preserved in only a few words, and think
> of how many more there must be for which we have no knowledge whatsoever.
> Mathematicians don't have to deal with irregular gaps in their systems.
> Historical linguists do.

Economists work with irregular gaps all the time. Would you recommend,
at least, that linguists pick up these methods, if you are opposed in
principle to working with the methods of physical scientists? How about
sociologists' and psychologists's mathematical methods? Do you have
anything against them?

Best Regards,
Mark
-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
hubeyh at montclair.edu =-=-=-= http://www.csam.montclair.edu/~hubey
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Tue Jan 26 03:23:09 1999
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (Patrick C. Ryan)
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 21:23:09 -0600
Subject: <Language> Re: Caucasus and Kaska
Message-ID: <MON.25.JAN.1999.212309.0600.PROTOLANGUAGE@EMAIL.MSN.COM>

Dear Claire and EvolLinguists:

-----Original Message-----
From: Claire Bowern <C.Bowern at student.anu.edu.au>
Date: Monday, January 25, 1999 8:51 PM

>>But, Claire, to decide that "initial conditions are irrecoverable" is pure
>>dogma. It has not been proved.

>OK, "initial conditions are irrecoverable with current methods". The best
>historical linguistics can do at the moment is about 15,000 years (at the
>most - many would say less).

This is but the assumption beyond the assumption. It has also not been
proved.

>Language has been around for at least 100,000
>years; possibly, if recent finds in Flores are substantiated, much further
>back than that. That's a very big gap, and I am not convinced that
>theorising beyond the available data, whether using the latest whizz-bang
>mathematical models or meticulous comparison, is very useful. Especially, I
>might add, when there is so much to be done where the data are good!

Yes, socio-linguistics is interesting.

What does that possibly have to do with the larger issues?

>>Sadly, I notice in your final sentence yet another attempt to distance the
>>methodology of linguistics from non-linguistic sciences.

>>The "Big Bang" is not really recoverable except theoretically, but a lot of
>>very intelligent people are doing valuable work  on the hypothesis that it
>>"happened".

>You misunderstand me. I'm not trying to distance the methodology of
>linguistics from other sciences, on the contrary, I agree that there is a
>lot of room of methods which incorporate more mathematical rigour, and this
>is indeed happening, for example in dialectometry and in comparative
>Pama-Nyungan. What I do object to, however, is the idea that mathematicians
>work with the same sort of data that linguists do. Linguistic data,
>especially in historical linguistics, is inherently unreliable (this hasn't
>been said for a while so might as well repeat it). Think of the number of
>times a single language in a subgroup preserves what is probably the
>proto-form. For all of you out there who have done original reconstruction
>- think of the amount of guesswork involved in determining the likely
>proto-forms

And that, appreciatedly candid Claire, is what invalidates linguistics and
those who presently practice it. Guesswork by Researcher A is not
necessarily of the quality of guesswork by Researcher B. The only solution
is to have a consensus on what the proper methodology is for calculating
odds that will show that Researcher A's brilliant guesses are statistically
probable, and expose B's as professorial humbug.

>and finding possible sources of the innovations. Think of the
>number of dead languages which are preserved in only a few words, and think
>of how many more there must be for which we have no knowledge whatsoever.

It is certainly not necessary to know every language that ever has been
spoken to be able to say with a fair degree of surity whether a vocabulary
item was liable to have been present in the substratum of all language.

>Mathematicians don't have to deal with irregular gaps in their systems.
>Historical linguists do.

Sorry, I will have to disagree. Modern math can deal with every model you
can imagine.

Pat


From C.Bowern at student.anu.edu.au  Tue Jan 26 03:40:00 1999
From: C.Bowern at student.anu.edu.au (Claire Bowern)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 14:40:00 +1100
Subject: <Language> Re: Caucasus and Kaska
In-Reply-To: <36AD3389.8574A4D5@montclair.edu>
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.144000.1100.C.BOWERN@STUDENT.ANU.EDU.AU>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

At 9:38 PM -0500 25/1/99, H. Mark Hubey wrote:

>7. Kabardian has 1 vowel. (other caucasian languages are poor in vowels
>and have lots of consonant clusters. So do IE languages. So do AA
>languages. So does Khoisan.

Nama has 5 simple vowels, which is as many as a lot of languages. It also
has a set of nasalised vowels, a length distinction (aa, ii, oo, uu, ee)
and a ful set of diphthongs. There's little chance of borrowing because
there's little contact (I have it first hand that a lot of people avoid the
bushmen in Namibia because their languages are too difficult).

>8. Lieberman says that Neandertals could not speak. Then he changes his mind
>and says that they would not be able to speak like us but would speak like
>little children and could not make the "supervowel i".

How on earth can he tell that?????? I can't accept this without seeing his
evidence and what experts in his field think about it.

>If the Khoisan lived in Africa for 1-2
>million years why are they yellow instead of black?

They are lighter skinned than Bantu peoples but they are still black (I am
reminded of Steve Bicko's comments at his trial - the judge asked him why
he called himself black when his skin was brown; he replied "why do you
call yourself white when you're pink?"). I believe that the amount of
melanin in the skin is controlled by a few genes only but I don't want to
get into an argument on genetics because the only area of this subject I
could argue remotely coherently about is drosophila melanagasta (fruit fly)
and this is, indeed, a very long way from the topic at hand.

And from another thread:

>Economists work with irregular gaps all the time. Would you recommend,
>at least, that linguists pick up these methods, if you are opposed in
>principle to working with the methods of physical scientists? How about
>sociologists' and psychologists's mathematical methods? Do you have
>anything against them?

I'm glad you brought up economists because they embody a lot of my worries
about the blind use of mathematical models. The economists I talk to either
admit that their models do not model their data very accurately and worry
about it, and slam their colleagues for not taking this ionto account, or
are perfectly happy with the models they use, but are very surprised when
the model fails (which it inevitably does, when unemployment doesn't do
what it should, or inflation rises, or the stock market crashes, etc). This
is why I am sceptical.


From iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu  Tue Jan 26 04:37:22 1999
From: iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu)
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 22:37:22 -0600
Subject: Lieberman and Neanderthals
Message-ID: <MON.25.JAN.1999.223722.0600.>

	Lieberman says what he says on the basis of anatomy, obviously,
the idea being that due to Neanderthals having a more ape-like vocal tract
the range of possible vowels would be less than now occurs.  This does not
show that Neanderthals did not have language.  He is, I believe, guilty of
tautology, for in effect he defines "modern language" as what we can speak
but Neanderthals could not, yet winds up saying that Neanderthals did not
have modern language as if 1) it was not something true by his definition,
and 2) it meant that there was some sort of other impoverishment, perhaps
so severe that Neanderthals could be described as not having language in
any sense.  Apparently he hopes that by the time we reach his conclusions,
we will have forgotten his assumptions and definitions.  The argument is
fundamentally flawed.  At worst, it would take Neaderthals longer to say
things than it does us (fewer contrasts, longer words), but that is about
all.

				DLW


From Odegard at means.net  Mon Jan 25 23:07:26 1999
From: Odegard at means.net (Mark Odegard <Odegard@means.net>)
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 23:01:26 -6
Subject: Carl Darling Buck's IE Synonyms
Message-ID: <MON.25.JAN.1999.230126.6.>

Many of you are no doubt aware of this book. For those of you who are
not -- grab it. Even though it's 50 years old, it's the kind of book
that will take a very long time to become obsolete. It's a lot of
fun, too.

Carl Darling Buck, _A Dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the
Principal Indo-European Languages: A Contribution to the History of
Ideas_, U. Chicago Press, 1949. US$36.00, paperback reprint from
1988, available at barnesandnoble.com

Most of it is arranged like the 2 volume OED reduction you could get
through the book club offer, four reduced pages to a page. I need a
magnifier, or have to bring it up to my nose to read it.

Buck has taken a large number of synonyms through the IE languages
and arranged them by *topic*, relating them to an IE root where
possible, and putting the non-PIE terms into related groups.

For example, under 'Nephew', he gives both brother's son and sister's
son. The list is too extensive for me to copy type here, but you get,
under 'brother's son', Greek adelphidous, Latin fratris filius,
Italian nipote, Irish garmhac, Breton niz, Swedish brorson,
Lettish brala dels, Polish synowiec, Avestan bratruya, just to list
some of them.

This is a book that begs to be built upon.
--
Mark Odegard   mailto:odegard at means.net


From Odegard at means.net  Mon Jan 25 23:50:51 1999
From: Odegard at means.net (Mark Odegard <Odegard@means.net>)
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 23:44:51 -6
Subject: Riding Horses
Message-ID: <MON.25.JAN.1999.234451.6.>

On 24 Jan 99 at 21:20, iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu wrote:

[...]
> In
> any event, my impression is that in the early days there was what might be
> called "role reversal" between cattle and horses:  cattle were used for
> draft, and horses for milk, and that "getting it right" (using horses for
> draft and cattle for milk) was a major agricultural or pastoral revolution
> at the time. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Don't the Mongols still consume mare's milk? And a fermented,
buttered version at that?

I don't think you are wrong at all. Pinning down the an exact date
for this 'pastoral revolution', though, seems difficult. Sometime
before 1300 BCE for sure, at least for the bit. This seems to have
moved down from the steppe. Ramesses II's monuments to himself show
his chariot horses with bits, while not too far before, the images of
horse and chariot from King Tut's tomb has a nose ring in the horse
(this could be an archaic artistic convention though).

The book on equine archeology does not seem to have been written.
The evidence from Dereivka, though, is very difficult to dismiss.
Accepting the latest date, c. 3500 BCE for the bit, it becomes very
hard to believe horses were not being *regularly* ridden. Can you
imagine them NOT riding these creatures? And since they quite
obviously CAN be ridden, can you imagine a rider culture not
developing out there on that ocean of free grass?

By the time of the Indo-Iranian migrations, it is hard to believe
that horseback riding was not integrated into their economic system.
When I read of neolithic/early bronze burials that include horses, I
wonder just how large these animals were; I suspect they were sized
like Iceland horses or Shetland ponies  -- quite capable of pulling a
light cart or supporting a rider, but not really suitable for heavy draft
work -- or for cavalry. Compare such small horses with the apparently
full-sized specimens on Ramesses' monuments. Anyone have any
information?

We also need the book on bovine archeology too. I've been reading
about aurochs skulls being plastered into the walls of Catal Huyuk
family shrines, along with the skulls of departed family members.
--
Mark Odegard   mailto:odegard at means.net


From mclasutt at brigham.net  Tue Jan 26 06:04:15 1999
From: mclasutt at brigham.net (Dr. John E. McLaughlin and Michelle R. Sutton)
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 23:04:15 -0700
Subject: <Language> Re: Caucasus and Kaska
Message-ID: <MON.25.JAN.1999.230415.0700.MCLASUTT@BRIGHAM.NET>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

Patrick C. Ryan wrote:

> And that, appreciatedly candid Claire, is what invalidates linguistics and
> those who presently practice it. Guesswork by Researcher A is not
> necessarily of the quality of guesswork by Researcher B. The only solution
> is to have a consensus on what the proper methodology is for calculating
> odds that will show that Researcher A's brilliant guesses are statistically
> probable, and expose B's as professorial humbug.

Pat, you've said this a couple of times now (on a couple of different lists),
but I must correct you.  Historical linguists do not rely on statistics to
prove or disprove the validity of a given theory of relatedness.  They rely on
PREDICTABILITY.  That's what regular sound correspondences are all about.  For
example, Jakob Grimm described the relationship between the consonants of
German and Proto-Indo-European.  I can now take his theory and see if it works.
I take the word 'father' and Grimm's laws (I'll include Verner's here too) tell
me that the German word with also start with [f], will have a [d] in the
middle, and end with an [r].  And sure enough it does.  I take the word
'father' and run the rules in the other direction and I can predict that the
Latin word will start with [p], have a [t] in the middle, and still end with
[r].  Right again.  If I can do this with form after form after form, then the
sound correspondences are reliable and the genetic relationship postulated is
confirmed.

If, on the other hand, I postulate a linguistic relationship with a few sound
correspondences, but those sound correspondences offer no predictive power
beyond the few dozen forms I cite as evidence, then that linguistic
relationship cannot be considered proven.  It will always be considered only a
hypothesis.  A good example of this is Whorf and Trager's Aztec-Tanoan family.
Beyond their few dozen examples, no one has ever been able to use their sound
correspondences to find any more forms in either Uto-Aztecan or Tanoan that fit
the rules.  It's a dead end.  Therefore, the relationship is considered to be
suggestive, but no more.  Not proven by any stretch of the imagination.

It's not statistics, it's correspondences and predictive power.

John McL


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Tue Jan 26 07:15:56 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 02:15:56 EST
Subject: *gw
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.021556.EST.>

>iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu

>By the way, my pharyngeal theory, in its original crude form,
>also implies that there should be no IE /gw/.  This does not appear to be
>the case.  Nonetheless, I do seem to recall that IE /gw/, /ghw/, and /w/
>often get mixed up in the descendant branches.  (Any two out of the three,
>I mean, not all.)  Perhaps this is relevant.  Another possibility is that
>/b/ and /gw/ began to be confused at some point inthe proto-language, with
>the end result being that all instances of /b were absorbed into /gw/.

-- I would think that the survival of *gw in Mycenaean Greek (eg., Mycenaean
gwous, 'cow', later Greek 'bous') would indicate it survived in PIE.


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Tue Jan 26 07:37:05 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 02:37:05 EST
Subject: (no subject)
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.023705.EST.>

>hubeyh at montclair.edu

>Semitic is being formed around the same time as PIE.

-- however, when we get the first historical glimpse, Semitic is far to the
southwest, completely unrelated languages like Hurrian separate it from any
contact with PIE, and Semitic itself is related to Cushitic, Old Egyptian, the
Berber languages, and Hausa -- suggesting that it originated far from the
Middle East.  Analogy with the later Semitic migrations would suggest that
Akkadian came into Mesopotamia from the southwest, from the Arabian
penninsula.  There's absolutely no indication of any Semitic or proto-Semitic
speakers in Anatolia.

>The IEans move out westwards via the south of the Caspian. A secondary home
>is found in the northwest corner of the Black Sea. The flooding chases them
>out of there.

-- aren't we multiplying the hypotheses somewhat, here?  It's starting to
sound like a Biblical epic, with ping-pong ball migrations all over the place.

>Some move to the Balkans. Some Thracian speakers cross over the Bosphorus
>into Anatolia and make it to the original homeland where all the mixing was
>going on. They mix with the people there including the ancestors of Iranian,
>Hittite and
>Armenian, and more borrowing from Semitic which is itself being formed.

-- it's generally agreed that the Indo-Iranians were already in the northern
Eurasian steppe zone by about 2500-2000 BCE, identifiable as the Adnronovo
culture.  Indo-Iranian certainly shares late isoglosses with Balto-Slavic and
Finno-Ugrian has early IE loans that are specifically Indo-Iranian in nature.

>This is the second churning and is around the time of the Sumerians, and
>Akkadians. As a result of reflux actions and mixing Akkadian, Armenian
>and Hittite are the most divergent.

-- however, Armenian wasn't anywhere in Anatolia until late in the second
millenium BC at the earliest.  That whole area was Hurrian/Urartian (that is
to say, non-IE) speaking until then.

Armenian's closest links are with Greek, which would support the traditional
argument that the proto-Armenians and proto-Phyrgians only entered Anatolia
after 1200 BCE or so.


From glengordon01 at hotmail.com  Tue Jan 26 08:22:20 1999
From: glengordon01 at hotmail.com (Glen Gordon)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 00:22:20 PST
Subject: Semitic and Finno-Ugrian??
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.002220.PST.GLENGORDON01@HOTMAIL.COM>

>>Could someone explain how PIE itself,...could have
>>been in contact with a semitic language, let alone proto-semitic.

>-- As I understand the hypothesis, it was that proto-Semitic was in
>contact with proto-Ugrian.

Proto-Ugrian? I don't know of that theory and would be far too unlikely,
I would gather. What I personally surmise is that _North_ Semitic had
reached the south shores of the Black Sea and the speakers of this
language were in contact with the IE speakers on the eastern shore as
well as Kartvelian speakers to the south of the IE. This is supported by
reconstructed items in both IE and Kartvelian which clearly show a
Semitic influence of some kind. I don't know of much Semiticisms in
Uralic languages apart from instances of the word for "seven" which
could just as well be borrowed from an intermediary source like IE or
its daughter languages.

The original Proto-Semitic isn't involved in this.

--------------------------------------------
Glen Gordon
glengordon01 at hotmail.com

Kisses and Hugs
--------------------------------------------


From nicholas.widdows at traceplc.co.uk  Tue Jan 26 10:55:02 1999
From: nicholas.widdows at traceplc.co.uk (Nicholas Widdows)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 10:55:02 -0000
Subject: Xinjiang mummies were Celts
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.105502.0000.NICHOLAS.WIDDOWS@TRACEPLC.CO.UK>

The textile expert Elizabeth Wayland Barber has identified the
European-appearance mummies found in the Xinjiang desert as Celts from
Central Europe, according to a report in yesterday's _Guardian_. I don't
know how much of this is new, but the report presented it as a major
reassessment in the history of Eastern and Western civilizations, so
here goes. In her book _The Mummies of Urumchi_, to be published next
month, she says that their woollen plaids could only have been woven on
warp-weighted looms, which orginated in "Europe via the Middle East"
(whatever that means: Europe first then ME?). They date from about 1000
BCE, in an inhospitable region never settled by steppe nomads. There was
no mention in this article of Tocharian.

Nicholas Widdows


From mcv at wxs.nl  Tue Jan 26 11:10:23 1999
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 11:10:23 GMT
Subject: How weird is Hittite? Not weird enough :)
In-Reply-To: <l03130303b2cfd5cf15d4@[207.120.0.95]>
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.111023.GMT.>

Rick Mc Callister <rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu> wrote:

>But Armenian has had over 2,000 years to get weird
>As I understand it [from my very limited reading about Armenian], Ancient
>Armenian wasn't all that strange
>but exposure to Turkish and so on did a number on Armenian

Yes, Modern Armenian has apparently acquired some "agglutinative"
characteristics, but when it is said that Armenian is "weird", the
reference is to Classical Armenian, which was already weird enough
(mainly in its phonology, although there are some bizarrities in the
morphology as well).

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam


From tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de  Tue Jan 26 12:15:55 1999
From: tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de (Theo Vennemann)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 13:15:55 +0100
Subject: Non-IE words in Early Gmc.
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.131555.0100.TVN@CIS.UNIMUENCHEN.DE>

>Hello Carol,

>Did anyone ever privately reply to your question about the 30% non-
>Indo-European words in Early German?  If you have come across the list of
>these non-I.E. words since you posted your question, do you entertain any
>theory as to where these words may have came from? Do you think they might be
>Fenno-Ugric, since these groups were nearby the ancient Germans?  Who else
>could it be?  Thanks.

>Best regards,
>David O'Keefe

I know of no such list. But the repeated observation has intruiged me
sufficiently to give it some thought. For those who share this interest,
here are some references, in part with etymologies for some of those non-IE
words:

-- "Bemerkung zum fr?hgermanischen Wortschatz", in Fs. Matzel, Heidelberg
1984, 105-119.
-- "Etymologische Beziehungen im Alten Europa", Der GinkgoBaum:
Germanistisches Jahrbuch f?r Nordeuropa 13 (1995), 39-115.
-- "Some West Indo-European words of uncertain origin", in: Fs. Fisiak,
Berlin 1997, I.879-908.
-- "Germania Semitica: *ploog-/*pleg-, *furh-/*farh-, *folk-/*flokk-,
*felh-/*folg-", in: Fs. Eroms, Heidelberg 1998, 245-261.
-- "Andromeda and the Apples of the Hesperides", in: Karlene Jones-Bleyet
al. (eds.), Proceedings of the Ninth Annual UCLA Indo-European Conference
(Journal of Indo-European Studies Monograph Series, 28), Washington, D.C.
1998, 1-68.
-- "Germania Semitica: Biene und Imme: Mit einem Anhang zu lat. apis",
Sprachwissenschaft 23 (1998), 471-487.
You may also want to look at the following etymological studies:
-- "Zur Etymologie von ?ire, dem Namen Irlands", Sprachwissenschaft 23
(1998), 461-469.
-- "Remarks on some British place names", in: Fs. Irmengard Rauch, New York
1999, 25-62.

Best regards,
Theo Vennemann.
26 January 1999


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Tue Jan 26 14:04:50 1999
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 14:04:50 +0000
Subject: Cases in Indo-European
In-Reply-To: <36AC0832.B5BB2A83@montclair.edu>
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.140450.0000.LARRYT@COGS.SUSX.AC.UK>

On Mon, 25 Jan 1999, H. Mark Hubey wrote:

> Large scale changes cannot occur in large systems.

I see.  So that's why the earth's atmosphere never throws up hurricanes
or tornadoes.  And that's why El Nin~o has no discernible effect upon
the world's climate.

That's why stars -- large systems, wouldn't you say? -- never turn into
novas or supernovas.

And that's why Middle Chinese -- a large system by linguistic standards
-- hardly changed at all, and why all Chinese-speakers today can
understand one another without difficulty.

And, of course, that's why practically nothing has happened to English
in the last 500 years, and why we find it so easy to read `Piers
Ploughman'.

  *    \
    --  )
  *    /

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk


From mclasutt at brigham.net  Tue Jan 26 14:37:13 1999
From: mclasutt at brigham.net (Dr. John E. McLaughlin and Michelle R. Sutton)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 07:37:13 -0700
Subject: Cases in Indo-European
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.073713.0700.MCLASUTT@BRIGHAM.NET>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

H. Mark Hubey wrote:

> H. Mark Hubey wrote:

>>No, I am assuming that everyone would agree that in a highly literate society
>>language changes would be small and minimal, and that in an illiterate
>>society bilingual speakers would behave much more differently than bilingual
>>speakers in literate peoples. The latter is due to personal observations and
>>the former is partly derived from the latter and partly attempt at logical
>>deduction.

>>[Moderator's comment:
>> Personal observation is a poor substitute for examination of long-term data.
>> Language changes, even in highly literate society, pay no attention to the
>> written word.
>> --rma ]

> Large scale changes cannot occur in large systems. Conversely, large
> scale changes are possible and likely in small systems. If large scale
> changes are observed in a system in two time periods T1 and T2, then (1)
> the system was small, (2) the difference T2-T1 is large, or (3) the
> changes were externally driven. That cannot really be disputed; there is
> too much math, physics, and systems theory behind it and is also based
> on studies and empirical evidence.

Unfortunately, there's no linguistics behind it.  Take syntactic change, for
example.  Thirty years ago, there was no discourse connector/predicate
marker/etc. 'like'.  Now it is like becoming the most widespread marker in the
American language.  Deal with it.  Our language is constantly changing in ways
that you would consider large-scale.  Another example is the common rising
intonation on the end of like all declarative sentences.  Like, you know, it's
not a question, but it's just a statement (rising intonation right up like
through the period).  Most Americans treat the written language as a separate
tongue and speak in a different manner, splitting infinitives, dangling
prepositions, piling on negatives, adding 'like', infixing 'f**king' in
prestress position.  There are hundreds of things going on in standard American
dialects that have no reflection in the writing system because Americans have
perceived a difference.

John McLaughlin
Utah State University


From mclasutt at brigham.net  Tue Jan 26 14:46:13 1999
From: mclasutt at brigham.net (Dr. John E. McLaughlin and Michelle R. Sutton)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 07:46:13 -0700
Subject: Creoles
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.074613.0700.MCLASUTT@BRIGHAM.NET>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu wrote:

> On Sun, 24 Jan 1999 JoatSimeon at aol.com wrote:

> > >Creolization requires either aggregations of wealth or very active trade.

> > -- I don't think this follows.

> > Any situation of contact will produce linguistic effects; simple folk-
> > migration will give you the same prolonged bilingualism and need to
> > communicate in imperfectly understood versions of somebody else's language
> > that a trade-diaspora does.

>         Contact does not typically lead to creolization. If it did, there
> would be a lot more of it.

>From my experience and study, creolization is a product of slavery and
colonization.  I don't think that a single example of creole has been
demonstrated that does not involve one of these factors (almost always the
former, but also with the latter).  Slaves being forced to communication with
one another (I count the Hawaiian indentured sugar cane and pineapple workers
as "slaves") is the classic case.  New Guinea's Tok Pisin involved the forced
communication of a people with the superior authority who refused to speak
anything but English.  If there are widely accepted cases of creolization
outside of these two very specific social environments, I'm not aware of them.

John McLaughlin
Utah State University


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Tue Jan 26 15:11:12 1999
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (Patrick C. Ryan)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 09:11:12 -0600
Subject: STATISTICS IN LINGUISTICS
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.091112.0600.PROTOLANGUAGE@EMAIL.MSN.COM>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

Dear John and IEists:

-----Original Message-----
From: Dr. John E. McLaughlin and Michelle R. Sutton <mclasutt at brigham.net>
Date: Tuesday, January 26, 1999 12:03 AM

>Patrick C. Ryan wrote:

>> And that, appreciatedly candid Claire, is what invalidates linguistics
>> and those who presently practice it. Guesswork by Researcher A is not
>> necessarily of the quality of guesswork by Researcher B. The only
>> solution is to have a consensus on what the proper methodology is for
>> calculating odds that will show that Researcher A's brilliant guesses are
>> statistically probable, and expose B's as professorial humbug.

>Pat, you've said this a couple of times now (on a couple of different lists),
>but I must correct you.  Historical linguists do not rely on statistics to
>prove or disprove the validity of a given theory of relatedness.  They rely on
>PREDICTABILITY.  That's what regular sound correspondences are all about.  For
>example, Jakob Grimm described the relationship between the consonants of
>German and Proto-Indo-European.  I can now take his theory and see if it
>works.  I take the word 'father' and Grimm's laws (I'll include Verner's here
>too) tell me that the German word with also start with [f], will have a [d] in
>the middle, and end with an [r].  And sure enough it does.  I take the word
>'father' and run the rules in the other direction and I can predict that the
>Latin word will start with [p], have a [t] in the middle, and still end with
>[r].  Right again.  If I can do this with form after form after form, then the
>sound correspondences are reliable and the genetic relationship postulated is
>confirmed.

What is somewhat frustrating is that you do not seem to realize that this is
a statistical relationship; if what you are saying was absolutely true, we
would be entitled to say that the probabilities were 100 out of 100. But, I
think you know that these laws, while very reliable, do not *always* yield
the anticipated forms.

>If, on the other hand, I postulate a linguistic relationship with a few
>sound correspondences, but those sound correspondences offer no predictive
>power beyond the few dozen forms I cite as evidence, then that linguistic
>relationship cannot be considered proven.  It will always be considered only a
>hypothesis.

I agree wholeheartedly.

But the crucial difference between your conception of this question and mine
is that I believe that the sound correspondences *might*, if tested, have
predictive power if linguists would dismount from their a priori horses and
give them a try.

>A good example of this is Whorf and Trager's Aztec-Tanoan family.  Beyond
>their few dozen examples, no one has ever been able to use their sound
>correspondences to find any more forms in either Uto-Aztecan or Tanoan that
>fit the rules.  It's a dead end.  Therefore, the relationship is considered to
>be suggestive, but no more.  Not proven by any stretch of the imagination.

No reasonable person, and I hope I am one, could disagree with that.

>It's not statistics, it's correspondences and predictive power.

Predictive power, IMHO, is based on statistics.

Pat


From cjustus at mail.utexas.edu  Tue Jan 26 15:19:06 1999
From: cjustus at mail.utexas.edu (Carol F. Justus)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 09:19:06 -0600
Subject: NEW BOOK IN IE
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.091906.0600.CJUSTUS@MAIL.UTEXAS.EDU>

I wonder if readers have seen Elizabeth Wayland Barber's new book entitled
THE MUMMIES OF UERUEMCHI (1999 W. W. Norton Press). It was reviewed in the
NY TIMES a week or so ago and is a very readable account of the Tarim Basin
/ Tocharian evidence. It is written for the general public but based on
some very solid scholarship. The volumes edited by Victor Mair (2 volumes:
THE BRONZE AGE AND EARLY IRONAGE PEOPLES OF EASTERN CENTRAL ASIA, 1998,
Institute for the Study of Man and Univ. of Penn. Museum Publications)
contain individual articles that she obviously draws on, including her own
excellent article.

Also, on the wheel, Yigael Yadin did an excellent book with illustrations
on the development of it, the chariot, and other weapons during the
attested part of our IE prehistory. The entire horse issue might well be
informed / constrained by some of his excellently documented points (with
illustrations from sculpture, e.g.).

CFJ


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Tue Jan 26 15:37:50 1999
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (Patrick C. Ryan)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 09:37:50 -0600
Subject: IE creole?
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.093750.0600.PROTOLANGUAGE@EMAIL.MSN.COM>

Dear Rick and IEists:

-----Original Message-----
From: Rick Mc Callister <rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu>
Date: Tuesday, January 26, 1999 6:23 AM

>I think Semitic was already in Mesopotamia by that time.
>In any case, if Semitic-speakers were passing technology to the west &
>north, the terms could have easily passed through intermediaries to IE
>speakers

[ moderator snip ]

For some additional food for thought, a very interesting article appeared in
Carsten Peust's Goettinger Beitraege zur Sprachwissenschaft, Heft 1, 1998,
entitled: Traces of an Early Indo-European Language in Southern Mesopotamia,
written by Gordon Whittaker.

Although I do not "buy" its premise, I think many of you might find it
stimulating.

cpeust at gwdg.de

Pat


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Tue Jan 26 15:59:11 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 09:59:11 -0600
Subject: Help me out guys, I'm not getting this one at all.
In-Reply-To: <36fa748f.1260565964@mail.wxs.nl>
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.095911.0600.RMCCALLI@SUNMUW1.MUW.EDU>

	What about the argument [Ringe et al.] that Germanic split from
Balto-Slavic and picked up vocabulary, etc. from Celtic?

[snip]

>The problem is the position of Germanic and Armenian.  Apart from
>what are probably recent and superficial contacts between Germanic
>and Celtic (in Western Europe) or Armenian and Anatolian (in Eastern
>Anatolia), there are clear connections between Germanic and
>Balto-Slavic and between Armenian and Greek/Albanian.  Going by the
>archaeological evidence, these contacts could go back as far as the
>period 3500-3000 BC, when we have the Corded Ware culture in N/E.
>Europe (Germanic/Balto-Slavic) and the Balkan "Battle-Axe" Cultures
>(Armenian/Greek/Albanian[/Phrygian/Daco-Thracian]).

[snip]


From mcv at wxs.nl  Tue Jan 26 15:53:31 1999
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 15:53:31 GMT
Subject: PIE pathways.
In-Reply-To: <199901252018.OAA23511@orion.means.net>
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.155331.GMT.>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

"Mark Odegard <Odegard at means.net>" <Odegard at means.net> wrote:

>The more I think about it, It's not the Dnieper where you'll find
>the earliest IEs, but the Dneister, from Moldova up to
>Transcarpathian Ruthenia and west into to the Plains of Hungary.

Interesting.  What would you say about the timeline?

The Dniestr area is excluded from the PIE homeland by Mallory,
given the fact that the (Sub-)Neolithic cultures that we find
there until 3000 BC (Bug-Dniestr, Cucuteni-Tripolye) are closely
allied to the "Old European" cultures of the Balkans (Vinc^a,
etc.).  It wasn't until the demise of the Tripolye culture, c.
3000 BC, that the region was fully drawn into the
steppe/battle-axe cultural zone (Yama [Yamnaya],
Ezero-Cernavoda).

The area of the Hungarian plains was also initially settled by
agriculturalists from the south (Vardar/Sava).  Ultimately, if we
can believe the archaeological and genetic evidence, they were of
Anatolian origin.  By 5500 BC, Hungary became the nucleus of the
LBK culture, which expanded into Central, Northern and Eastern
Europe (Low Countries to Poland).  So if this area was IE before
3500 BC, it follows that PIE must be descended from the languages
of the earliest Anatolian farmers (as per Renfrew, more or less),
and that the languages of the first temperate farmers of Europe
(LBK) must have been Indo-European.

To illustrate, here is the chart from Champion et al.
"Prehistoric Europe" for the Neolithic/Chalcolithic (7000-3500 BC
calibrated):

   7000 6750 6500 6250 6000 5750 5500 5250 5000 4750 4500 4250
4000 3750 3500
Th Proto/Pre-Sesklo--- Sesklo------------ Dhimini------------ Larisa/Rakhmani
Bu    Karanovo I/II------------ Karanovo III/IV Karanovo V/VI----- Kar. VII--
Yu      Starc^evo-------------- Vinc^a----------------------- Bubanj---------
Ro      Cris,------------------ Vadastra- Boian Gumelnit,a-------- Cernavoda-
Hu      Ko"ro"s---------------- LBK------ Tisza Tiszapolgar-- Bodrogkeresztur
Mo           Bug-Dniestr---------------------- Cucuteni-Tripolye-------------
Uk                                   Dniepr-Donets- Sredny Stog--------------
Po/                             LBK----------- SBK----------- TRB------------
Cz                              LBK----------- Lengyel------- TRB------------
Ge                              LBK----------- Roessen------- TRB------------
NF                              LBK----------- Roessen------- Michelsberg----
SC                              Ertebo/lle-Ellerbek---------- TRB------------
Br                                             Windmill Hill-----------------

(The regions are: Th=Thessaly, Bu=S.Bulgaria, Yu=Yugoslavia,
Ro=Romania, Hu=Hungary, Mo=SW Ukraine/NE Romania (Moldova),
Uk=Ukraine (steppe) [based on Mallory]
Po/Cz=Poland/Czechoslovakia, Ge=Germany/Low Countries,
NF=Northern France, SC=S.Scandinavia, Br=Britain).

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Tue Jan 26 16:16:49 1999
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 16:16:49 +0000
Subject: Darwin and IE
In-Reply-To: <36AD1634.F7A7BBB7@montclair.edu>
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.161649.0000.LARRYT@COGS.SUSX.AC.UK>

On Mon, 25 Jan 1999, H. Mark Hubey wrote:

> As for the specifics, a language that is isolating and has
> prepositions probably cannot become agglutinating. Look at English.
> Do you think that it will become agglutinating?

> No, it won't. Look at the way phrases are constructed; "a house", "a
> blue house", "a large blue house". How could it agglutinate? Do you
> think that the definite article will get glued as a prefix? Suppose
> it does and we have "ahouse". Then how will "a blue house" look
> like, "ahouse blue"? That would require a change in which the
> modifier would have to go after the noun. I don't see how that could
> happen unless all of a sudden all over the world, all English
> speakers caught on to this craze of poetic speaking like "four walls
> do not a prison make", "my house beautiful", "my fiancee's eyes
> blue", etc.  IT won't happen! Maybe if the language had
> postpositions, it could happen but differently.

As a matter of fact, *exactly* the scenario described here has happened
countless times in languages.  It has been observed in more languages
than you can shake a stick at, and it has happened in languages with
prepositions and in languages with postpositions -- or, more to the
point, in languages with preposed determiners and languages with
postposed determiners.  As it happens, one of the principal
investigators of this phenomenon is Joseph Greenberg, who published a
classic paper on it in 1978 and returned to the subject in 1991.  This
work, unlike Greenberg's mass comparisons, is generally admired by
linguists.

Let's look at Basque.  In Basque, the order of elements in noun phrases
is Noun - Adjective - Determiner.  An example:

	etxe    zuri    hori
 	house	white	that
	`that white house'

In earlier Basque, there was no definite article, but there were three
demonstratives: <hau(r)> `this', <hori> `that (just there)', and *<har>
`that (over yonder'.  But then the distal *<har> came to be used
unstressed as a definite article; in the process, it was reduced in form
and independence to a suffix <-a>.  Here's the result in modern Basque:

	etxe `house'
	etxea `the house'
	etxe zuria `the white house'
	etxe zuri txikia `the little white house' (<txiki> = `little')
	etxe zuri txiki polita `the pretty little white house'
		(<polit> = `pretty')

See the result?  The article <-a> is simply suffixed to what is
otherwise the final item in the noun phrase, regardless of whether that
is a noun or an adjective.

And it really is an agglutinated suffix.  It is so tightly bound to the
preceding item, whatever that is, that, in western dialects, the usual
western rules applying to vowel sequences apply here as well.  In
western dialects, we have the changes <ea> --> <ia>, <ia> --> <iya>, and
<ua> --> <uwa> or <uba>.  So, in western dialects, we have:

	etxe `house'
	etxia `the house' (= <etxea> elsewhere)
	etxe zuriya `the white house' (= <etxe zuria> elsewhere)
	buru `head'
	buruwa OR buruba `the head' (= <burua> elsewhere)

So, *exactly* the change that Mr. Hubey has just declared impossible is
attested in Basque -- among many other languages.

Of course, this hasn't happened in English -- yet.  But it might.
Already I notice that many of my students -- and one or two of the
contributors to this list -- write `a lot of' as `alot of', suggesting
that they feel the article to be fused to the following item in this
case, at least.  There is nothing to stop English from doing the same
thing that Basque has done, but at the other end of the noun phrase.

More generally, English is showing signs of some very interesting
developments.  Not only do we now have nouns like `house-hunting' and
`baby-sitting', we even have verbs like `house-hunt' and `baby-sit'.
This isn't just agglutination: it's incorporation.  If this development
continues, English may wind up looking rather like an Eskimo language.
Every major change in a language starts from tiny beginnings like this
one.

English has the same pathways open to it as any other language, and its
speakers may choose to follow any of those pathways, sooner or later.
Who can say which choices will be made by our descendants?  Declaring a
perfectly well-attested change to be impossible, merely because it
hasn't happened yet, is unhelpful.

Suppose we could talk to an Anglo-Saxon.  How would he respond if we
told him his language was about to lose its entire case-system for
nouns, its entire agreement system for adjectives, its subjunctive, and
virtually the entire set of verb-agreement endings?  Or if we told him
that his language was about to acquire a whole new set of modal
auxiliaries, a common verb-ending <-ing>, a complete set of overt
progressive verb-forms, a <going to> marker of futurity, and a host of
other grammatical innovations in this vein?  I'll bet he'd say "That's
impossible!" and walk away from the obvious lunatic.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Tue Jan 26 16:39:37 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 10:39:37 -0600
Subject: let's get back to IE linguistics/ was Hubonics
In-Reply-To: <36AD0D25.9AFA5171@montclair.edu>
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.103937.0600.RMCCALLI@SUNMUW1.MUW.EDU>

	Like most disciplines, linguistics proceeds from an accumulated
body of knowledge. If you have the intelligent arguments and credible
evidence to challenge the foundations of linguistics, fine. But those who
ride on the shoulders of giants aren't going to be swayed by ankle-biters.
If you have an argument, state it cogently and coherently with reliable
evidence by reputable scholars. If you want to engage in polemics and
name-calling, then please go to the Clinton-Starr list.

[snip]
>You can take your choice. I have made mine.
>
>Best Regards,
>Mark
>-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
>hubeyh at montclair.edu =-=-=-= http://www.csam.montclair.edu/~hubey
>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Tue Jan 26 16:44:28 1999
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 11:44:28 EST
Subject: Evolution
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.114428.EST.>

In a message dated 1/26/99 8:54:14 AM, DLW wrote:

<<I must, with some reluctance, support Mr. Hubey on this one.
There are reasons to think that biological evolution is relevant to
linguistic evolution. >>

Yes, but it then becomes very important to understand evolution science and
the key difference between the two kinds of studies.  Here's an example:

<<For example, it has recently been determined that the three kinds
of zebras (there I go with zebras again) are not in fact closely related
to each other.>>

Modern conclusions can be misread if we don't take them in historical context.

One of the big breakthroughs of Darwinian theory was that it freed biological
history from total morphological relationships.  Lamarck and popular thinking,
reinforced by the system of phylum and genera, assumed that common
morphological traits meant common descent or relation.  There was really
nothing else to go by than the idea that if two types of animals looked alike
they were more closely related than animals that looked different from one
another.
The popular version was that you will look more like your father than your
distant cousin and extending that to bigger realm of animal relationship, etc.

What the theory of natural selection did in this case was shift focus from
strict inheritance to the environment as dictating morphology.  So that the
closeness of body structure or the appearance of a unique structure (like
zebra stripes) does not necessarily tell us the history of descent.  In the
extreme case, concepts like parallel evolution or independent occurence can
actually mean that a trait shared in common (like wings in birds and bats) do
not demonstrate common ancestry but instead common adaptation.  (Even modern
genetics, without the confirmed Darwinian hypothesis of random mutation, would
not have been able to predict this little trick of Mother Nature.)

The big example of evolution theory at work isn't zebras.  It's the recent
conclusion, against all common sense, that birds (Avis) are the descendants of
dinosaurs.  There was no DNA ("genetic") evidence for this, it is based on
paleobiological taxonomic evidence.

Compare this to historical linguistics.  The breakthrough here was to
establish a genuine morphology (by which I mean also for these purposes
phonology) of descent.  The breakthrough with Grimm's Law was that form and
traits could give you a predictable pattern of descent.

This is not parallel to the science of evolution so much as it is the science
of genetics.  Both genetics and linguistics focus on internal structure.
Natural selection focuses on external forces.

Linguistics is a powerful internally consistent tool.  But once you try to
apply external forces to its analysis, you are diluting or misapplying it.

Just as random mutation breaks the laws of genetic inheritance, non-linguistic
factors disrupt the unity assumption of linguistics.  Of course, this in no
way says that either genetics or linguistics are flawed.  It just means you
have to know when they apply and when to use them and when something has
intervened - like mutation or a counter-linguistic historical event.

As far as language structure being subject to natural selection, there is an
important difference between biology and language structure.  Language
structure - like genetic structure - must be conservative about forms.  This
is because language's function is communication.  Communication demands
predictability.  I must know by your words you meant the same thing today that
you meant yesterday .  Or communication fails.

Biological evolution, on the other hand, is anti-conservative.  The diversity
of forms is totally dependent on "innovations" and nothing else.  Genetics is
conservative like language structure.  It conserves forms.  Evolution is the
opposite.

Regards,
Steve Long


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Tue Jan 26 16:49:46 1999
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 16:49:46 +0000
Subject: rate of language change
In-Reply-To: <36AD1CFA.C17214FC@montclair.edu>
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.164946.0000.LARRYT@COGS.SUSX.AC.UK>

On Mon, 25 Jan 1999, H. Mark Hubey wrote:

[on the recent rapid change in French]

> Has there been any syntactic change?

Has there?  Has there ever!  Amazing things are happening to French
syntax.

In standard French, `John has bought the car' is this (sorry; no
diacritics):

	Jean a achete la voiture.

But what you'll probably hear in France is this:

	Jean, il l'a achetee, la bagnole.

Literally, it would seem, `John, he's bought it, the car.'

French is becoming ever more like a native North American language, with
massive verbal agreement.

In standard French, a sentence can't end with a preposition.  But, in
spoken French, the following sort of thing is common:

	Paul, Marie a couche avec.

	`Paul, Marie has slept with.'

With a nice big fat preposition <avec> `with' at the end of the
sentence.

In standard French, `There's the woman whose bag was stolen' is this:

	Voila la femme a qui on a vole le sac.

But what people say in Paris is often this:

	Vla la meuf qui s'est fait peta son keus.

With an utterly different construction.

A few years ago, a linguist who works on French was astonished to hear
somebody say this:

	Paul, Marie, elle a couche avec.

	`Paul, Marie, she has slept with.'

Only a minority of my French students regard this as acceptable when
they are asked directly, but clearly some people are saying it and
others find it acceptable.  And you won't find this construction in any
reference grammar of French.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk


From nicholas.widdows at traceplc.co.uk  Tue Jan 26 16:43:45 1999
From: nicholas.widdows at traceplc.co.uk (Nicholas Widdows)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 16:43:45 -0000
Subject: Darwin but not alas IE
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.164345.0000.NICHOLAS.WIDDOWS@TRACEPLC.CO.UK>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

> I don't make any mistakes about it; it is vague. IN fact, its critics
> complain that it is tautological, and I am not saying that it is only me.
> "The survival of the fittest" has no predictive value; it certainly isn't
> even close to Saussure's or Maxwell's work. The only thing we have now alive
> are those who survived and therefore they must have been the fittest. That
> sounds like two words meaning the same thing because they are equivalent.

Lest any linguist who happens not to be a scientist is reading this, and
still imagines that Mr Hubey deserves credence on science in general,
can I point out that he has just convicted himself of gross ignorance of
elementary biology. "Survival of the fittest" (a term neither coined nor
liked by Darwin) is not a tautology. When first coined it meant
straightforwardly that the strongest, the sharpest-clawed, or the
fleetest-footed survive; which is hard to argue with. Much later,
biologists wanted to quantify how much survival things did, so they
coined a brand-new concept, which they might have called "intrinsic
survival potential" or "W-zero" or a dozen other things, but as often
happens, they exapted a common term and called it "fitness". That was
the tautology. This concept proved unworkable in the 1960s and was
abandoned. It was replaced by various technical concepts called things
like "inclusive fitness", still tautologous by definition but no longer
clashing with the familiar emotive English term, which is indeed now
independent of the biologists' technical terms, and the two can be
correlated objectively. One of the clearest refutations of this nonsense
about tautology is in Richard Dawkins's _The Extended Phenotype_, which
devotes *an entire chapter* to the different meanings of "fitness".

Naked mole rats, mammals that are eusocial colonies like bees, were
successfully predicted from evolutionary theory, to name just one
example as impressive as laryngeals.

To relate this however tenuously to language, not to understand fitness
is the equivalent of, perhaps, not understanding that phrase structure
grammars now use transformations. I'm sorry to be off-topic, and I don't
think this line should be pursued, but a mistake this blatant was an
opportunity too good to pass up.

Nicholas Widdows
[The opinions in this are mine and those of all biologists, but not
necessarily those of Trace PLC.]
"The Lord hath delivered him into my hands!" -- Thomas Huxley


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Tue Jan 26 18:05:50 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 12:05:50 -0600
Subject: Language Succession
In-Reply-To: <35513ed2.36ac26eb@aol.com>
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.120550.0600.RMCCALLI@SUNMUW1.MUW.EDU>

	I get the feeling that in England, the fact that the conquest [from
Kent to Cumberland & Cornwall] took a good 500 years may have had a hand in
this. They were presumibly able to "digest" the conquest in small enough
chunks that they could impose a minority language upon them one shire at a
time, whereas the Franks, Goths, Bungundians, Lombards & Normans conquered
large territories all at once.

[snip]
>In cases where the immigrant language _did_ supplant that of the natives --
>early Anglo-Saxon England, areas of South Slav language in the Balkans, and so
>forth -- I think a different model than "elite dominance" is required.

>In particular, the immigrants would have to come in complete family units, and
>with a diverse enough social structure that most households would not be
>required to practice everyday bilingualism.  Numbers would count.

>And there would have to be some mechanism to assimilate speakers of the native
>language _as individuals_ within the immigrant households, so that even if the
>native speakers were numerous in relation to the incomers in the countryside
>as a whole, in the actual micro-setting of language acquisition (the
>households of the speakers of the new language) the native speakers would be
>isolated among a majority speaking the new tongue.


From Georg at home.ivm.de  Tue Jan 26 17:56:19 1999
From: Georg at home.ivm.de (Ralf-Stefan Georg)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 18:56:19 +0100
Subject: rate of language change
In-Reply-To: <36AD1CFA.C17214FC@montclair.edu>
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.185619.0100.GEORG@HOME.IVM.DE>

>"Breathtaking speed"? Are you serious? There wasn't much to notice in
>the first place; that is why nobody noticed it except for a few people
>whose job is to split hairs.

It is the very nature of linguistic change, as well as of any other
invisible-hand-process that the microscopic steps it takes are rarely
noticed by the speakers. Yes, they are noticed by those whose job it is to
split hairs. Splitting-hairs is a scientist's job, after all, or am I
mistaken here ?

"Breathtaking speed" is of course a metaphor and should be held against the
object of interest, i.e. in our case language. For any geologist, the
glaciers in the Andes recede at a breathtaking speed. I fail to see what is
wrong with these metaphor (but, of course, as always  I'm also lying ;-).

St.G.

Stefan Georg
Heerstrasse 7
D-53111 Bonn
FRG
+49-228-69-13-32


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Tue Jan 26 17:59:45 1999
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 12:59:45 EST
Subject: <Language> Re: Caucasus and Kaska
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.125945.EST.>

In a message dated 1/26/99 12:19:34 PM, John McLaughlin quoted M. Hubey:

<<1) frozen accidents (i.e. initial conditions
2) system characteristics
3) external forces

I write this as often as I can, but it does not seem to do anything.>>

[In response John McLaughlin wrote:]
<<Mainly because it means nothing to linguists and real language.>>

Well, to the extent Mr Hubey list does mean something to language, it is
painfully general.

The effect of intial conditions and other external forces on language is a
mighty tall order, involving at the very least all local and general cultural
evidence in any way, shape or form, over a long, long time.

The great thing about linguistics is that it is a narrow but clean and valid
path through that big mess, thanks to the rather consistent ways humans
structure languages. (And thanks to linguists, too, of course.)  It can't
account for everything but it does provide a pretty good amount of
consistency, valid hypotheses and predictability to a difficult subject:
cultural history.

If one is going to examine all the external forces that influenced language in
history, however, it would be best to bring one's lunch.

Regards,
Steve Long


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Tue Jan 26 18:18:16 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 12:18:16 -0600
Subject: Cases in Indo-European
In-Reply-To: <007601be48ad$4d629140$8ffaabc3@niywlxpn>
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.121816.0600.RMCCALLI@SUNMUW1.MUW.EDU>

	This is not always true. In the last 30 years or so, the white
Southern US dialect has been giving way to standard US English --the
"written" norm here, of course, is television. While -r dropping is common
among whites 50 or older in Mississippi, it is almost non-existent among
white students where I teach. With the exception of "y'all", most of them
sound like they're from the Midwest.

	The same phenomenon is seen in Costa Rica and quite a few other
places in Latin America, where --on the whole-- younger generations speak a
much more standard version of the language than their parents.

	Re the written word, it's said the Midwestern English is closer to
standard English because Germans and other immigrants learned their English
at school from a textbook rather than from their parents. This is a facile
explanation, of course.

>So a written norm does not greatly affect the process of language change, it
>simply hides it.

>Peter

[ Moderator's comment:
  This is not due to *written* language, but rather to *spoken* language heard
  widely for the first time in the history of humanity:  What young Southerners
  and young Latin Americans have in common is that they can now frequently hear
  the prestige (or at least neutral) form of their language, frequently enough
  that they can learn it as a natural language.  *Written* language never had
  this effect; rather, like _katharevousa_, the spoken language continued to
  diverge from the "standard" until the latter was done away with.

  For the record, I am a native speaker of Southern US English of more than 30
  years ago.
  --rma ]


From mcv at wxs.nl  Tue Jan 26 20:18:05 1999
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 20:18:05 GMT
Subject: rate of language change
In-Reply-To: <36AD1CFA.C17214FC@montclair.edu>
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.201805.GMT.>

"H. Mark Hubey" <HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu> wrote:

>Has there been any syntactic change?

Sure.  Colloquial French has been interpreted as VSO (e.g. in the
database of Johanna Nichols' "Linguistic Diversity in Space and
Time", based on Stephen J. Matthews 1989 "French in Flux", in:
Walsh, Thomas J. "Synchronic and Diachronic Approaches to
Linguistic Variation and Change", and Martin Harris 1978 "The
Evolution of French Syntax: a Comparative Approach").

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam


From petegray at btinternet.com  Tue Jan 26 20:47:40 1999
From: petegray at btinternet.com (Peter &/or Graham)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 20:47:40 -0000
Subject: IE creole? Hmmm...
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.204740.0000.PETEGRAY@BTINTERNET.COM>

Glen said:
>Phonology
>means nothing in the end ... The grammatical
>connections to Uralic suggest a true genetic relationship to me.

(and on ergativity:)
>. This does not make the creole idea any more
>plausible than an IE-Uralic genetic relationship.

Granted.

Peter


From petegray at btinternet.com  Tue Jan 26 20:59:37 1999
From: petegray at btinternet.com (Peter &/or Graham)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 20:59:37 -0000
Subject: IE creole?
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.205937.0000.PETEGRAY@BTINTERNET.COM>

Stefan wrote:
>*if* PIE-PSem. contacts are an inevitable conclusion
>from the linguistic data ...

Contact of some kind at some stage seems preferable to me than coincidence.
The parallels are too striking:
(a) basic semantic meaning carried by consonants, while vowels indicate the
function of the word.
(b) basic word (or root) structure of two consonants, with a later extension
of one (or two) further consonants.
(c) basic verb form is marked for aspect rather than tense, and is the
punctative (or simple, or equivalent) as opposed to the continuous.
(d) strong preference for either grammatical suffixes or prefixes, but not
both on the same word.
(e) development of a variety of various "stems" of verbs from the basic
root.   (We shouldn't assume this is a function of language in general -
there are many languages which do not do anything like this)
(f) original dual as well as singular and plural;  later (almost certainly
independently) losing ground to sing / plural
(g) striking similarity in the phonological systems of PIE and P-Sem (though
not identity!)

I'm sure that list could be extended.   Word borrowings (septem etc) also
indicate contact at some time.

Peter


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Tue Jan 26 21:38:11 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 16:38:11 EST
Subject: (no subject)
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.163811.EST.>

>Or of the Caucasus, the Kalahari, or the Russian Far North. The most
>elaborate and complicated phoneme-systems are to be found far away from the
>main theatre of history.

>Stefan Georg

-- exactly.  This applies to other gramatical structures as well -- note the
extreme conservatism of Lithuanian in preserving the elaborate PIE
declensions.

Languages in use in the 'centers' of history, which are usually multilingual,
get 'worn down' towards simplicity.  It's out in the remote fringes that the
most elaborate complexities remain.


From iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu  Tue Jan 26 21:41:35 1999
From: iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 15:41:35 -0600
Subject: Various
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.154135.0600.>

	Well, I am so weary from slogging through all this stuff I
scarcely know where to begin in responding to the few things said that
relate to anything I said ...

	Let's see ... evidence that the Anatolians entered from the west?
Like what?  Last I heard there was no clear archeological evidence of any
such thing, just the usual muddle and quot homines tot opiniones.

	Turkic being not IE, which I have known probably longer than Mr.
Gordon has been alive, has nothing to do with anything I said.  As for
waves, the Turks have been moving back and forth in waves across the
steppe for some time now, without much separation having occurred.  What
is necessary for separation (I am disappointed to have to make such a
basic point) is something that stops people from talking to each other.
Note the social divisions that have caused some divergence between white
and black English in America.  Steppes do not (necessarily) do it.

	As for what I would mean by the Hittites moving "early" into
Anatolia, roughly before 3500 B.C.

	There are parallels between linguistic and biological evolution.
I did not say they were absolute.  They are worth looking into, and better
understanding.  Time and energy for an impromptu micro-essay are lacking
at this point.  For the time being all I can say is I do not agree with
what was said.  The differences I perceive are different ... but at this
point, even I do not want to hear about them.

	By the way, the phenomenon of spelling pronunciation, which one
member noted in connection with Danish, shows quite clearly that it is not
some sort of Eternal Verity that written language is irrelevant to the
development of spoken language.

	And yes, the French changes-in-progress are grammatical, not just
lexical.  The language is seemingly becoming polysynthetic under our very
noses.  Should be interesting to watch.  But the written form of French is
so far from the spoken language that it is understandable if speakers in
effect disregard it.

	I am getting a lot of double-messages here, and once again ask
members to please, if they can, stop it.  I also implore members to calm
down.  Matters of marginal relevance are probably best dropped.
	
					DLW


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Tue Jan 26 22:13:53 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 17:13:53 EST
Subject: Contact Pidgins
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.171353.EST.>

>The situation here is what I call "reconvergence".  It's effects
>are similar to creolization, but it is not creolization.  In other words,
>the situation develops as if there had been a Germanic creole in the mix,
>without this actually being true.

-- this strikes me as a distinction without a difference.

English itself displays some of the features of a creolized pidgin (loss of
inflection, etc.).  And English has undergone repeated situations of languge-
contact on its native ground -- with Romano-British, with Old Scandinavian,
and with French.   Comparison with the closely related Frisian is instructive.

Afrikaans has undergone a strikingly similar simplification in a situation of
language contact and bilingualism -- from 17th century Netherlandish, still
highly inflected, to a grammar that is even more radicallysimplified than that
of English.  (Eg., replacement of wiij with onz, etc.)

I agree that creolization/pidgin is an overworked term, but it certainly has
some validity for prehistoric situations.


From glengordon01 at hotmail.com  Tue Jan 26 21:57:08 1999
From: glengordon01 at hotmail.com (Glen Gordon)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 13:57:08 PST
Subject: Darwin and IE
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.135708.PST.GLENGORDON01@HOTMAIL.COM>

>Like what kind of accident? Like the mythical king of Spain who started
>to lisp?

>Or do you mean "frozen accidents" of Gell-Man?

I had a frozen accident once. It was really cold outside and there was
no public washroom for miles. Um, beg pardon but how does all this still
relate to IE? Maybe another list would be appropriate so that I don't
have to sift through so many emails.

--------------------------------------------
Glen Gordon
glengordon01 at hotmail.com

Kisses and Hugs
--------------------------------------------


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Tue Jan 26 22:29:10 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 17:29:10 EST
Subject: (no subject)
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.172910.EST.>

>manaster at umich.edu

>There are people who assume that PIE was spoken in Anatolia or nearby.

-- I don't think this need be taken very seriously, though.  Apart from the
fact that when written records begin Anatolia is largely non-IE-speaking, and
that all attested IE languages in Anatolia are plainly intrusive, it's
extremely difficult to make sense of chronologically.

PIE has a late-neolithic, early Copper Age vocabulary.  Thus it can't date
much beyond 4000 BCE, and the mid-fourth-millenium makes more sense.


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Tue Jan 26 22:24:44 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 17:24:44 EST
Subject: Tarim Basin Mummies
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.172444.EST.>

>chrislord at sandonlodge.freeserve.co.uk (Chris Lord)

>Has anyone else seen the UK Daily Telegraph today, or heard from elsewhere
>about the 1,000 BC mummies found in Chinese Turkestan, who had apparently
>Celtic-ish clothes, and were of Caucasian appearance?

-- you can get a good overview of this in v.23, nos. 3&4 of the Journal of
Indo-European Studies, and also in LATE BRONZE AGE AND IRON AGE PEOPLES OF
CENTRAL ASIA,  Victor Mair, ed.

Essentially, the hyperarid and alkaline soils of the Tarim basin (what's now
Chinese Turkistan) preserve organic materials, both bodies and artifacts like
clothing.

>From about 2000 BCE or so up until the 5th to 7th century CE, the Tarim Basin
was inhabited by Europoid populations -- many of them strikingly similar to
Central and Northern Europeans, both in appearance and according to DNA
testing.

Their textiles also bore strong resemblances to those much further west, using
weighted-warp loom technology, and including such things as herringbone twill
plaids. (And those goofy-looking hats with feathers that Bavarians wear.)

This is also, of course, the area where Tocharian speech prevailed prior to
the expansion of Uighur into the area.  How far back that goes, we can't
absolutely tell -- the mummies weren't buried with letters.  However, given
the historical accounts (Chinese sources from periods that _are_ definitely
Tocharian-speaking refer to big-nosed, blond and redheaded peoples in the
area) and the archaeology (no severe discontinuities after the early Bronze
Age) it seems reasonable to assume that the Europoid mummies were Tocharian
(or proto-Tocharian) speakers.

Especially as it seems definite that Tocharian broke off from PIE very early.


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Tue Jan 26 22:39:47 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 17:39:47 EST
Subject: (no subject)
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.173947.EST.>

>HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu (H. Mark Hubey)

>You don't have to take my word for it. AT least take the word of a
>Nobel Laureate in physics:

>1) frozen accidents (i.e. initial conditions
>2) system characteristics
>3) external forces

>I write this as often as I can, but it does not seem to do anything.

-- perhaps that's because a physicist has no particular authority in matters
of linguistics.

Or about as much as a chemist would in economics.


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Tue Jan 26 22:33:47 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 17:33:47 EST
Subject: (no subject)
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.173347.EST.>

>petegray at btinternet.com (Peter &/or Graham)

>So a written norm does not greatly affect the process of language change, it
>simply hides it.

-- not necessarily.

Until the modern period, universal literacy in our sense -- a standard written
language taught in the schools -- didn't exist.

Nor, of course, was there any recorded sound.

It's notable that there has been a massive convergence in dialect forms in
modern English over the past hundred years -- travelling in the American
South, for instance, you can tell a person's generation immediately by the
degree of deviation from Standard English.

The same has happened in places like Italy, where the standard language has
largely supplanted a series of dialects that were barely mutually
comprehensible, or (in the case of Sicilian and Tuscan) not mutually
comprehensible at all.


From tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de  Wed Jan 27 00:06:21 1999
From: tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de (Theo Vennemann)
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 01:06:21 +0100
Subject: IE creole?
Message-ID: <WED.27.JAN.1999.010621.0100.TVN@CIS.UNIMUENCHEN.DE>

There are people (have been for 99 years) assuming that Semitic or closely
related languages were spoken in the British Isles.

On Mon, 25 Jan 1999 manaster at umich.edu wrote:

>There are people who assume that PIE was spoken in Anatolia or
>nearby.

>On Sun, 24 Jan 1999 GregWeb at aol.com wrote:

>>Could someone explain how PIE itself, not its daughter languages, could have
>>been in contact with a semitic language, let alone proto-semitic.  I thought
>>that Semitic languages would be moving nto Mesopotamia from the southwest at
>>a time when PIE was still north of that entire area.  I know that daughter
>>languages of PIE were later in contact with Semitic languages, but I do not
>>see how geographically PIE and proto-Semitic or any semitic language would
>>have been in contact so as to influence the development of PIE itself.


From donncha at eskimo.com  Wed Jan 27 00:15:59 1999
From: donncha at eskimo.com (Dennis King)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 16:15:59 -0800
Subject: Language Succession
In-Reply-To: <35513ed2.36ac26eb@aol.com>
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.161559.0800.DONNCHA@ESKIMO.COM>

JoatSimeon at aol.com:

>The general rule would seem to be that a thin stratum of immigrant
>conquerors loses its language and takes up that of the majority.

The experience of Old Norse speaking invaders/settlers in the Hebrides
and the Isle of Man seems to bear this out.  In Lewis and Harris, the
Vikings, if it is safe to call them that, were temporarily dominant
enough to leave a large number of Norse placenames on the ground, which
have survived to the present in Gaelicized form.  Furthermore, the
Gaelic of the islands has some eccentric phonological features, such
as pre-aspiration of voiceless stops and devoicing of voiced stops,
which appear to be a Norse legacy.  Otherwise, the Norse language
didn't survive there.

The situation on Man seems to have been more complex and a lot more
interesting.  Manx Gaelic lost a lot of grammatical features that
Irish and Scottish Gaelic have retained, such as the copula, which
was replaced by the substantive verb, the distinction between the
palatal and non-palatal consonant series, the autonomous [unspecified
subject] verb forms, most declensional forms, and so on.

All these losses have been noted in semi-speakers of certain Irish
and Scottish Gaelic dialects which are on the verge of death.  The odd
thing about Manx is that these were features of the language way back
when it was still vital and intact, in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Why these signs of "decay" in a vital Gaelic dialect?

The interesting theory lays this at the feet of the Norse,  who
politically dominated the island ca. 900.  After a few generations of
intermarriage, there would have been three languages going: Norse,
Gaelic, and Norsified Gaelic (with all the defects of modern semi-
speakers).  The speakers of proper Gaelic would have been people of
low status with whom the Norse did not see fit to intermarry, while
the speakers of "broken" Gaelic would be the offspring of higher status
Norse-Manx alliances.  These families would have continued to dominate
the island, and after some generations have lost their Norse, by which
time their "broken" Gaelic would have become established as the prestige
language.

If this scenario is true, a corollary to the rule "that a thin stratum
of immigrant conquerors loses its language and takes up that of the
majority" would be that a slightly thicker stratum transforms the
majority language as they adopt it.  Was this what happened to English
after 1066 and all that?

Dennis King


From manaster at umich.edu  Wed Jan 27 00:51:00 1999
From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 19:51:00 -0500
Subject: IE creole?
In-Reply-To: <v01510100b2d4078bb629@[129.187.26.32]>
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.195100.0500.>

Sure, Arabic, Hebrew, Maltese...

On Wed, 27 Jan 1999, Theo Vennemann wrote:

> There are people (have been for 99 years) assuming that Semitic or closely
> related languages were spoken in the British Isles.

[ moderator snip ]


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Wed Jan 27 01:06:46 1999
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 20:06:46 EST
Subject: Darwin and IE
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.200646.EST.>

In a message dated 1/26/99 12:33:18 PM, M. Hubey wrote:

<<and I am not saying that it is only me. "The survival of the fittest"
has no predictive value; it certainly isn't even close to Saussure's or
Maxwell's work. The only thing we have now alive are those who survived and
therefore they must have been the fittest. That sounds like two words meaning
the same thing because they are equivalent.>>

I have a feeling that you may not be thoroughly familiar with this particular
subject.  "The only things we have now alive are those who survived and
therefore they must have been the fittest," I believe is the official theme of
the NFL playoffs.  And although it may have some semblance to evolution, they
are not quite the same.  For one thing, a great many of the subjects studied
by evolutionary science are quite dead, and have been for a long time.
"Survival of the fittest" is a term of limited application that hasn't really
been at the core of evolutionary study for about 130 years.

Evolutionary science focuses on proof and processes that must be totally
confirmed by hard sciences, particularly geology and biochemistry.

I think that, with your appreciation of mathematics, computer sciences,
probability theory and the scientific method, you will be pleasantly pleased
by such studies as "Late Precambrian and early Cambrian Metazoa: statistical
evidence of periodic extinctions,"  "Statistical influence of siphonophore
behavior upon natural diets:  Evidence for agressive mimicry," "Cortical
cytoplasm and evolution," and my favorite, "The gall wasp genus Cynips: a
study in the origin of a specie," by none other than A.C. Kinsey (of the
Report fame) 1930.

It would be interesting to know what serious scientists today consider
evolutionary science vague or tautological.  I suspect there aren't too, too
many.

BTW, a great introduction to this science is contained in the books of Stephen
Jay Gould.  "Hen's teeth and Horse's Toes" is a good one.

Regards,
Steve Long


From hubeyh at Montclair.edu  Wed Jan 27 00:33:51 1999
From: hubeyh at Montclair.edu (H. M. Hubey)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 19:33:51 -0500
Subject: Cases in Indo-European
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.193351.0500.HUBEYH@MONTCLAIR.EDU>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

Larry Trask wrote:

> On Mon, 25 Jan 1999, H. Mark Hubey wrote:

> > Large scale changes cannot occur in large systems.

> I see.  So that's why the earth's atmosphere never throws up hurricanes
> or tornadoes.  And that's why El Nin~o has no discernible effect upon
> the world's climate.

This is good, so good in fact, that I couldn't wait. I will write the rest
later.

This example illustrates what miscommunication is and also what I have
been saying for a few years now.

Large scale changes do occur in the atmosphere but they are "externally
driven".
The weather is driven by

(1) the sun when it heats up our world,

(2) the fluctuations in the heat because of the distance from the sun to
the earth over a period of a year

(3) the fluctuations in the spots heated because of the tilting of the earth

> That's why stars -- large systems, wouldn't you say? -- never turn into
> novas or supernovas.

Time is necessary. Throw up 1,000 pennnies until you get 1,000 heads. Its
probability of occurrence is about 10^(-300) or so. That is a decimal point
with about 300 zeros after it. Yes, large scale changes can occur, but for
making real-life calculations this is what is called "vanishingly small",
small enough indeed to be thought of as zero.

> And that's why Middle Chinese -- a large system by linguistic standards
> -- hardly changed at all, and why all Chinese-speakers today can
> understand one another without difficulty.

This now brings up the third point. Rates. Rate of borrowing in Turkish
(Osmanli) was high (from Farsi and ARabic) and it has acquired an /f/. So
did Uzbek. Kazak and Kirgiz probably had to wait until Russian rule to
acquire it.

> And, of course, that's why practically nothing has happened to English
> in the last 500 years, and why we find it so easy to read `Piers
> Ploughman'.

Practically nothing has happened to English over the last 500 years and
that is why Shakespeare is taught even to those who want to have nothing
to do with it :-)
Maybe they should teach some math to those who don't want to have anything
to do with it instead of Shakespeare.

>

And finally, let us recall some high school physics: it was thought that
heavier objects fell to the ground faster. Actually sometimes they do.
Drop a leaf of paper or a leaf and an iron ball from the Pisa Tower and
see what happens. The thing that made Galileo famous is that he dropped
two iron balls, one heavier than the other to disprove the statement.
Obviously, the logical conclusion after that was to start to suspect
something else, like "air resistance" and its relation to the density of
the object and its shape. That was a very good start. Historical linguists
have yet to make the equivalent mental adjustment. Mind you, I am not
claiming to start doing what
Newton did, only to take the initial GAlilean step. One small step for
Trask, one giant leap for the rest of linguists :-)

PS. I deleted my friend Georg's post by accident, but I do find myself in
agreement with his comments. One small fight over a year and now we sometimes
agree :-)

M. Hubey
Email:          hubeyh at Montclair.edu    Backup:hubeyh at alpha.montclair.edu
WWW Page:       http://www.csam.montclair.edu/Faculty/Hubey.html


From hubeyh at Montclair.edu  Wed Jan 27 00:20:36 1999
From: hubeyh at Montclair.edu (H. M. Hubey)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 19:20:36 -0500
Subject: <Language> STATISTICS IN LINGUISTICS
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.192036.0500.HUBEYH@MONTCLAIR.EDU>

Patrick C. Ryan wrote:

> What is somewhat frustrating is that you do not seem to realize that this is
> a statistical relationship; if what you are saying was absolutely true, we
> would be entitled to say that the probabilities were 100 out of 100. But, I
> think you know that these laws, while very reliable, do not *always* yield
> the anticipated forms.

Dead hit!  Certain or sure statements are of the type "X is 2Y with probability
1".
Impossible events are written as "X is 3Z with probability 0". For example,
the prob of throwing up 1,000 pennies and getting all heads is close enough to
zero to say it is zero. To see what it is; it is (0.5)^1000. Since 2^3 is 8
which is about 10,
then this is like 1/(10^300) or 10^-300. That is like 0.00000......0001 where
the number of zeros is about 300. That is close enough to be called zero.

M. Hubey
Email:          hubeyh at Montclair.edu    Backup:hubeyh at alpha.montclair.edu
WWW Page:       http://www.csam.montclair.edu/Faculty/Hubey.html


From ALDERSON at toad.xkl.com  Thu Jan 28 23:31:36 1999
From: ALDERSON at toad.xkl.com (Rich Alderson)
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 15:31:36 -0800
Subject: Message backlog; apologies
Message-ID: <THU.28.JAN.1999.153136.0800.ALDERSON@TOAD.XKL.COM>

The debates on the Indo-European mailing list have resulted in a large backlog
of messages.  No messages received after 23:30 PST (07:30 UT) Tuesday night
have been processed yet, to allow an overworked mail system to cool down.

Tuesday's message storm (nearly 60 messages were queued to go out to the list)
resulted in my allowing a few messages to go out on both lists that probably
should have been sent back to the writers for further consideration, or at the
very least had their Subject: headers modified.

As I have stated in the past, I try to keep things collegial on the two lists
under my control, Indo-European and Nostratic.  While I have been associated
with academia all my life, and know that bitter feuds can erupt, I also know
that generally people who find each other's presence distasteful simply arrange
their lives to avoid confrontation.  Mailing lists are more difficult that way,
and sometimes provocations are seen where none are really intended, or are
given when a little reflection will keep the writer from responding in quite
the same fashion.

I hereby offer my public apology to Mark Hubey for allowing certain messages to
go out.  Mr. Hubey and I disagree strongly on almost every topic, and have come
to harsh words with each other in the past; nonetheless, I should have directed
personal attacks to private e-mail rather than propagating them.

I apologize to those who have been insulted here by Mr. Hubey, as well.

I also apologize to all the readers for this loss of control of these lists.
Two prior Indo-European mailing lists, and the previous Nostratic list, died
because of personality conflicts, as have many others in other disciplines (not
all linguistic); that won't happen again.  As I stated when I revived the lists
after the last meltdown, I am not by nature a patient person; I will, if I
must, be a much heavier-handed moderator.

Thank you all for your patience and your continued readership.

								Rich Alderson
								list owner and
								moderator
-------


From HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu  Wed Jan 27 03:59:22 1999
From: HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu (H. Mark Hubey)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 22:59:22 -0500
Subject: Cases in Indo-European
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.225922.0500.>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

Dr. John E. McLaughlin and Michelle R. Sutton wrote:

[ moderator snip ]

> Unfortunately, there's no linguistics behind it.  Take syntactic change, for
> example.  Thirty years ago, there was no discourse connector/predicate
> marker/etc.  'like'.  Now it is like becoming the most widespread marker in
> the American language.  Deal with it.  Our language is constantly changing in
> ways that you would consider large-scale.  Another example is the common
> rising intonation on the end of like all declarative sentences.  Like, you
> know, it's not a question, but it's just a statement (rising intonation right
> up like through the period).  Most Americans treat the written language as a
> separate tongue and speak in a different manner, splitting infinitives,
> dangling prepositions, piling on negatives, adding 'like', infixing 'f**king'
> in prestress position.  There are hundreds of things going on in standard
> American dialects that have no reflection in the writing system because
> Americans have perceived a difference.

Nice examples. I still have no idea what this is supposed to do. Let's
see, the system is not small. T2-T1 is not large but neither is the
change. Is the change externally driven?
I don't know. Is it from Hispanic? Is it from Black slang/lingo? Suppose
it is. Then this already existed in the language. It is like saying that
there are black sheep and white sheep and that 10% is black. Now 100
years later, there are still black and white sheep but their proportion
is smaller but now we got grey sheep. All it shows is that it is
spreading in a different way. It does not show that something that
wasn't there has cropped up.  If furthermore, you claim that Black
slang/lingo was not English, then you again have externally-driven
change.

Best Regards,
Mark
-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
hubeyh at montclair.edu =-=-=-= http://www.csam.montclair.edu/~hubey
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=


From HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu  Wed Jan 27 04:58:41 1999
From: HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu (H. Mark Hubey)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 23:58:41 -0500
Subject: Riding Horses
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.235841.0500.>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu wrote:

> I think it's pretty well-estabished that, incredible as it may
> seem, it did take a thousand years or so for people to ride horses, or

Short note: how is that established? There is a difference between the
earliest evidence found of humans riding horses, and the earliest date
when humans rode horses.

Suppose someone sent you to some planet to get an idea of the kinds of
living things that exist.  You go there but you can't find anyone;
they don't come out during the day, and you can't catch them at night.
So you dig a hole and set a trap. After six months you finally capture
one.  It is 4 feet tall. Is your conclusion that the average height of
these species is 4 feet tall?  You don't even know if this is the only
species that lives on this planet? Of course, you see that if you
caught 100 of them and averaged their heights, you can be reasonably
sure that the average height is whatever is the average of the sample
(of 100 of them). The diggings and finds are all biased in a certain
direction. Most of the world's archaeologists, linguists, etc are in
the West.  Most of the rich countries are in the West. They have dug
all over. I doubt that anyone looks for horses in Siberia. The tumuli
are dug up in the WEst. Did humans always bury horses in graves? Maybe
the same people who rode reindeer also rode horses. This is like the
story of finding modern human bones, and Neandertal bones. When I was
in high school the fashionable facts were that modern humans evolved
40,000 years ago.  Neandertal bones did not go back to 800,000 years.
Maybe they haven't dug as extensively in Asia as they have in the
Ukraine, and the Middle East.

Best Regards,
Mark
-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
hubeyh at montclair.edu =-=-=-= http://www.csam.montclair.edu/~hubey
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=


From mclasutt at brigham.net  Wed Jan 27 05:20:06 1999
From: mclasutt at brigham.net (Dr. John E. McLaughlin and Michelle R. Sutton)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 22:20:06 -0700
Subject: Cases in Indo-European
Message-ID: <TUE.26.JAN.1999.222006.0700.MCLASUTT@BRIGHAM.NET>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

H. Mark Hubey wrote:

[ moderator snip ]

> Nice examples. I still have no idea what this is supposed to do. Let's
> see, the system is not small. T2-T1 is not large but neither is the
> change. Is the change externally driven?
> I don't know. Is it from Hispanic? Is it from Black slang/lingo? Suppose
> it is.

No, it's not externally driven and none of these changes have anything to do
with Hispanics or Blacks.  Guess what?  Whites did this.  I know it may sound
amazing to you, but language just changes.  We don't need input from anyone
else.  The 'like' and rising intonation changes came out of pure white-bread
Valley Girl California.

> Then this already existed in the language.

Changes are not the result of "preexisting conditions".  They often begin de
novo in one place at one time with a native speaker of a given language.  They
are usually not the result of contact or imperfect learning by immigrants.

> It is like saying that there are black sheep and white sheep and that 10% is
> black. Now 100 years later, there are still black and white sheep but their
> proportion is smaller but now we got grey sheep. All it shows is that it is
> spreading in a different way. It does not show that something that wasn't
> there has cropped up.  If furthermore, you claim that Black slang/lingo was
> not English, then you again have externally-driven change.

These changes do not derive from Black English and were not in the language 100
years ago.  Language just changes without outside influence (no matter how long
that "influence" may have lain dormant).  You can't seem to understand this at
all even though historical linguists have repeatedly made the point with many
examples on many lists with you.  Them's the facts.  You can't change them just
because you don't like them or they don't fit your presuppositions.

John McLaughlin
Utah State University


From Odegard at means.net  Wed Jan 27 01:53:12 1999
From: Odegard at means.net (Mark Odegard <Odegard@means.net>)
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 01:47:12 -6
Subject: Paleoclimatology site.
Message-ID: <WED.27.JAN.1999.014712.6.>

If any of you feel insecure in your understanding of
paleoclimatology (I know I do), this web site is helpful:

http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/nerc.html

This will take you to a page that lets you click on Europe, or any
other continent. This is as good an introductory overview as I've
found. There are some good maps showing what kind of vegetation you'd
find at a particular period.

To put this squarely on topic to this list, for the period of 5500 BCE,
the Balkans are shown as hardwood forest, while the areas west and
north of the Black sea are steppe.
--
Mark Odegard   mailto:odegard at means.net


From tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de  Wed Jan 27 08:31:21 1999
From: tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de (Theo Vennemann)
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 09:31:21 +0100
Subject: IE creole?
Message-ID: <WED.27.JAN.1999.093121.0100.TVN@CIS.UNIMUENCHEN.DE>

Before the Celts.

>On Wed, 27 Jan 1999, manaster at umich.edu wrote:

>Sure, Arabic, Hebrew, Maltese...

>On Wed, 27 Jan 1999, Theo Vennemann wrote:

>> There are people (have been for 99 years) assuming that Semitic or closely
>> related languages were spoken in the British Isles.

[ moderator snip ]


From mcv at wxs.nl  Wed Jan 27 12:35:08 1999
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 12:35:08 GMT
Subject: <Language> Re: Caucasus and Kaska
In-Reply-To: <36AD2A97.B9A193DD@montclair.edu>
Message-ID: <WED.27.JAN.1999.123508.GMT.>

"H. Mark Hubey" <HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu> wrote:

>1. The SAn lived in North-East AFrica and were pushed south by Bantu
>speakers (West Africans)

What's North-East Africa?  There may be some genetic evidence for
San in the Horn of Africa (Somalia, Ethiopia), in which case they
were linguistically displaced there by Afro-Asiatic speakers.
There are *no* Bantu speakers in North-East Africa.  The Bantu
expansion started very recently, some 2,000 years ago, from the
Nigeria-Cameroon area into Central Africa (Congo), East Africa
(Kenya-Uganda-Tanzania) and eventually Southern Africa.

>2. The SAn are not "black" but "yellow" (reddish?, copper-colored after
>tanning?)

So?
	
>3. Egyptians painted themselves red (not black and not white)

If by this you're trying to suggest that the ancient Egyptians
were not San, you're right.

>4. The 1st wave out of Africa was probably 1-2 million years ago

Homo erectus?

>5. The earliest Neandertal bones in Europe are now 800,000 years old
>(Spain)

>6. The big problem is whether the 2nd wave out of Africa wiped out the
>Neandertals this is a problem in genetics, paleontology, etc

My understanding is that it is now pretty well established that
the Neanderthals are not ancestral to modern humans.

>7. Kabardian has 1 vowel. (other caucasian languages are poor in vowels
>and have lots of consonant clusters. So do IE languages. So do AA
>languages. So does Khoisan.

Kabardian doesn't have one vowel.  Neither did PIE or PAA.
Neither does any Khoisan language.

>8. Lieberman says that Neandertals could not speak. Then he changes his mind
>and says that they would not be able to speak like us but would speak like
>little children and could not make the "supervowel i".

>9. mtDNA test say that "Eve" as African.  Y-chromosome test say that "Adam"
>was African; Sudanese, Ethiopean and Khoisan.

>Questions: if Neandertals could not make vowels like us, what kind of a
>language would they have had?

No way to know.

> If the Khoisan lived in Africa for 1-2
>million years why are they yellow instead of black?

They weren't living in the African rainforests?

>Why is the fault
>line of consonant-clustered languages run south from the CAucasus down
>the ME to EAst Coast of Africa? What is all this saying?

I don't know.  Sounds meaningless.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Wed Jan 27 13:56:39 1999
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 08:56:39 EST
Subject: "Guilty of Tautology"
Message-ID: <WED.27.JAN.1999.085639.EST.>

In a message dated 1/27/99 5:33:23 AM, DLW wrote:

<<He is, I believe, guilty of tautology, for in effect he defines "modern
language" as what we can speak but Neanderthals could not,...>>

This is just a side note.  M. Hubey has also used the word "tautology" as if
it were always a flaw and sometimes a crime.  It should be remembered that all
self-contained logic system are tautological.  This is the nature of analytics
and mathematics.  Geometry only has to be consistent with predefined elements
and assumptions, nothing external.

The very basis of our math, 1 + 1 = 2, is tautological.  But we have found
long ago that such tautologies can be very effective in helping us manipulate
the environment.

Regards,
Steve Long


From GregWeb at aol.com  Wed Jan 27 14:58:59 1999
From: GregWeb at aol.com (GregWeb at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 09:58:59 EST
Subject: Semitic and Finno-Ugrian??
Message-ID: <WED.27.JAN.1999.095859.EST.>

I still have my doubts that a North-Semitic language could have reached the
Black Sea in time to influence PIE itself, but, perhaps, the Semitic influence
was transferred, not directly, but through Kartvelian.   Does that make sense
as a possibility?

In any event, it seems clear that any Semitic influence was just that, an
influence, like French influenced English after the Normans, and that there
was not some common PIE-Semitic protolanguage.


From GregWeb at aol.com  Wed Jan 27 15:37:24 1999
From: GregWeb at aol.com (GregWeb at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 10:37:24 EST
Subject: Date of dispersals
Message-ID: <WED.27.JAN.1999.103724.EST.>

OK, perhaps, I can refine my thinking as follows.  Some PIE speakers move into
the western Ukraine and into the Balkans, beginning before 4000 B.C.E., but
there are not many and they do not move far fast, so that they still maintain
good contact in 3500 B.C.E. to develop the referenced vocabulary in the
original, reconstructed stage, which I understand to be the stage immediately
before the innovations that separate the rest of PIE from the Hittites and
their fellow early IE Anatolians.   But by the time that the innovations occur
that show the separation, the Hittites, etc. have moved too far for the
innovations to reach them, perhaps, by then being into, or almost into,
Anatolia.   Meanwhile, some of the same early migrants remain in the Balkans
along the western Black Sea shore and get some, but not many, of the
innovations before heading into Anatolia later as  the Phrygians.


From iglesias at axia.it  Thu Jan 28 00:42:49 1999
From: iglesias at axia.it (Frank Rossi)
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 16:42:49 PST
Subject: In search of Trojans again
Message-ID: <WED.27.JAN.1999.164249.PST.IGLESIAS@AXIA.IT>

Last year on the previous Nostratic list, I raised some questions
concerning the assumed relationship between Rhaetian (or Rhaetic) and
Etruscan.

Since then I've been following the discussions on Indo-Tyrrhenian,
Indo-Anatolian and Indo-European (as defined by MCV), and the thread "In
search of the Trojans", in which the initial question was whether the
language of Troy was Luwian.

Speculation 1: Assuming instead that the language of the Trojans was a
descendant of Indo-Tyrrhenian (the Trojans may also have used Luwian and
other Anatolian languages just as the people in Italian Switzerland and
Luxembourg use French and German), I have noticed an interesting parallel
between the legends concerning the foundation of Rome and Padua as
"reported" by Virgil in the Aeneid.

It seems to me that the "Johnny-come-lately" speakers of Indo-European
Latin and Venetic may have appropriated the more prestigious legendary past
of the neighboring Indo-Tyrrhenian speakers (Etruscans and Rhaetians,
respectively). In other words, the Etruscan and Rhaetian languages may have
been brought to Italy by "refugees from Troy" before 1000 BCE. Thus,
according to this view, Etruscans and Rhaetians originally spoke the same
language, but it diverged over the following centuries. The languages may
also have re-converged later due to the influence of the more prestigious
Etruscan culture as it spread into the Po valley bringing with it, among
other things, the alphabet used by the Rhaetians.
(There may have been earlier Indo-Tyrrhenian (Rassenic) languages, such as
North Picene ?, already in Italy from an earlier date. See for example,
Katachumen's posting of January 11).

Speculation 2:

1) According to Herodotus, the Etruscans came from Lydia, south of Troy.
2) This was accepted by Virgil, who used the terms Lydian and Etruscan
interchangeably.
3) During Roman times, the inhabitants of Sardi, the capital of Lydia, were
officially recognized as "brothers and blood relations of the Etruscan
people".

This suggests to me that the Anatolian language Lydian may have had a
Trojan (Indo-Tyrrhenian) substrate and therefore probably preserved enough
Trojan elements to justify the above claims.

What then were the languages spoken in the Aegean (Greece and western
Anatolia) *at the time of the Trojan war*? I assume a patchwork of
different languages in different places:
a) Languages, with decreasing numbers of speakers, descended directly from
Indo-Tyrrhenian: Trojan ? (which gave rise to Etruscan and Rhaetian by
emigration), Lemnian (which formerly may have been spoken in Attica too).
b) Indo-Anatolian languages (descended from Indo-Tyrrhenian) that had come
back into the area from the north (through the Balkans as suggested by MCV).
c) Indo-European languages, with increasing numbers of speakers, that had
come back into the area from the north (Balkans, Steppes) later still:
pre-Greek, psi-Greek ?, Mycenean Greek.
d) Further east in Anatolia there may also have been pockets here and there
of unrecorded languages, with decreasing numbers of speakers, possibly
related to North Caucasian (going back to Indo-Tyrrhenian times and
earlier) and other languages with self-sustaining numbers of speakers,
probably related to Kartvelian (which must been spoken somewhere in the
area to explain the presence of Georgian).

I am aware that all this is hypothetical, but I would appreciate any
comments.
Regards
Frank Rossi


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Wed Jan 27 15:55:23 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 09:55:23 -0600
Subject: <Language> Re: Caucasus and Kaska
In-Reply-To: <36AD2A97.B9A193DD@montclair.edu>
Message-ID: <WED.27.JAN.1999.095523.0600.RMCCALLI@SUNMUW1.MUW.EDU>

	Cavalli-Sforza postulated that a people with genetical features
similar to the "Bushmen" lived in the Horn of Africa. He was unsure whether
they were a mixed group resulting from intermarriage between Asians and
Africans or whether they actually were a separate group stretching from
Ethipia to South Africa.

	As far as is known, the "San" have always been in southern Africa.
There are groups who postulated as relatives of the "San" who were pushed
from Kenya to the South.

	The term San, I believe, is considered objectional in that it's
based on a term meaning "wretch" or something similar.

>1. The SAn lived in North-East AFrica and were pushed south by Bantu
>speakers (West Africans)

	These arguments over color sound like 19th century romanticist
ethnocentrism

>
>2. The SAn are not "black" but "yellow" (reddish?, copper-colored after
>tanning?)
>
>3. Egyptians painted themselves red (not black and not white)


From mcv at wxs.nl  Wed Jan 27 15:51:34 1999
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 15:51:34 GMT
Subject: Non-IE words in Early Gmc.
In-Reply-To: <v01510102b2d35a532e07@[129.187.26.32]>
Message-ID: <WED.27.JAN.1999.155134.GMT.>

Theo Vennemann's bibliography reminded me of something I read
years ago about non-IE Germanic substrate.  I think it was by
Polomi, in a Festschrift kind of thing (or was it a Festschrift
for Polomi?), but I've lost the reference.  Does that ring a bell
with anybody?

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam


From Georg at home.ivm.de  Wed Jan 27 16:33:36 1999
From: Georg at home.ivm.de (Ralf-Stefan Georg)
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 17:33:36 +0100
Subject: Xinjiang mummies were Celts
In-Reply-To: <C17908DFEFE3D111B5A0006008728B25115B3D@tes_srv5.tes.traceplc.co.uk>
Message-ID: <WED.27.JAN.1999.173336.0100.GEORG@HOME.IVM.DE>

At 10:55 Uhr +0000 26.01.1999, Nicholas Widdows wrote:
>The textile expert Elizabeth Wayland Barber has identified the
>European-appearance mummies found in the Xinjiang desert as Celts from
>Central Europe, according to a report in yesterday's _Guardian_. I don't
>know how much of this is new, but the report presented it as a major
>reassessment in the history of Eastern and Western civilizations, so
>here goes. In her book _The Mummies of Urumchi_, to be published next
>month, she says that their woollen plaids could only have been woven on
>warp-weighted looms, which orginated in "Europe via the Middle East"
>(whatever that means: Europe first then ME?).

And that is how one identifies Celts ? O tempora ...

Stefan Georg
Heerstrasse 7
D-53111 Bonn
FRG
+49-228-69-13-32


From manaster at umich.edu  Wed Jan 27 17:07:14 1999
From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu)
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 12:07:14 -0500
Subject: IE creole?
In-Reply-To: <v01510100b2d47f00f049@[129.187.26.188]>
Message-ID: <WED.27.JAN.1999.120714.0500.>

I know, I was kidding...

On Wed, 27 Jan 1999, Theo Vennemann wrote:

> Before the Celts.

> >On Wed, 27 Jan 1999, manaster at umich.edu wrote:

> >Sure, Arabic, Hebrew, Maltese...

> >On Wed, 27 Jan 1999, Theo Vennemann wrote:

> >> There are people (have been for 99 years) assuming that Semitic or closely
> >> related languages were spoken in the British Isles.

[ Moderator's comment:
  Just trying to lighten the mood a little, by letting this exchange go on.
  --rma ]


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Wed Jan 27 17:14:02 1999
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 17:14:02 +0000
Subject: rate of language change
In-Reply-To: <36AD1CFA.C17214FC@montclair.edu>
Message-ID: <WED.27.JAN.1999.171402.0000.LARRYT@COGS.SUSX.AC.UK>

On Mon, 25 Jan 1999, H. Mark Hubey wrote:

[LT]

> > Britain and the USA are also highly literate, yet changes in all
> > varieties of English are proceeding apace.  In little more than a
> > generation, the loss of /h-/ in the word-initial cluster /hw-/ (as in

> Wow. I don't even notice the difference much in this neighborhood and
> neither does anyone else. The only thing I noticed here is that some
> people, mostly Hispanics, or those that live in Hispanic neighborhoods
> are speaking a clear-l instead of the standard dark-l. Is that "great
> change".

[LT]

> > `white') has spread out across the USA with breathtaking speed.

> "Breathtaking speed"? Are you serious? There wasn't much to notice in
> the first place; that is why nobody noticed it except for a few people
> whose job is to split hairs.

No, not at all.

I am a native speaker of a [hw-]ful variety of English, and I constantly
notice the absence of that [h-] in other people's speech, even after 28
years in England, where that [h-] is long dead.  It's very prominent to
my ears -- and not just because I'm a linguist.

Several weeks ago, I was interviewed by a British woman who asked me the
following question, apparently: "Is this connected to that recent work
on Wales?"  I was absolutely flummoxed for a few seconds, until I
finally worked out, after asking her to repeat the question, that she
was saying "whales".

My mother, who had no training of any kind in linguistics, phonetics or
English language, and not much education of any kind, was also, of
course, a [hw-]-speaker.  She constantly noticed it when the young folks
"dropped the h", and she didn't like it: she considered it sloppy.

About three or four decades ago, [hw-] was general in American speech,
and the loss of [h-] was confined to three smallish and widely separated
areas.  Then, suddenly, h-dropping began spreading across the country
with explosive speed.  Today, I am reliably informed by an American
linguist who's been monitoring this, h-dropping is close to universal,
and the former [hw-] is now confined to what he described as "a handful
of old fogeys".

This new style has even reached the remote valleys of the Allegheny
Mountains, where I come from.  In my home region, all the older
generation, including me, have [hw-].  But, among the younger
generation, that [h-] is completely gone.  All three of my younger
siblings have only [w-], and never [hw-].  And my sister is only
two-and-a-half years younger than me.

Now *that* I call fast.  And losing an entire consonant from
word-initial position strikes me as far from trivial.  It's rather as
though I had grown up surrounded by people pronouncing the /k/ in words
like `knee' and `knot', and then suddenly the whole country had stopped
pronouncing the /k/, except for me and a few other old-timers.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Wed Jan 27 17:40:26 1999
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 12:40:26 EST
Subject: STATISTICS IN LINGUISTICS
Message-ID: <WED.27.JAN.1999.124026.EST.>

In a message dated 1/27/99 11:55:41 AM, proto-language at email.msn.com wrote:

<<Predictive power, IMHO, is based on statistics.>>

Predictive power is based on an effective understanding of cause and effect
relationships.

Statistics are just one way to prove that understanding is correct.  Without a
proper hypothesis, whether gathered statistically or not, there is nothing for
statistics to help prove.  A lingusitic model is a hypothesis, properly used a
statistical sample can help prove if that model is accurate.

However, where there are few occurences to sample and possibly no new
occurences - as in ancient languages - statistical analyses do not carry much
"predictative power".

Also recall if you will that I posted on this list the fact that the Peresus
Project showed a higher occuresnce of purus>red in Greek than ereuthem>red.
This was due to the way Lidell-Scott defined red.  Statistics can only yield
results that fact gathering and prior analysis permit.

Regards,
Steve Long


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Wed Jan 27 17:57:22 1999
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 17:57:22 +0000
Subject: rate of language change
In-Reply-To: <36AD1CFA.C17214FC@montclair.edu>
Message-ID: <WED.27.JAN.1999.175722.0000.LARRYT@COGS.SUSX.AC.UK>

On Mon, 25 Jan 1999, H. Mark Hubey wrote:

> I don't think it useful to even dig into this deeper until there is an
> "operational" definition of "rate of change" of language. So far nobody
> has done it, and most people have attacked me for even entertaining the
> thought that the rate of language change should be measured along with
> lots of other properties and characteristics of language. I suspect that
> some people prefer the present state of affairs because if measurements
> are lacking nobody will be able to catch them stating falsehoods and
> completely unsupported bald assertions.

Mr. Hubey, this is as ignorant as it is offensive.  (Well, you did say
you wanted "vigorous" discussion, didn't you?  ;-) )

To begin with, all statements made by responsible linguists -- among
whom I count myself -- are based directly upon the scrutiny of data.
We have a large and constantly growing body of data on language change,
obtained not only from the scrutiny of documents but also, and
increasingly, from the careful examination of language changes in
progress.

Our predecessors did not know how to study language changes in progress.
Today, we know a good deal about how to do this, thanks mainly to the
efforts of the sociolinguists, to whom I take my hat off.  At any given
moment, there are hundreds of linguists studying language changes in
progress and publishing their findings.

Naturally, we are always interested in rates of change, and we now have
a good deal of data.  That's how I was able to report, in an earlier
posting, that we can find no correlation between the rate of language
change and the degree of sophistication or literacy of a society.

Anyway, the exercise is far from trivial.

First, at any given moment, any given speech variety is in the middle of
a whole bunch of changes.  Some of these may even be competing changes:
different changes which are "trying" to apply to the same words or forms
to produce different outcomes.

Second, some changes are blindingly fast, some are slower, and some are
positively glacial.

Third, changes don't affect every member of a community simultaneously:
they affect some members earlier than others.

Fourth, not all individuals are affected in the same way.  An affected
individual typically exhibits variation between a conservative form and
an innovating form (and frequently also one or two intermediate forms),
and uses each form with some particular frequency.  This frequency
depends both upon the individual and upon the context of speaking.

Consequently, we can't even talk meaningfully about "measuring the rate
of change" until we first clarify exactly what it is we want to measure.

Linguists have now developed techniques for examining the manner and
rate of language change.  We have statistical approaches which, properly
used, can reveal a great deal about these matters.  We have discovered
fascinating correlations between language change and a whole host of
social factors, such as social class, sex, age and context, and even
such things as speakers' attitudes toward their social group and toward
other social groups.  And we have discovered a number of previously
unknown phenomena, such as lexical diffusion, the lower-middle-class
crossover, near-mergers, metatypy, esoterogeny, and the Bill Peters
effect.  (Sorry about the fancy terms, but these are necessary labels
for important and fascinating phenomena.)

You will hear no "falsehoods" from me or from any reputable linguist.
The occasional error, no doubt, but no falsehoods.

And you will also hear no "completely unsupported bald assertions" from
us -- in great contrast to your own postings, I might add.  Everything
we report is based upon the scrutiny of hard linguistic data.
Naturally, I can't reproduce those data here -- life is too short.  But
the data, and the conclusions derived from them, are in the public
domain, and can be examined by anyone who is interested.

[LT]

> > There's a moral here: you can't figure out how languages change by
> > sitting in your armchair and thinking about it.  You have to go out and
> > look at the data.

> Don't be ridiculous. This is one of the standard lines that people like
> you have learned to spout without even having the slightest idea of what
> measurement is about and how to interpret data.

Ooh...Mr. Hubey.

If *you* want to learn something about language change, I suggest you
read some knowledgeable books on the subject, those written by
professional linguists and containing hard data.  May I suggest starting
with my own textbook of historical linguistics, perhaps especially with
chapter 10?  Try reading this, and then try the exercises at the end.
Exercise 10.7 is particularly appropriate, I think.  But all the
exercises here present some data on language change and then invite the
reader to interpret those data.

Let me know how you get on.

> As far as I am concerned you are faceless and nameless.

Interesting, since you know my name so well that your blood pressure
probably rises every time you see it on your mail spool.  And I look
like Richard Dreyfuss -- remember?

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk


From glengordon01 at hotmail.com  Wed Jan 27 18:22:50 1999
From: glengordon01 at hotmail.com (Glen Gordon)
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 10:22:50 PST
Subject: Linguistics vs. the Other UnHuman Sciences
Message-ID: <WED.27.JAN.1999.102250.PST.GLENGORDON01@HOTMAIL.COM>

To Patrick, Claire and others,

>>OK, "initial conditions are irrecoverable with current methods". The
>>best historical linguistics can do at the moment is about 15,000
>>years (at the most - many would say less).

>This is but the assumption beyond the assumption. It has also not
>been proved.

Poor Claire. Patrick would do well to stop this unskilled nick-picking
of words. The above reads "at the moment" meaning "present" and is a
fair assessment of the state of historical linguistics at present, not
about what can be done in the future. It wasn't an assumption or an
"assumption beyond an assumption" (huh?); it was an accurate
observation.

>>Think of the number of dead languages which are preserved in only a
>>few words, and think of how many more there must be for which we
>>have no knowledge whatsoever.

>It is certainly not necessary to know every language that ever has
>been spoken to be able to say with a fair degree of surity whether a
>vocabulary item was liable to have been present in the substratum of
>all language.

Again, I don't think that was exactly Claire's point. The further in
time one tries to delve to recover the state of a language, the more
difficult it becomes because of less and less to work with. This can be
hindered by the lack of knowledge we have of a daughter language group
that may have died before it was ever recorded. This unrecorded language
may have different characteristics that would shed light on a better and
hence more accurate reconstruction of its parent language. This is
simple fact. Doesn't mean that it's impossible to reconstruct the said
language, it just makes it very uncertain, as we all know.

Perhaps, what should be noted is that as opposed to the other sciences
mentioned here (aside from psychology), linguistics deals with the human
factor. A science dealing with this human factor cannot be regimented
into a cookie-cutter approach. Until we can explain with concise
equations how humans react, linguistics will never work the way these
other sciences do. The End.

Hubey, Patrick? Get crackin' with those equations, I want them by the
end of the millenium, and stop scaring people with your arguments
against generally accepted methodology. :)

--------------------------------------------
Glen Gordon
glengordon01 at hotmail.com

Kisses and Hugs
--------------------------------------------


From manaster at umich.edu  Sat Jan 30 11:01:09 1999
From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu)
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1999 06:01:09 -0500
Subject: agglutination in Scandinavian languages, etc.
In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19990128151525.0080ee50@mail.web4you.dk>
Message-ID: <SAT.30.JAN.1999.060109.0500.>

I do not see how this list can flourish if it becomes
a place in which people get a remedial education in
historical linguistics.  I am impressed that there
are people, like Larry and Carol, who have the energy
to undertake this thankless job, but I for one would like
to have a list where issues of Indo-European historical
linguistics could be discussed instead.  And I don't
think that there is another one besides this one(:-).

So, please, can we switch to talking about IE, a novel
idea for a list devoted to IE I know, but still...

[ Moderator's response:
  An occasional refresher in the basics of historical linguistics is called for
  from time to time, but I am calling a halt to the long discussions of method
  which have swamped this list for the last week.  For those who wish to pursue
  them further, Mark Hubey has a mailing list on which they are on-topic, at
  language-list at iliad.montclair.edu.
  --rma ]

Speaking of which, does anybody have a handy list of
clear examples showing what happens to PIE *-tn- and *-dn-
in Slavic?  The bigger the list, the better.

AMR


From oldgh at hum.au.dk  Fri Jan 29 10:50:49 1999
From: oldgh at hum.au.dk (George Hinge)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 10:50:49 MET
Subject: Greek question
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.3.91.990127171032.27536A-100000@travelers.mail.cornell.edu>
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.105049.MET.OLDGH@HUM.AU.DK>

Wayles Browne:
> Nyx has stem nykt-os. So why do some derivatives have nykh- as
> in nykhios, pannykhis etc? Frisk's etym.dict. just says one
> stem is 'neben' the other. Has anyone figured out anything
> more informative?

Chantraine, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue grec, s.v.:

"L'aspiree de ennychios, pannychios, etc., est propre au grec et
reste mal expliquee. M. Lejeune, Phonetique, p. 37, n. 1, suppose
qu'elle peut representer eun gwh- modifie sous l'action de u, ou un
gh. Voir encore Pokorny 762 pour d'autres donnees plus ou moins
sures. Selon une hypothese plausible de Panagl, KZ 85, 1971, 49 sq.
l'aspiree serait issue par fausse interpretation du nom. nyx ou le t
n'apparait pas et ou le x comportait une prononciation aspiree, dans
des hypostases comme ennychios, etc."

I am not satisfied with either of the explications cited in
Chantraine (I don't have a Pokorny); Lejeune does not solve the
problem, he just transplant it to the PIE phase. And I don't see how
the native speaker would make a false interpretation of nyx,
when he had -kt- in all the oblique cases (except the dative plural,
of course).

**********************************
 George Hinge
 The Department of Greek and Latin
 The University of Aarhus, Denmark
 oldgh at hum.aau.dk
**********************************


From w.behr at em.uni-frankfurt.de  Fri Jan 29 10:46:23 1999
From: w.behr at em.uni-frankfurt.de (WB (in Frankfurt today))
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 11:46:23 +0100
Subject: Gmc. *fugla- (was: Non-IE words in Gmc.)
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.114623.0100.W.BEHR@EM.UNIFRANKFURT.DE>

Rick Mc Callister's _very_ nice list of Germanic words in search
of an (IE?, Semitic?, "Atlantic"? ...) etymology reminds me of a
poem by the celebrated Austrian poeta doctus Raoul Schrott from
his recent anthology _Tropen_, in which he talks about a solitary
bird, who is just as lonesome as the German word _Vogel_, "which
has no etymology". This probably refers to the treatment of the
word in standard dictionaries like Pokorny, Pfeifer et al., Kluge
etc., where dissimilation from *flugla- or the connection with
Lith. pau~ks^tis, Latv. puty'tis, OCSl p6tica (< IE *po:u-, *pu[:]-,
"little, small" --> "small animal") are rightfully rejected. Yet I
am sure  here must have been other suggestions & speculations in
the literature. Any pointers?

Thanks & cheers, Wolfgang

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  Wolfgang Behr, Lecturer in Chinese History & Philosophy
  Dept. of East Asian Studies, Ruhr-University Bochum, FRG
  mail: OAW, Universitaetsstr. 150, UB-5, 44780 Bochum, FRG
  Fax +49-234-709-4449; <Wolfgang.Behr at ruhr-uni-bochum.de>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


From tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de  Fri Jan 29 11:05:37 1999
From: tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de (Theo Vennemann)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 12:05:37 +0100
Subject: IE-Semitic connections
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.120537.0100.TVN@CIS.UNIMUENCHEN.DE>

>Well, we have a problem then because there was definitely some kind of
>contact (whether direct or indirect) between IE and Semitic. Both IE
>*s(w)eks "six" and *septm "seven" show painfully clear evidence of that,
>and yet I can't find any language group from which IE could have
>borrowed these words except for North Semitic itself.

>You say Akkadian may have came from the southwest but are the Akkadians
>the only offspring of North Semitic? Do we really know where other
>branches of North Semitic might have gone?

Those and related problems do not exist if the earliest Semitic-IE contacts
are assumed to have occurred in Europe.

In particular, you receive an elegant solution for Germanic and Etruscan
(and Basque) showing t-less forms of the seven-word: independent borrow-
ing of the t-less Semitic form.

Theo Vennemann
29 January 1999


From mcv at wxs.nl  Fri Jan 29 12:45:28 1999
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 12:45:28 GMT
Subject: IE creole?
In-Reply-To: <l03130302b2d1267d2e2c@[207.120.0.95]>
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.124528.GMT.>

Rick Mc Callister <rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu> wrote:

>	Pidgins [e.g. Mobilian,] existed among stone-age farmers in the New
>World. Plains Sign Language existed among hunters and gatherers. So I don't
>se how creoles would have been impossible.

It's not clear whether Mobilian Jargon, Plains Sign Language and
other New World pidgins/contact languages predate European
contact.

>	Given the greater number and presumed greater diversity of
>languages, there would have been many more opportunities for creoles to
>arise.
>	Many hunter-gatherer bands would have been so small that exogamy
>was most likely necessary for many of them to survive. Small bands were
>always forming confederations, splitting apart and forming new
>confederations, assimilating smaller or defeated neighbors, etc.
>	If half or so of the population spoke a foreign language, then some
>degree of creolization or language mixing would have been inevitable.

I'm not convinced that creoles as such ever arose before the era
of European colonial expansion.  The conditions that you outline
above (great linguistic diversity, exogamy, etc.) did lead to
widespread bi- or multilingualism, "Sprachbuende", trade/contact
languages spoken or understood over wide areas vs. "in-group"
languages spoken only within a single small tribe, and of course
language death and replacement.  But I don't believe that
episodes of true creolization or true language mixing were very
common at all before the exceptional circumstances of European
expansion.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam


From mcv at wxs.nl  Fri Jan 29 12:51:00 1999
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 12:51:00 GMT
Subject: Hurrians
In-Reply-To: <11ec0296.36af751c@aol.com>
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.125100.GMT.>

JoatSimeon at aol.com wrote:

>The whole of northern Mesopotamia,
>northern Syria, and eastern Anatolia was Hurrian/Urartian speaking at least as
>far back as the 3rd millenium BC.

There were no Hurrians in Northern Mesopotamia and Syria until
2200 BC or so.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam


From mcv at wxs.nl  Fri Jan 29 13:04:49 1999
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 13:04:49 GMT
Subject: Greek question
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.3.91.990127171032.27536A-100000@travelers.mail.cornell.edu>
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.130449.GMT.>

ewb2 at cornell.edu wrote:

>Nyx has stem nykt-os. So why do some derivatives have nykh- as
>in nykhios, pannykhis etc? Frisk's etym.dict. just says one
>stem is 'neben' the other. Has anyone figured out anything
>more informative?

I guess this could be explained by the so-called "Pelasgian"
theory as a word taken from a non-Greek IE substrate/adstrate
language, where *k(w) > kh (and *gh(w) > g, *g(w) > k, etc., as
in Armenian).

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Fri Jan 29 14:35:09 1999
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 14:35:09 +0000
Subject: rate of change
In-Reply-To: <36AFD630.EC77BB72@montclair.edu>
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.143509.0000.LARRYT@COGS.SUSX.AC.UK>

[ Moderator's comment:
  Just finishing up this topic.
  --rma ]

On Wed, 27 Jan 1999, H. Mark Hubey wrote:

> First we have to agree to measure rate of language change. Then we
> have to measure it. Then we can run all the statistical tests on
> data that linguists don't want :-)

*First* we have to agree on what *exactly* it is that we want to try to
measure.  "Measuring the rate of language change" is every bit as
diffuse a concept as "measuring the rate of social change".

Take a *much* simpler example.  How fast has baseball changed in the
20th century?  We've seen changes in the nature of the ball, many
changes in the rules, the introduction of the DH in one league but not
in the other, the introduction of new pitches, the replacement of "play
for one run" by "big bang" (except for Gene Mauch, of course), new
fielding strategies, new ballparks, night games, specialist coaches,
specialist relief pitchers, the uppercut swing, warning tracks, padding
on the walls, larger and better-conditioned players, bigger and better
gloves, larger rosters, the farm system, TV, salary inflation, black and
Hispanic players, intense competition from other sports, new statistics,
repeated changes in the strike zone, a commissioner, free agency,
colored uniforms, new fabrics, and zillions of other things.  How does
all of this add up to something we could quantify as "the rate of change
in baseball"?

And language change is a *lot* more complicated than baseball change.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Fri Jan 29 14:41:47 1999
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 14:41:47 +0000
Subject: rate of language change
In-Reply-To: <36AFD7B9.78A544BB@montclair.edu>
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.144147.0000.LARRYT@COGS.SUSX.AC.UK>

On Wed, 27 Jan 1999, H. Mark Hubey wrote:

[on change in contemporary French]

> This is interesting. Is it possible it is due to the rising of
> educational levels

Hardly.  Greater education means greater exposure to standard French --
yet spoken French is moving *away from* standard French, not toward it.

> and greater susceptibility of the upper classes
> and movers&shakers (fashion/trendsetters) to the Anglo-American
> culture (dare I say, cultural-imperialism :-))?

No.  French is not changing in a way that makes it more like English.
English words, of course, are pouring into French, but the conspicuous
syntactic changes are, on the whole, making the language *less* like
English than it was before.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk


From mcv at wxs.nl  Fri Jan 29 14:59:42 1999
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 14:59:42 GMT
Subject: IE-Semitic connections
In-Reply-To: <19990127184541.8302.qmail@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.145942.GMT.>

"Glen Gordon" <glengordon01 at hotmail.com> wrote:

>Well, we have a problem then because there was definitely some kind of
>contact (whether direct or indirect) between IE and Semitic. Both IE
>*s(w)eks "six" and *septm "seven" show painfully clear evidence of that,
>and yet I can't find any language group from which IE could have
>borrowed these words except for North Semitic itself.

The contrast between the initial consonants of the words for "6"
and "7" does indeed suggest a NE Semitic origin.  Akkadian, and
no other Semitic language, has a contrast between 6 s^is^s^(et)
and 7 sebe(tt), i.e. shibilant vs. sibilant.  We find the same
contrast in Sanskrit (s.at. ~ sapta), Avestan (xs^vas^ ~ hapta),
Welsh (chwech ~ saith), Lithuanian (s^es^i ~ septyni) and Slavic
(s^estI ~ sedmI).  Possibly in Armenian (vec` ~ ewt`n) and Greek
(hex/wex ~ hepta) as well.  The same happens in Etruscan (s'a ~
semph) and Basque (sei ~ zazpi).  (But in Kartvelian it's exactly
the other way around: ekvsi ~ s^vidi, usgwa ~ is^gwid etc.).
No contrast is found in Latin, Irish, Germanic and Tocharian
(Albanian gjashte" ~ shtate" is unclear.  The Hittite for "6" is
unknown).  Germanic additionally lacks the /t/ that is found
elsewhere in *sebm.

>I take the word *eg'oh in IE to be a realisation of
>the North Semitic word *anaku (Hey, does anyone have any better theories
>on that word? I rest my case).

I fail to see much of a connection between *eg^oH ~ *eg^(h)om and
ana:ku.  The word is post-Anatolian (which has *amu-), unless
Hittite uk (besides ammuk) is related, which I doubt.  It appears
to be composed of the pronominal root *(H1)e-, the emphatic
particle *-g(h)e- (as in Greek ego:-ge, eme-ge etc., German mich,
dich, sich, Ven. meXo, Hittite ammuk, tuk, etc.) and the first
person singular marker *-m or *-H(2).  More or less the same
elements as in Hittite ammuk (pronominal a-, 1p.sg. enclictic
-mu-, emphatic -k), but ordered and ablauted differently.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam


From mcv at wxs.nl  Fri Jan 29 15:08:13 1999
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 15:08:13 GMT
Subject: NSemitic borrowings: in response to Greg Web
In-Reply-To: <19990127235256.3328.qmail@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.150813.GMT.>

"Glen Gordon" <glengordon01 at hotmail.com> wrote:

>Miguel
>believes as well that Etruscan semph is an odd sort of metathesis of the
>IE form *septm

Well, what I actually suggested was metathesis of *sepm ~ *sebm,
without the /t/, as in Germanic [and Samoyed (???)].

It doesn't *necessarily* follow that the word was borrowed from a
t-less model.  A cluster /ptm/ might easily have been reduced
anywhere along the line to /bm/ (Germanic), /mp/ (Etruscan) or
/dm/ (Slavic).

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam


From iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu  Fri Jan 29 15:15:56 1999
From: iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 09:15:56 -0600
Subject: Various
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.091556.0600.>

	I agree whole-heartedly with Rossi's speculations.  I don't think
they are "provable" (an over-used word in this field), but I agree.
Trojan <-> Etruscan/Tuscan <-> Tyrrhenian <-> Tursha.  They are all
variants of the same word.  I just wonder whether "Tarsus" and "Taurus" go
in there.

	Polome (if that is what "Polomi" meant) did indeed do a study of
non-IE substrate in Germanic.  I do not know precisely where.

					DLW


From mcv at wxs.nl  Fri Jan 29 15:39:18 1999
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 15:39:18 GMT
Subject: IE in Balkans and Semitic?
In-Reply-To: <19990128024117.12603.qmail@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.153918.GMT.>

"Glen Gordon" <glengordon01 at hotmail.com> wrote:

>>As I understand Miguel et al., IE-speakers were on the western or NW end of
>>the Black Sea: Hungary & Rumania, and I suppose Moldova & W Ukraine.

>It's still very western. What about horses? Were their horses in
>Anatolia/Balkans at the timing you suggest, Miguel? I thought they were
>pretty much in the Steppes.

There were horses in the LBK/TRB zone (Low Countries-Poland).
Not domesticated, though, and a different sub-species from steppe
horses.  I'm not aware of any horses in the Balkans, but the
Balkans are close enough to the steppe and N. Europe for the
animal to have been known there (after all, European languages
have words for lion, elephant and rhino).

>But then, come to think of it, is there an
>Anatolian version of *?ekwos ?

There is Hier. Luwian <asuwa-> "horse".  Now on account of the
-s- this looks suspiciously like an Indo-Iranian borrowing at
first sight. However, the Hier. Luwian word for "dog" appears to
have been <suwana->, and a borrowing from Indo-Iranian seems much
less likely when it comes to dogs.  So maybe *k^u > su is the
native Luwian development, and <asuwa> comes from PIE *ek^wos
directly.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Fri Jan 29 15:55:47 1999
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 15:55:47 +0000
Subject: Why *p>*f?
In-Reply-To: <8ae84d96.36b005ef@aol.com>
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.155547.0000.LARRYT@COGS.SUSX.AC.UK>

On Thu, 28 Jan 1999 X99Lynx at aol.com wrote:

> That brings up a question that has been bothering me for a while. We
> know the rule PIE *p > P-German *f.  As in eg "five" -
> *penkwe>*fimfi (or as in pisce>fish). Now I take that to be a found
> or discovered rule.

Yes.  It is a historical occurrence which linguists discovered.

> In other words, there is nothing in linguistics
> that demands this particular sound change in and of itself.

Absolutely correct.

> It's just acknowledged to have happened that way very consistently
> between the two languages then and afterwards in a whole set of
> instances.

More precisely, */p/ changed to /f/ in an ancestor of all the Germanic
languages in most (not all) circumstances, but remained /p/ in most (not
all) other IE languages.  We can't tell if /p/ changed to [f]
simultaneously in all words, or only gradually, a few words at a time.
The traditional view endorses the first, but many linguists today would
put their money on the second.

> So not as a linguistic matter, but as a matter of "external forces,"
> why *f? Why not *b or *bh or *pw or any other approximate sound or
> why not just stick with *p?

It is not possible to answer questions like these.  If *anything*
happens to /p/ in a language, we know from experience that it's more
likely to change to /f/ or /h/ than to, say, /bh/ or /m/ or /k/.
But we can't predict that a change will happen at all, and we can't
predict which particular change will happen.  Language change is far too
contingent and far too social.

In High German, providing we follow the traditional view, and not
Vennemann's bifurcational theory, */p/ changed to /pf/ -- an
extraordinary development, rarely if ever seen elsewhere.

> (And if it was caused by a group rearrangement of sounds, then what
> external forces caused that particular rearrangement?)

This change was part of a much larger set of systematic changes commonly
called `Grimm's Law'.  But there is no reason to suspect any "external
forces".

> Was it contact with a third language?

Possible, but unlikely.  Anyway, having no knowledge of any such "third
language" (second language, actually), we cannot usefully explore this
possibility.  Anyway, */p/ changed to /f/, */b/ changed to /p/, and
*/bh/ changed to /b/, and what kind of second language could have that
kind of effect?  Germanic had /p/ and /b/ before the changes, and it had
/p/ and /b/ after the changes, so you can't "explain" the changes by
appealing to an unknown language which lacked /p/ or /b/.

> Was it a physical characteristic, the lips, say, of the people who
> made the change?

*Certainly* not.

> Was it a factor of the weather?

Even more certainly not.

> Was it religious or neurological?

Absolutely not.

> Was it random and is that a good enough explanation?

We don't use the word `random'.  If we could observe the change in
progress, we would *probably* find that a handful of people began
pronouncing /p/ as [f], that some other people started to copy them for
some social reason, and that finally everyone was using the new
pronunciation.  This is the way most language changes appear to proceed
when we get the chance to watch them happening.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Fri Jan 29 16:32:22 1999
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 16:32:22 +0000
Subject: rate of language change
In-Reply-To: <008f01be4aee$ddc1f3a0$e1ecabc3@niywlxpn>
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.163222.0000.LARRYT@COGS.SUSX.AC.UK>

On Thu, 28 Jan 1999, Peter &/or Graham wrote:

> Larry said:
> > Paul, Marie, elle a couche avec.
> >you won't find this construction in any
> >reference grammar of French.

> There are two different things here:  the preposition at the end, and the
> naming of players before the sentence proper.   I want to reply about the
> naming of players.

> (a) I don't know what this last device is called - it's clearly a form of
> topicalisation - does it have a special name?

OK.  The underlying sentence is this:

	Marie a couche avec Paul.

You can express this in two other ways, both of them acceptable to my
French students:

	Paul, Marie a couche avec.

	Marie, elle a couche avec Paul.

The first of these illustrates topicalization, and the second
illustrates left-dislocation.  My original example illustrates both of
these at the same time, which is what makes it so strange.

There is also right-dislocation:

	Marie a couche avec lui, Paul.

I believe this is also normal in spoken French.  Indeed, spoken French
commonly uses both left- and right-dislocation in the same sentence, as
in one of my other examples:

	Jean, il l'a achetee, la bagnole.

> (b) There are grammars which mention it.   I know that only because I have
> read about it, but I can't remember where.   Examples were such things as
> "Marie, le livre, elle l'a lu."

And this is *double* left-dislocation!  It's a fine example of the
rather dramatic changes occurring in French sentence structure.  If this
becomes the norm, then French will effectively have a sentence structure
like this:

	Marie le livre ellalu.

That is, Subject-Object-Verb word order, with a verb exhibiting both
subject agreement and object agreement -- exactly what we find in
Basque, for instance.

This is a magnificent example of how a language can change its
grammatical structure drastically, including even its word order, in a
very short time.  And, of course, with *no* "external influence".

What is happening in French is what we call `markedness shift' -- that
is, originally marked constructions are increasingly being preferred in
cases in which speakers formerly preferred the originally unmarked
construction, with the (possible) result that the former marked patterns
are becoming unmarked (ordinary), while the former unmarked pattern is
becoming marked (confined to certain special circumstances).  French
hasn't gone all the way yet, but it might.

> (c) I happened to met it in Italian this very morning on the train,
> in a slush novel - though I haven't seen it mentioned in grammar
> books for that language.  Anyone know how common it is in Italian?

I know little about Italian, but Anna Giacalone Ramat has reported that
spoken Italian has grammatical features not to be found in the reference
grammars.  Her example is the `personal a' -- now standard in Spanish,
supposedly absent in Italian, but actually (she says) very common.

> And does it occur in Spanish?

Spanish has lots of "pleonastic" pronouns, but I'm not aware that
Spanish is doing what French is doing.  Maybe somebody else knows.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Fri Jan 29 17:07:40 1999
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 12:07:40 EST
Subject: Why *p>*f?
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.120740.EST.>

In a message dated 1/29/99 10:56:03 AM, Larry Trask wrote:

<<Yes.  It is a historical occurrence which linguists discovered....
It is not possible to answer questions like these.>>

Thanks for explaining this.

Of course, I had two reasons for asking.  The first was to offer Mr Hubey a
problem in "external causes" that might be easily handled before the bell
rings:

(In a message dated 1/27/99 8:48:31 PM, M. Hubey wrote:
<<<If one is going to examine all the external forces that influenced language
in history, however, it would be best to bring one's lunch.>

Nah. An undergrad in linguistics will solve the problem before the bell
rings.>>)

I thought this might be a good one.

My point about external cultural influences on language structure was that
they can be incredibly complex and unpredictable, and therefore not suited to
meaningful simulation models.  Simply because there is no telling where the
vector of change may come from.

In the case of *p>f, the non-linguistic cause could be anything.  And my point
is that such questions are at best on the fringes of linguistics and should
not interfere with the narrow but rigorous approach of the discipline.

<<We don't use the word `random'.  If we could observe the change in
progress, we would *probably* find that a handful of people began
pronouncing /p/ as [f], that some other people started to copy them for
some social reason, and that finally everyone was using the new
pronunciation.  This is the way most language changes appear to proceed when
we get the chance to watch them happening.>>

It seems that's all that needs to be said linguistically. But if we are truly
trying to figure "external causes," we couldn't just stop at that handful of
people who began pronouncing /p/ as [f].  We'd have to ask why.  Why did it
start?  If variance had started more than once, why did this particular
variant catch on?  Why did any variant catch on?  What social reason?
Fashion?  Totalitarism?  Did it represent a sub-culture or an affiliation?  Or
a imitation of a forign accent?  And it seems we don't have any any real
historical evidence to rely on.  Can we analogize modern social change to
prehistoric societies? Etc., etc., etc. (BTW, perhaps "random" could stand for
"it doesn't matter for our purposes," as it does in some other sciences.)

Going back to my original point to Mr. Hubey, <<If one is going to examine all
the external forces that influenced language in history, however, it would be
best to bring one's lunch.>>

Thankfully linguistics doesn't need to do any of that.  And does quite a good
job with the tools it has, from what I can see.

Regards,
Steve Long


From tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de  Fri Jan 29 17:55:41 1999
From: tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de (Theo Vennemann)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 18:55:41 +0100
Subject: rate of language change
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.185541.0100.TVN@CIS.UNIMUENCHEN.DE>

> ...
>This new style has even reached the remote valleys of the Allegheny
>Mountains, where I come from.  In my home region, all the older
>generation, including me, have [hw-].  But, among the younger
>generation, that [h-] is completely gone.  All three of my younger
>siblings have only [w-], and never [hw-].  And my sister is only
>two-and-a-half years younger than me.

>Now *that* I call fast.  And losing an entire consonant from
>word-initial position strikes me as far from trivial.  It's rather as
>though I had grown up surrounded by people pronouncing the /k/ in words
>like `knee' and `knot', and then suddenly the whole country had stopped
>pronouncing the /k/, except for me and a few other old-timers.

Dear Larry,

It may not be a useful part of your educational effort, but from a linguistic
point of view the loss of word-initial h is a slow process which began before
stronger consonants in Old English and worked its way down the consonantal
scale until it hit the position before w. Even though w is not quite finished
yet (there are still some old-timers--your term--saying hw- such as yourself),
the sound change is now working on the pre-vocalic position. By the time of
its completion the entire sound change will probably have taken a little more
than a thousand years. This sound change has been most carefully described
and explained in chapter 1 (et passim) of the following book:

Lutz, Angelika. 1991. Phonotaktisch gesteuerte Konsonantenveraenderungen
in der Geschichte des Englischen (= Linguistische Arbeiten, 272). Tuebingen:
Max Niemeyer.

See also, by the same author:

"Lautwandel und palaeographische Evidenz: Die Wiedergabe von /h/ (<
germ. /x/) in der Lindisfarne-Glosse", Anglia, 111 (1993), 285-309.

"On the historical phonotactics of English", in Luick Revisited: Papers read
at the Luick-Symposium at Schlo? Liechtenstein, September 15-18, 1985,
ed. by Dieter Kastovsky and Gero Bauer (Tuebingen: Narr, 1988), 221-239.

Respectfully yours, as always,
Theo.


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Fri Jan 29 20:04:22 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 15:04:22 EST
Subject: (no subject)
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.150422.EST.>

>(Glen Gordon)

>Well, we have a problem then because there was definitely some kind of
>contact (whether direct or indirect) between IE and Semitic.

-- and probably the word for "axe", too.  However, these could equally easily
be wander-words, or relayed through other languages.  They don't imply
geographical propinquity in the same way as the much more numerous PIE-Finno-
Ugrian loans.

>You say Akkadian may have came from the southwest but are the Akkadians
>the only offspring of North Semitic?

-- East Semitic, actually.  So far, it's all we have.


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Fri Jan 29 18:09:24 1999
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 13:09:24 EST
Subject: Modality-Independent Evolution
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.130924.EST.>

In a message dated 1/29/99 3:42:35 AM, DLW wrote:

<<A language is not some sort of abstract system that develops in the ethereal
realm, free from functional considerations. >>

And the physical world is not an abstract system, but physics is.
Linguistics, like any discipline, limits its purview to handle a manageable
and pertinent number of variables.  Within this scope, it shows admirable
predictive power.

<<Language is constrained and influenced by external forces, such as
the need for clear perception and for "ease of articulation".>>

That's just a small start.  Language is a cultural, a biological and a
physical event.  And a full functional analysis brings into play all the
consequences of anyone speaking language, anywhere.  And that includes not
only the effects on the world and others and on oneself but also the context
in which they happen.  And there probably are cases where language is meant
NOT to promote either clear perception or "ease of articulation."

Once one travels beyond the methodology of linguistics, the variables one
ought to consider honestly become very large in number.

<<Biological evolution is fundamentally conservative, as it must be.>>

Just read some new work coming out of the fact that there are 10million to
100million viruses in a single teaspoon of ocean water, with over 600,000
species (if you'd call them that.)  There may be more animal life at the
bottom of the sea than there is on the surface of the earth.  There may be as
many as 1,000 new microbe species created every day.

The number one consequence of evolution is biological diversity.  The
mechanism of genetics attempts to conserve forms from one generation to the
next.  Over the long run, it has been no match for evolution.  Or we'd all be
unicellular microbes right now.  That was the point of Origin of the Species.

<<...but fundamentally the basis for any new entity is the old entity,
biological or linguistic.>>

That is somewhat true, but the mechanisms are entirely different.  In between
the old and new - there is much more that goes on in biology.  A word, not
being an entity or a species, does not have to go through natural selection to
emerge differently.

<<Using Darwian rather than Lamarckian ways of thinking does not
help at all in the difficult business of sorting out which traits are
archaisms and which are innovations.>>

But it does.  Culture is Lamarckian.  Traits can be passed on in less than a
lifetime and can be the result of intention.  There is no intention in natural
selection, only a continuous output of diversity.  Innovations and "archaisms"
are all the same to evolution - there is no sorting out between them.

<<They just had no way of knowing that the trait in question was an
archaism.>>

I don't know the study.  But recorded cases of stripes showing up in horses
are called "avatars" and have to do with generations-skipping recessive traits
in genes.  If the stripes are archaic, it would probably mean they came from a
common ancestor, but may have skipped many generations (in horses or zebra
ancestors.)  Its either that or parallel development - e.g., bats and birds
both have wings, but their common ancestor did not.  Wings developed
independently in both.  One or the other.  Nothing more.

<<It was DNA studies that led to the conclusion that "there is no such thing
as zebras"...>>

Quite to the contrary, there are still zebras.  They may just no longer
qualify as a species.

[ Moderator's comment:
  I think they qualify as 3 species, but not a single genus.  But I'm not a
  biologist, I'm a linguist, so I must state that this is a provisional, if
  moderately informed, opinion.
  --rma ]

<<"the intergrade problem">>  This is a taxonomic problem.  It doesn't affect
the analysis of descent.  Hybrids do this all the time and in them it is a
genetic matter.

The comparison of biological evolution to language studies probably has much
validity, but its hard to see how it directly affects linguistics, which
applies a special but different methodology and for good reasons.

Regards,
Steve Long


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Fri Jan 29 18:22:30 1999
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 18:22:30 +0000
Subject: rate of language change
In-Reply-To: <v01510102b2d7512e0b92@[129.187.26.156]>
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.182230.0000.LARRYT@COGS.SUSX.AC.UK>

On Fri, 29 Jan 1999, Theo Vennemann wrote:

> It may not be a useful part of your educational effort, but from a
> linguistic point of view the loss of word-initial h is a slow
> process which began before stronger consonants in Old English and
> worked its way down the consonantal scale until it hit the position
> before w. Even though w is not quite finished yet (there are still
> some old-timers--your term--saying hw- such as yourself), the sound
> change is now working on the pre-vocalic position. By the time of
> its completion the entire sound change will probably have taken a
> little more than a thousand years.

Theo is, of course, quite right: the consonant /h/ has been gradually
disappearing from English over many hundreds of years.  In some
varieties in England, it is now totally gone.  Elsewhere, it remains to
varying degrees.

This story is so fascinating that I've presented a popular summary of it
in ch. 5 of my little book Language: The Basics.

But my point is that, while the American loss of [h-] in [hw-] is
admittedly just part of a much larger development, this particular part
has been happening with astounding speed.  A generation ago, most
Americans still had [hw-].  Today, only a handful of us still do, and we
are not, on the whole, a youthful group.

In great contrast, some of the other steps in the erosion of [h] seem to
have occurred with almost agonizing slowness, with [h]-ful and [h]-less
pronunciations coexisting side by side for centuries.

[snip references]

Many thanks for the references, Theo.  I'm not acquainted with Lutz's
work.  I've taken most of my historical information on this from the
various works of Jim Milroy -- who himself cites some of Lutz's work, of
course.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk


From mcv at wxs.nl  Fri Jan 29 18:27:07 1999
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 18:27:07 GMT
Subject: rate of language change
In-Reply-To: <36AFD7B9.78A544BB@montclair.edu>
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.182707.GMT.>

"H. Mark Hubey" <HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu> wrote:

>Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote:
>>
>> Colloquial French has been interpreted as VSO (e.g. in the
>> database of Johanna Nichols' "Linguistic Diversity in Space and
>> Time", based on Stephen J. Matthews 1989 "French in Flux", in:
>> Walsh, Thomas J. "Synchronic and Diachronic Approaches to
>> Linguistic Variation and Change", and Martin Harris 1978 "The
>> Evolution of French Syntax: a Comparative Approach").
>
>This is interesting. Is it possible it is due to the rising of
>educational levels and greater susceptibility of the upper classes
>and movers&shakers (fashion/trendsetters) to the Anglo-American
>culture (dare I say, cultural-imperialism :-))?

No.

To use Larry's example, in Anglo-American you don't say "John he
it has bought the car" or "He it has bought John the car" ("il
l'a achetee, Jean, la bagnole").

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam


From donncha at eskimo.com  Fri Jan 29 18:50:53 1999
From: donncha at eskimo.com (Dennis King)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 10:50:53 -0800
Subject: Atlantic substrate of Insular Celtic
In-Reply-To: <v01510105b2d64b18bbd2@[129.187.26.236]>
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.105053.0800.DONNCHA@ESKIMO.COM>

Theo Vennemann wrote:

> Insular Celtic is structurally an Atlantic language (it is structurally
> more similar to Arabic than to any non-Insular Celtic Indo-European
> language), whereas Germanic is not.

I can see, first off, that I really need to get hold of your
"Etymologische Beziehungen im Alten Europa", which Dr. Hildegard
Tristram recommended to me once before.

In the meantime, would you be willing to summarize for us some
telling evidence in favor of the Atlantic substrate hypothesis?
I'd be especially interested in any specific words in Old Irish
you can trace to such a substrate.

Best regards,
Dennis King


From iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu  Fri Jan 29 19:15:16 1999
From: iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 13:15:16 -0600
Subject: Modality-Independent Evolution
In-Reply-To: <5d422dd7.36b1f954@aol.com>
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.131516.0600.>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

On Fri, 29 Jan 1999 X99Lynx at aol.com wrote:

>In a message dated 1/29/99 3:42:35 AM, DLW wrote:

><<A language is not some sort of abstract system that develops in the ethereal
> realm, free from functional considerations. >>

> And the physical world is not an abstract system, but physics is.

	So is any model.  I do not think we are disagreeing about anythng
here.

><<Language is constrained and influenced by external forces, such as
> the need for clear perception and for "ease of articulation".>>

> That's just a small start.

	Yes.  As opposed to a big start?

> Once one travels beyond the methodology of linguistics, the variables one
> ought to consider honestly become very large in number.

	Yes.  The same is true for biology, weather prediction ...

> <<Biological evolution is fundamentally conservative, as it must be.>>

> Just read some new work coming out of the fact that there are 10million to
> 100million viruses in a single teaspoon of ocean water,

	That is a result of the very large time (and size of the system)
involved.  But the process of reproduction remains fundamentally
conservative, despite specific mechanisms designed (in effect) to make it
less absolulely so, permitting progress/change, which is what I was
working up to, if I may be spared having to respond to obstructionistic
sniping along the way.  Trust me, I am not a complete idiot (only a
partial idiot) and do have something to say.

> The number one consequence of evolution is biological diversity. The
> mechanism of genetics attempts to conserve forms from one generation to the
> next.  Over the long run, it has been no match for evolution.  Or we'd all be
> unicellular microbes right now.  That was the point of Origin of the Species.

	Yes.  I am well aware of that.  As, usual, it seems we are not in
fact disagreeing about anything.  I would urge a more careful reading, so
that we do not waste everybody's time re-stating the obvious to an already
impatient audience.

><<...but fundamentally the basis for any new entity is the old entity,
> biological or linguistic.>>

> That is somewhat true, but the mechanisms are entirely different.

	Of course they are different.  The question is to what extent
there are "abstract" modality-independent similarities in the general
patterns that result.

> In between the old and new - there is much more that goes on in biology.  A
> word, not being an entity or a species, does not have to go through natural
> selection to emerge differently.

	I was not talking about words, I was talking about languages.

><<Using Darwian rather than Lamarckian ways of thinking does not help at all
> in the difficult business of sorting out which traits are archaisms and which
> are innovations.>>

> But it does.  Culture is Lamarckian.  Traits can be passed on in less than a
> lifetime and can be the result of intention.

	What we have here is failure to communicate.

> There is no intention in natural selection, only a continuous output of
> diversity.  Innovations and "archaisms" are all the same to evolution there
> is no sorting out between them.

	That is true of any species or language, judged synchronically.

><<They just had no way of knowing that the trait in question was an
> archaism.>>

> I don't know the study.  But recorded cases of stripes showing up in horses
> are called "avatars" and have to do with generations-skipping recessive
> traits in genes.  If the stripes are archaic, it would probably mean they
> came from a common ancestor, but may have skipped many generations (in horses
> or zebra ancestors.)  Its either that or parallel development - e.g., bats
> and birds both have wings, but their common ancestor did not.  Wings
> developed independently in both.  One or the other.  Nothing more.

	Theoretically the stripes could be a convergence.  This is
roughly equivalent to functional considerations in language leading to
similarities thay may be mistaken as indicating common descent.

><<It was DNA studies that led to the conclusion that "there is no such
> thing as zebras"...>> > >

> Quite to the contrary, there are still zebras.

I meant zebras as a sub-group within equids, as I believe was quite clear.

	<<"the intergrade problem">>

> This is a taxonomic problem.  It doesn't affect the analysis
> of descent.

	It is result of the process of descent.

> The comparison of biological evolution to language studies probably has much
> validity,

	Yes.

> but its hard to see how it directly affects linguistics,

	Yes.  (Especially if one is trying hard not to.)  Sometimes in
order to tell whether a road is a dead-end, you have to go down it.  My
main point is that there is (potentially) more here than "all that
Schleicher stuff".  The Ringge (sp?) thing, I note in closing, could with
appropriate modifications be just as applicable to biology as to
linguistics.

					DLW


From iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu  Fri Jan 29 19:21:39 1999
From: iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 13:21:39 -0600
Subject: (no subject)
In-Reply-To: <36AFDBCB.A88E9DFE@montclair.edu>
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.132139.0600.>

On Wed, 27 Jan 1999, H. Mark Hubey wrote:

>I hope nobody thinks that humans started speaking overnight 500,000 years ago
>with 20 vowels and 40 consonants and 20,000 roots. If anyone thinks that it is
>not worth discussing.

	I get the impression at times that Chomsky and his ilk think that.
The grammar gene leading to the "abstract organ" which presumably permits
and creates language.  Evolution is not their strong suit, for very good
bad reasons ...

					DLW


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Fri Jan 29 19:38:44 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 14:38:44 EST
Subject: (no subject)
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.143844.EST.>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu (H. Mark Hubey)

>Short note: how is that established? There is a difference between the
>earliest evidence found of humans riding horses, and the earliest datewhen
>humans rode horses.

-- lack of evidence such as bits, teeth with bit-wear markings, cheekpieces,
the age distribution of equid remains found in association with human
settlements or mortuary deposits, etc.

Such evidence is abundant and unambiguous in places where we _know_ horses
were domesticated and used for traction/riding.,

>They have dug all over. I doubt that anyone looks for horses in Siberia.

-- sigh.  You haven't heard of the Pazyryk Scythian tombs?  In short:  yes,
they do look in Siberia.

[ Moderator's comment:
  We can now consider this discussion closed.  Thank you.
  --rma ]


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Fri Jan 29 20:00:07 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 15:00:07 EST
Subject: (no subject)
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.150007.EST.>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

>HubeyH at Mail.Montclair.edu (H. Mark Hubey)

>Semitic is formed from the mixture of Hamitic (African branch) moving up from
>the East Coast of Africa to the Arabian peninsula

-- well, no, actually.  Semitic and Hamitic are both descendants of a proto-
language.   Languages change in and of themselves, you know, even the most
conservative of them.  It's inherent.

>Africa was drying up and the people had to leave.

-- I'm not an anti-migrationist as such, but this is getting ridiculous,
positively 19th-century.

>No, this is basically Gamkrelidze &Ivanov scenario.

-- yeah, and it's a standing violation of Occam's Razor.  Don't multiply
hypotheses uncessarily.

>There was a large-scale and long-term disturbance due to environmental
>catastrophe stretching over millenia.

-- population groups don't need environmental disturbances to motivate them to
move.  They do it all the time in response to their _social_ environment --
eg., economic opportunities, military/political upheavals, etc.

>Some Thracian speakers cross over the Bosphorus

-- define "Thracian".  This is primarily a geographical term.

>They are also in the region where we see IE, AA, Caucasian, and maybe proto-
>Altay-Uralic too.

-- you've been looking at too many large-scale maps.

>The large river that flowed thru Arabia had to be fed from melting glaciers
>from the Caucasus mountain range.

-- this is geographically incoherent.

[ Moderator's comment:
  We can now consider this discussion closed.  Thank you.
  --rma ]


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Fri Jan 29 20:08:20 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 15:08:20 EST
Subject: Anatolian "horse"
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.150820.EST.>

glengordon01 at hotmail.com (Glen Gordon)

>But then, come to think of it, is there an Anatolian version of *?ekwos ?

-- yes.  Hieroglyphic Luwian "Azuwa".  Cognate with Lithuanian asvienis, Vedic
asva, etc.


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Fri Jan 29 20:34:27 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 15:34:27 EST
Subject: Chariots
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.153427.EST.>

>vidynath at math.ohio-state.edu (Vidhyanath Rao)

>If by chariots we want to mean highly maneuverable vehicles, it is
>questionable whether the Sintasha vehicle was in fact one.

-- I don't think so.  It's a light bentwood-construction vehicle with two
spoked wheels pulled by paired draught horses.  Anyone looking at it will
immediately say "chariot".

Quacks like a duck, waddles like a duck, it's a duck.

>There seems to be a tendency to think that yoking horses (by the neck,
>no less) would magically transform an ox-cart into a chariot.

-- light bentwood and wicker construction and twin spoked wheels doesn't look
much like an oxcart.

And all chariots used neck-yokes, until the invention of the horse collar.


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Fri Jan 29 20:52:42 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 15:52:42 EST
Subject: Dating of Changes in Germanic and Insular Celtic
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.155242.EST.>

tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de (Theo Vennemann)

>I was happy to read about those cases of superstratum influence. That is
>exactly the way I view the Atlanticization of Germanic: Germanic as"broken"
>Indo-European.

-- this would be an attractive hypothesis, except that the characteristic
sound shifts in Proto-Germanic seem to be quite late; no earlier than about
500-600 BCE.  Prior to that PG would have sounded much more typically IE.

So if the changes were due to influence from another language, we'd be left
with the rather odd notion that the linguistic ancestors of Germanic only
moved into its historic territory in Scandinavia and northern Germany late in
the 1st millenium BCE!  Or that the other "Atlantic" language persisted in the
area for thousands of years after the first IE speakers arrived.

There's no archaeological discontinuity in northern Europe after the Corded
Ware/Battle Axe horizon arrives, and no historical record of such an invasion
either.

And where would it come from?  By 600 BCE, the other branches of IE were
differentiated.  You can't get proto-Germanic by "broken Baltic", after all.
(Eg., Balto-Slavic had long since undergone satemization by that date.)

>Insular Celtic however is different. It is not "broken" but "transformed"
>Indo-European

-- again, we have a chronological problem here.  The earliest Insular Celtic
recorded (Ogham inscriptions, etc.) is a perfectly standard early, inflected
IE language -- not much different from Gaulish or Lepontic and structurally
similar to Latin, Lithuanian or Sanskrit.

The extremely radical restructuring to the Old Irish stage for Gaelic seems to
have occurred only after about 200-300 CE.

Since the Celts must have entered the British Isles a fair spell before that,
if a substrate is responsible, why did the changes not show up until so late?

>Having developed on an Insular Celtic substratum,

-- however the Old English stage -- say as late as the 900's CE -- shows
virtually no Celtic influence lexically.  A grand total of about 12 loan-
words, if memory serves me correctly.

In fact, as late as the end of the 1st millenium CE, Old English and Low
German were still mutually comprehensible.  By which time Celtic was _long_
extinct within the vast majority of the area of English speech.

How was this Insular Celtic influence transmitted across centuries when the
languages were no longer in close contact?  If the Old English which emerges
in the 700's CE, when we have written records, is still so close to its West
Germanic cousins, and if it remains so in 1000 CE, how does the existance of a
Celtic substratum 500 years earlier carry over into the grammatical
restructuring of the period 1000-1500 CE?

It seems to me that it would be wiser to attribute the later restructuring of
English to purely internal forces, or possibly to contact with Scandinavian
and French, or to a mixture of the two causes.

In this context, it's interesting that Frisian, the closest relative of
English, underwent some of the same structural changes.  And _it_ certainly
wasn't in contact with Insular Celtic at any time!


From petegray at btinternet.com  Fri Jan 29 20:48:15 1999
From: petegray at btinternet.com (Peter &/or Graham)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 20:48:15 -0000
Subject: Germanic and B-S
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.204815.0000.PETEGRAY@BTINTERNET.COM>

On this topic it is worth noting that Germanic has in part some features
which are present on one side and absent on the other:  e.g.

(a) nouns in -o- make derivatives in -a-  (B-S, not Celtic, partly in Germ)

(b) adjectives make abstract nouns in -tu:t  (Celtic, not B-S, partly in
Germ)

This supports a wave model more than a generic model.  An early separation
of Germanic (or Germ-Armenian), with later influence from both Celtic and
B-S, seems a good explanation.

Peter


From glengordon01 at hotmail.com  Fri Jan 29 22:46:13 1999
From: glengordon01 at hotmail.com (Glen Gordon)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 14:46:13 PST
Subject: rate of language change
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.144613.PST.GLENGORDON01@HOTMAIL.COM>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

>[ Moderator's comment:
>  Actually, many people in the U. S. *do* notice it.  My wife, who is not a
>  linguist, has commented on not only the change of [hw-] to [w-], but also
>  the more recent change of [hj-] to [j-] in words such as _huge_.  It is not
>  noticed by those who do not have it.

I notice it but I and many others rarely use /hw/ in Manitoba anymore. I
find the /hw/ pronunciation overly pronounced. I prefer to mangle all my
words if possible. The /hj/ > /j/ change and the /hw/ > /w/ are not
hand-in-hand since here, the pronunciation of "huge" is definitively
/hju:d3/, not /ju:d3/, unless one is constipated. :)

--------------------------------------------
Glen Gordon
glengordon01 at hotmail.com

Kisses and Hugs
--------------------------------------------


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Fri Jan 29 23:22:43 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 17:22:43 -0600
Subject: Xinjiang mummies were Celts
In-Reply-To: <l03010d00b2d4f00945d6@[195.247.226.99]>
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.172243.0600.RMCCALLI@SUNMUW1.MUW.EDU>

As soon they find some bagpipes and a plate of haggis, --may be a bottle of
single malt-- that'll confirm it for sure :>

At 5:33 PM +0100 1/27/99, Ralf-Stefan Georg wrote:

[ moderator snip ]

>And that is how one identifies Celts ? O tempora ...


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Fri Jan 29 23:24:34 1999
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (Patrick C. Ryan)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 17:24:34 -0600
Subject: STATISTICS IN LINGUISTICS
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.172434.0600.PROTOLANGUAGE@EMAIL.MSN.COM>

Dear Steve and IEists:

-----Original Message-----
From: X99Lynx at aol.com <X99Lynx at aol.com>
Date: Friday, January 29, 1999 12:49 AM

>In a message dated 1/27/99 11:55:41 AM, proto-language at email.msn.com wrote:

><<Predictive power, IMHO, is based on statistics.>>

>Predictive power is based on an effective understanding of cause and effect
>relationships.

The relationship between cause and effect is statistical. If the same cause
is regularly observed to produce the same effect, the statistic
(probability) is 100% theoretically. Why do you resist this simple truth?

>Statistics are just one way to prove that understanding is correct.

Statistics are the only way to prove that understanding is correct. When a
cause is never observed to produce an effect, the probability is 0%. Why is
that so hard to understand?

>Without a
>proper hypothesis, whether gathered statistically or not,

Hypotheses are not "gathered" statistically. A hypothesis is validated or
not by statistically verified the results of its predictions.

>there is nothing for
>statistics to help prove.

I agree. If you are doing or saying nothing, statistics are minimally
helpful.

>A lingusitic model is a hypothesis, properly used a
>statistical sample can help prove if that model is accurate.

Statistics is the only method that can suggest (not prove) that the model is
accurate.

>However, where there are few occurences to sample and possibly no new
>occurences - as in ancient languages - statistical analyses do not carry
>much "predictative power".

This is ridiculous! Any time you make a prediction, even without formally
applying statistical methods, you are operating statistically. Judgment is
about weighing factors of probability.

>Also recall if you will that I posted on this list the fact that the
>Peresus
>Project showed a higher occuresnce of purus>red in Greek than ereuthem>red.
>This was due to the way Lidell-Scott defined red.  Statistics can only
>yield
>results that fact gathering and prior analysis permit.

Statistics cannot overcome GI.

Pat


From glengordon01 at hotmail.com  Fri Jan 29 23:24:40 1999
From: glengordon01 at hotmail.com (Glen Gordon)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 15:24:40 PST
Subject: IE-Semitic connections
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.152440.PST.GLENGORDON01@HOTMAIL.COM>

>Those and related problems do not exist if the earliest Semitic-IE
>contacts are assumed to have occurred in Europe.

Why must we assume anything in the first place?? The Pontic-Caspian
theory accounts for much and yet for some reason, still unspecified by
Miguel et al, we are throwing it away for something very conjectural and
unbased on the linguistic evidence. As far as I know and reason, Semitic
existing outside of the Middle East at the time we are working with here
is not accepted by most linguists and it seems that some have trouble
with Semitic ever reaching even the Black Sea shores let alone Europe!!

>In particular, you receive an elegant solution for Germanic and
>Etruscan (and Basque) showing t-less forms of the seven-word:
>independent borrowing of the t-less Semitic form.

But how does this truly nail a highly theoretical Germanic-Semitic
contact as European and not perhaps through Anatolian influence as it
passed by that region or even by a simple change of *-t- due to a
confusing string of consonants in *-ptm? If *p here is inaspirate due to
the following *t, it's not hard to reason why /p/ would become /b/ since
there isn't such an inaspirate/aspirate stop distinction in Germanic.
(or is there?). There are many possibilities.

--------------------------------------------
Glen Gordon
glengordon01 at hotmail.com

Kisses and Hugs
--------------------------------------------


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Fri Jan 29 23:40:27 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 17:40:27 -0600
Subject: IE in Balkans and Semitic?
In-Reply-To: <19990128024117.12603.qmail@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.174027.0600.RMCCALLI@SUNMUW1.MUW.EDU>

I was thinking of the root of taurus & steer [I'll let someone else come up
with the exact root]. So maybe animal husbandry is the right term in this
case.

[snip]>
>I don't remember any Semitic agricultural terms in IE although I could
>be wrong. However, the whole problem with this scenario is that this
>imaginary intermediary does not seem to leave any evidence behind.
>I don't know of any language that adopted the same terms in the same
>form as those found in IE except for Semitic itself. What's more, the IE
>words aren't particularly "eroded"-looking, telling me that the  contact
>must have been direct.
[snip]


From glengordon01 at hotmail.com  Fri Jan 29 23:47:43 1999
From: glengordon01 at hotmail.com (Glen Gordon)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 15:47:43 PST
Subject: IE-Semitic connections
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.154743.PST.GLENGORDON01@HOTMAIL.COM>

Theo:

>In particular, you receive an elegant solution for Germanic and
>Etruscan (and Basque)...

In retrospect, I forgot about Basque "zazpi". Hmm, but I wonder what the
mainstream theory is on that word. Larry Trask mentioned that Latin "s"
becomes "z" in Basque borrowings. Latin, at least Vulgar Latin, as far
as I am aware, reduced /m/ before vowel to a nasal vowel. I can't see
how "zazpi" can be related to a t-less Semitic form because of the
second -z- which has to be a soft representation of a previous /t/ (what
else could it possibly be??) Hence zazpi might actually come from a late
version of Latin septem which perhaps was pronounced /sept(s)@~/ at the
time (@~ = nasal schwa).

To be honest it probably can't be explained as a Classical Latin
borrowing (cf. Lat apta- > hauta- "choose") but couldn't this be a late
Latin borrowing? It's definitively not from a t-less Semitic form. Maybe
an _m-less_ one at most and then we have to explain why Semitic *b
becomes Basque /p/!

--------------------------------------------
Glen Gordon
glengordon01 at hotmail.com

Kisses and Hugs
--------------------------------------------


From iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu  Sat Jan 30 00:36:35 1999
From: iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 18:36:35 -0600
Subject: Various
In-Reply-To: <19990128045914.13486.qmail@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.183635.0600.>

On Wed, 27 Jan 1999, Glen Gordon wrote:

> From DLW on IE and Anatolian entrance:

> >	Let's see ... evidence that the Anatolians entered from the
> >west? Like what?  Last I heard there was no clear archeological
> >evidence of any such thing, just the usual muddle and quot homines
> >tot opiniones.

> Well, perhaps not archaelogical but like the very thing Miguel pointed
> to about Parnassos, etc. What is your take on it then? Have I missed
> that comment of yours?

	Unless there some good IE etymology for these, they could be, dare
I say it, substratal in both groups.

> >	Turkic being not IE, which I have known probably longer than
> >Mr. Gordon has been alive, has nothing to do with anything I said.
> >As for waves, the Turks have been moving back and forth in waves
> >across the steppe for some time now, without much separation having
> >occurred.  What is necessary for separation (I am disappointed to
> >have to make such a basic point) is something that stops people from
> >talking to each other.

> Hmm, a little hostile. I can't be blamed for my parent's poor timing in
> copulation. I would have studied Turkic as long as you if I were as
> chronologically advanced as you. Let's work through this calmly before
> things get out of hand. "Turks have been moving back and forth," you
> say. You may notice that you mentioned "back and forth" in the sentence.
> You may also have noticed that I never said that the Anatolian
> population moved "back and forth" around the Black Sea. That would be
> absurd. In your scenario then, of course there would be no seperation
> because no one is going anywhere. The Turkic situation isn't the same at
> all.

	The Turkic peoples moved back and forth (or forth and back)
because there wasn't anything to stop them.  Nor would there have been for
our dearly beloved, the PIEs.  The question is how IE Anatolian got
separated from Greek.  "By crossing the Aegean" is the obvious answer, but
that doesn't necessarily leave enough time, depending on when the movement
is supposed to have occurred.  Note that in later times Greek itself
"crossed" into Anatolia, without that in itself causing much divergence.
MCV's suggestion that perhaps other IE intruded between the pre-Greeks and
pre-Anatolians (IE type) is much more plausible in this regard, but for
Western IE types who seem to have gone through a formative period in
Hungary (I believe it was these he was talking about) to have detoured by
way of the southern Balkans is itself problematic.

> The seperation (I am also disappointed to have to make such a basic
> point) is _time_ like I've said before. The more a person travels
> farther and farther away from someone, the harder it is to communicate
> (unless IndoEuropeans had telephones - "IE phone home?"). Same here, the
> Anatolian contact diminished to nill as the Anatolians moved farther and
> farther away, not back and forth, and mind you, they had a lake to hide
> behind. Why should that idea be resisted? Is there some data I'm
> missing?

	Actually, if you look at what you're saying here, you're really
talking again about space, not time.  And, as I said before, the Aegean
has historically served more as a uniter than divider.  Presumably the
view you are pushing has IEs on the other side of the Aegean at the time
in question.  The Black Sea is of course a true divider, but to think that
the IE Anatolians got into Anatolia without there being other IEs in their
wake closer than the far side of the Black Sea strains credulity.

> >Note the social divisions that have caused some divergence between
> >white and black English in America.  Steppes do not (necessarily) do
> >it.

> Um, any social divisions like these barely involve the clear cut
> linguistic divisions that we're speaking about here.

	I was pointing out that lack of contact (or reduced contact), for
whatever reason, is what causes divergence.  Of course when the barriers
are merely social, no separate languages will result.

> And the Steppes
> don't do anything. The Steppes just sit there like wasted land outside
> of the arena of this debate. Why are you using IE and the Steppes in the
> same sentence? Forget the Steppes (and keep forgetting the mountains
> too).

	Since mountains tend to lead to loss of contact, I will most
certainly not forget them.  You can keep forgetting them if you like,
continuing to imagine, seemingly, that languages diverge because it is
convenient for linguists of the future to posit it, but I for one will
have to be left ouf of this amnesia.

> The Anatolians aren't going across the Steppes to reach Western
> Anatolia from the Pontic-Caspian region if I know my geography at all.
> Are you sure you understood what I'm saying? Perhaps I explained my
> ideas poorly. There _is_ alot of email afterall.\

	What we have here is failure to communicate.

> >	As for what I would mean by the Hittites moving "early" into
> >Anatolia, roughly before 3500 B.C.

> Hopefully I'm not losing track of this debate but why do you think that
> this event should have been before 3500 BCE?

	Again, failure to communicate.  I don't think anything of the
sort.  As I recall, the evidence for the IE Anatolians moving in points to
around 2500-2000, not much time for separation from Greek if the Greeks
moved into Greece around 2000.  But archeology is not my strong point.
(I tend to forget it.  Imagine that.)

> And when you say Hittites do you
> mean Hittites or Anatolians, just to make things absolutely clear.

	I mean IE Anatolians, or their precursors, by all references to
either Hittites or Anatolians.  Sometimes I do not want to use the term
"Anatolians" because it might well be taken to have a geographic rather
than linguistic meaning.

					DLW


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Sat Jan 30 02:39:41 1999
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 21:39:41 EST
Subject: STATISTICS IN LINGUISTICS
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.213941.EST.>

I wrote:
<<Predictive power is based on an effective understanding of cause and effect
relationships.>>

Patrick C. Ryan replied:
<<Why does it seem to be so hard to understand that the relationship of cause
and effect is statistical?>>

Because it is not true.

The relationship of cause and effect is physical or chemical or cultural, etc.
Statistics can be extremely useful in establishing such relationships.  But
I'm afraid statistics do not equal cause and effect.

Here is your example:
<<If you have Cause A, and you predict successfully Effect B, every time, then
the relationship is <1> or 100% PROBABILITY.>>

You are definitely jumping the gun here.  You are already telling me there is
a cause and effect relationship BEFORE YOU'VE PROVEN IT.  You are presuming
cause and effect before have statistically shown it.

The best you can say here is that if A occurs and then B occurs, everytime,
there is some probability that A causes B.

HOWEVER, if your assumptions are flawed, you are not proving cause and effect
with this.  All that this demonstrates is a 100% CORRELATION. But NO cause and
effect relationship has been established.  And this should not be hard to
understand.

The classic classroom example is: EVERYTIME you see people carrying umbrellas,
it ends up raining.  Based on that, you conclude that umbrellas cause rain.
(Everytime equals "100% probability.")

Even a very high correlation does not equal causation.  This is very important
in a field like historical linguistics, where you do not have an independent
variable to manipulate and therefore don't have the hard experimental controls
you get in a lab.  With improper analysis, statistics are not just worthless.
They are damaging.

And of course the other thing that is inaccurate is "100% probability".  Until
there is an end of time, there is no such thing.  Because no matter how many
"n" times A leads to B, there is always "n + 1."  If you want to claim it, the
best you get is 99% in this world.

As far as historical linguistics goes, statistical analysis could be a very
powerful tool.  But all it is is a tool.  And if its limitations are
misunderstood, it can be and has been used to prove all kinds of nonsense.

Regards,
Steve Long


From glengordon01 at hotmail.com  Mon Jan 25 05:59:40 1999
From: glengordon01 at hotmail.com (Glen Gordon)
Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1999 21:59:40 PST
Subject: Pre-IE and migrations
Message-ID: <SUN.24.JAN.1999.215940.PST.GLENGORDON01@HOTMAIL.COM>

Miguel on Etruscan "semph" and Semitic borrowing:

>Well, we also find the lack of /t/ in Germanic (sibun, seven), so I'd
>say Etruscan semph *is* most likely due to metathesis (wacky or not)
>of something like *sepm or *sebm.

But this is one step up beyond Germanic. We should expect a much more
regular change than this. You're assuming metathesis as well as a loss
of *-t, as well as an Etruscan /ph/ = IE *p correlation which I, at
least, have not seen substantiated in data. This, in addition, is in
contrast to the beautifully preserved words I've seen in Etruscan that
can be very easily compared to IE without much explanation as to why.
This awkward change you propose, Miguel, is in violation of my
understanding of Etruscan-IE relationship. Two seperate contacts
(whether both Semitic or not) seems to be a less exhausting explanation
of the etymology of this word.

>Whether this requires contact with a wholly hypothetical western
>Semitic group, I wouldn't know. There's also the unexpected Samoyed
>forms... In any case, all of this looks to me as possible evidence of
>a Wanderwort, not of Voelkerwanderungen.

Well, the Wanderwort explanation wouldn't explain why the IE-related
Etruscan has a word for "seven" that is not reasonably relatable to IE's
*septm unless two seperate sources exist in this case.

At any rate, back to IE and Anatolia, if IE were in Anatolia for such a
long time, one would expect that Semitic, Caucasian or another non-IE
Anatolian language would "do a number" on IE just as Rick McCallister
describes Armenian's Turkic influence. Yet amongst all that contact over
what would have been many millenia prior to IE, we can still connect IE
to Uralic, a Steppe language?? It still doesn't sit well with me and I
think for good linguistical reason.

A European explanation is too far west because it doesn't take into
account the linguistic ties to the Black Sea area, including that of
North Semitic. Ironically, you would dismiss such a westerly adoption of
a Semitic word in Etruscan... Hmmm. There's a paradox.

>And since we're speculating, I have always thought the fact that the
>archaeological evidence for metal-working (copper) points to the
>Balkans as the oldest center looks supportive of my hypothesis that
>the Neolithic Balkans (Vinc^a culture etc.) were at least partially
>IE (Anatolian) speaking.

Why must IE be the "oldest center" for metal-working? It doesn't seem to
particularly point to anything at all.

>The Akkadian (eru^) and Sumerian (urudu) words for copper might well
>be borrowings from PIE *H1reudh- "red; copper".

...Or vice-versa.

>If so, this would be hard to reconcile with a
>Pontic-Caspian location of PIE until 3500 BC, given that the
>Pontic-Caspian was not a metallurgical center, and the copper that we
>find there was imported from the Balkans.

Again, why must it be a metallurgical center? If IE speakers weren't in
the midst of such a center, it would make sense that they had borrowed
words like this from North Semitic in absence of words of their own. I
don't think IE had much linguistical sway on its Mesopotomian neighbours
since little evidence suggests such a thing.

--------------------------------------------
Glen Gordon
glengordon01 at hotmail.com

Kisses and Hugs
--------------------------------------------


From sean at lares.dti.ne.jp  Sat Jan 30 07:05:45 1999
From: sean at lares.dti.ne.jp (Sho Sakuma)
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1999 16:05:45 +0900
Subject: gender
Message-ID: <SAT.30.JAN.1999.160545.0900.SEAN@LARES.DTI.NE.JP>

    Had there been any possible process of grammaticalization
that has dichtomizeted  the noun of the languages, belonging to
the branch of IE, into a label of gender as masculine or feminine?
...or adding neuter in a case. I just wondering what was the notion
to give the noun a subdivision with gender.

    It may be naturally assumptioned that the distinction originally
comes from a biological gender, but such illogicality that penetrates
a language, like a difference between German and French. For the former
assigns a label for the word indicating --moon-- masculine but the latter
attachs feminine for corresponding word --lune--.

    I have once presented same question in other list last year from a
very curious. One of those who gave me the reply with taking a example
from Japanese and reminded me a awkward point of the language. That we
count apples with the suffix --ko-, rabbits with --wa-, books with
--satu-, and Kentucky Fried Chicken with --piece-- is certainly seemed
to me strange feature of Japanese.

-------------------------------
 Sho Sakuma
 Kanto Gakuin University


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Sat Jan 30 10:48:37 1999
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1999 10:48:37 +0000
Subject: wh
In-Reply-To: <009d01be4bca$5d691f80$513863c3@niywlxpn>
Message-ID: <SAT.30.JAN.1999.104837.0000.LARRYT@COGS.SUSX.AC.UK>

On Fri, 29 Jan 1999, Peter &/or Graham wrote:

> Larry writes of initial /hw/ as if it were indeed /hw/.  I have seen
> this description of it in the text books, and been puzzled by it.
> In my dialect (NZ) it is a voiceless /w/.  There is no /h/ at all.

> I'm just checking back, I guess.   Do some speakers actually say /h/+ /w/?
> I always thought the textbooks were wrong.

Historically, this thing is /hw-/, and that's how it was spelled in Old
English, as in <hwit> `white'.  After the Norman Conquest, a new
spelling convention was introduced, our modern <wh>, apparently because
the thing was perceived by some people as a voiceless [w].

In fact, for most (all?) speakers who have this thing, it is indeed
phonetically a single sound, voiceless [w], represented in the IPA by an
inverted <w>.  This is true for me as well in casual speech, though in
emphatic speech I pronounce it, roughly, as an [h] followed by a
voiceless [w].

Now, some people who have it perceive it clearly as an /h/ followed by a
/w/, and that includes me.  But others who have it perceive it equally
clearly as a single consonant, voiceless /w/.  You are apparently one of
them.

Consequently, analyses differ.  Phonemically, most linguists write /hw/,
partly because that's the historical state of affairs and partly because
that conforms to some speakers' intuitions.  But there are some
linguists who prefer to say that the relevant accents do not have an
/hw/ cluster but rather an additional consonant phoneme, the inverted
<w>.  This second is the minority view, but it makes sense for some
speakers.  But it does require the use of the inverted <w>, which is
awkward if you haven't got a good phonetic font available.

In my posting, I might have used the phonetic symbols inverted <w> and
normal <w> to represent the two styles of pronunciation, but I can't
print the inverted <w>, and so I used [hw] and [w] instead.

It's interesting that we speakers who retain the traditional
pronunciation differ so sharply in our perceptions of what we're saying.
We have the same phonetics, but two very different understandings of
what we're "really" doing.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk


From alemko.gluhak at infocentar.hr  Fri Jan 29 20:27:31 1999
From: alemko.gluhak at infocentar.hr (Alemko Gluhak)
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 21:27:31 +0100
Subject: IE *eg'om (was: IE-Semitic connections)
Message-ID: <FRI.29.JAN.1999.212731.0100.ALEMKO.GLUHAK@INFOCENTAR.HR>

On 27 Jan 1999, Glen Gordon <glengordon01 at hotmail.com> wrote:

> I take the word *eg'oh in IE to be a realisation of
> the North Semitic word *anaku (Hey, does anyone have any better theories
> on that word? I rest my case).

In Etimologic^eskij slovar' slavjanskih jazykov I, red. O.N. Trubac^ev, we
can read that *eg'o(:)(m) < *e g'o eme, something like "it's me!".

Alemko Gluhak
Zavod za lingvisticka istrazivanja
Hrvatske akademije znanosti i umjetnosti
(Linguistic Research Institute of the
Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts)
Ante Kovacica 5, HR-10000 Zagreb
gluhak at hazu.hr


From iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu  Sat Jan 30 14:05:46 1999
From: iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu)
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1999 08:05:46 -0600
Subject: Semitic in Britain
In-Reply-To: <v01540b00b2d5cb219e50@[193.149.87.161]>
Message-ID: <SAT.30.JAN.1999.080546.0600.>

On Thu, 28 Jan 1999, Gordon Selway wrote:

> The notion ties in with the hypothesis there was a long-standing
> pre-historic link along the African/European Atlantic littoral.

	Yes, sadly (because it is somewhat difficult to make sense of).  I
myself was struck in reading of West African languges how commonly they
have progressives, as do the "Atlantic" European languages. It seems
improbable either that this is an areal phenomenon, or that it is not ..

					DLW


From iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu  Sat Jan 30 14:17:12 1999
From: iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu)
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1999 08:17:12 -0600
Subject: Shires a Norman Invention?
In-Reply-To: <009001be4aee$debc3220$e1ecabc3@niywlxpn>
Message-ID: <SAT.30.JAN.1999.081712.0600.>

On Thu, 28 Jan 1999, Peter &/or Graham wrote:

> We should also add that the shires were themselves a Norman invention.

	There shire-reeves in AS times, so the above statement certainly
requires clarification, at least.

					DLW


From iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu  Sat Jan 30 14:26:13 1999
From: iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu)
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1999 08:26:13 -0600
Subject: English as an Atlanic Language
In-Reply-To: <v01510105b2d64b18bbd2@[129.187.26.236]>
Message-ID: <SAT.30.JAN.1999.082613.0600.>

On Thu, 28 Jan 1999, Theo Vennemann wrote:

> English is an exception. Having developed on an Insular Celtic substratum,
> it is (mildly) "transformed" Germanic. As a consequence, it is structurally
> more similar to Insular Celtic (and, by transitivity, to Atlantic) than the
> other Germanic languages, but not to the same high degree as Insular Celtic
> is to Atlantic.

	Yes.  Isn't it past time we retired the quaint notion that there
is no Celtic influence in English?  If we know where to look (grammar
rather than lexicon or phonology), Celtic influence is pervasive in
English.

					DLW


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Sat Jan 30 14:48:51 1999
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1999 14:48:51 +0000
Subject: rate of change
In-Reply-To: <36B30E91.D01D5FAC@montclair.edu>
Message-ID: <SAT.30.JAN.1999.144851.0000.LARRYT@COGS.SUSX.AC.UK>

On Sat, 30 Jan 1999, H. Mark Hubey wrote:

[LT]

> > And language change is a *lot* more complicated than baseball change.

> Probably also true. How about posting how you would go about measuring
> language change. Last time we had a similar problem on evollang list, it
> took months before I could get answers from you. Hopefully this time
> it will be a lot sooner.

I have never suggested that it is possible to measure "the rate of
language change" in a meaningful way.  As it stands, the concept is
simply far too diffuse to be usefully quantified.

Take a simple (but realistic) example.  Languages A, B and C all start
off very closely related.  Language A then undergoes very substantial
change in its phonology, but otherwise remains rather conservative.
Language B undergoes massive vocabulary replacement, but otherwise
remains rather conservative.  Language C undergoes major changes in its
morphology and syntax, but otherwise remains rather conservative.

Now we want to compare the rates at which the three languages have
changed.  How can we do that?  The rate of change is the degree of
change per unit time -- so we first have to measure the degree of
change.  But how?  Does acquiring six new phonemes count as a larger or
a smaller change than acquiring a new set of personal pronouns?  Does
acquiring ergative alignment count as a larger or a smaller change than
losing all final unstressed syllables?

How on earth can such questions be answered, except by assigning
arbitrary weightings?  "Let's see -- becoming ergative counts as four
doobies' worth of change, but losing final syllables counts as five
doobies."

It won't work.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk

[ Moderator's comment:
  We can now consider this discussion closed.  Thank you.
  --rma ]


From jorna at web4you.dk  Sat Jan 30 21:30:29 1999
From: jorna at web4you.dk (Carol Jensen)
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1999 22:30:29 +0100
Subject: Breakup of Persians and East Indians (Avestan and Vedic)
Message-ID: <SAT.30.JAN.1999.223029.0100.JORNA@WEB4YOU.DK>

I have often wondered why I have never read anything about the fight, if there
was one, between the Avestans and Vedics.

The languages are so close, they must have broken up shortly before the various
hymns were written down.

In the Avestan hymns, one learns of the reformer Zarasthustra. Now it is
obvious that what he has reformed is the Vedic religion. Was there a fight
before they split? Could it be the Persians referred to in the Vedic texts
("We broke down their walled town", etc.)

Anyone read anything, or have any thoughts on this?

Carol Jensen


From mcv at wxs.nl  Sat Jan 30 13:28:17 1999
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1999 13:28:17 GMT
Subject: rate of language change
In-Reply-To: <008f01be4aee$ddc1f3a0$e1ecabc3@niywlxpn>
Message-ID: <SAT.30.JAN.1999.132817.GMT.>

"Peter &/or Graham" <petegray at btinternet.com> wrote:

>[..] Examples were such things as
>"Marie, le livre, elle l'a lu."

>(c) I happened to met it in Italian this very morning on the train, in a
>slush novel - though I haven't seen it mentioned in grammar books for that
>language.  Anyone know how common it is in Italian?   And does it occur in
>Spanish?   German eschews it.

Marma, el libro, lo ha leido.  Hmmm, not sure I've ever said
that, but I daren't say it's ungrammatical.  A much more common
(though still "marked") construction would be: "Marma lo ha
leido, el libro".

[ Moderator's comment:
  Since this posting came in as "8-bit", I believe that the name "Marma" above
  should be read "Mari'a", to parallel the French example.
  --rma (living in a 7-bit universe) ]

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Sun Jan 31 02:49:47 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1999 20:49:47 -0600
Subject: Anglo-Saxon conquest
In-Reply-To: <e7048b36.36afeac9@aol.com>
Message-ID: <SAT.30.JAN.1999.204947.0600.RMCCALLI@SUNMUW1.MUW.EDU>

	The Angles, Saxons et al. arrived by c. 400. For the first 100
years or so, the Angles & Saxons were pretty much bottled up in the SE
[south of the Humber].  The real body blow was when they took Chester,
which I think was around 600. The NE fell pretty soon after that. But even
then, it would take a couple of hundred more years to take the NW & SW.

	Someone who has more precise dates [and facts] can fill us in.

	The point is that by the time the Angles & Saxons moved out of the
SE, the local population had presumibly been acculturated by the Angles &
Saxons and perhaps had even stopped speaking Briton. My guess is that
pretty much the same thing, although probably to a lesser degree, would
have happened when the Anglo-Saxons expanded from Mercia & Wessex. Many of
the "Anglo-Saxons" who moved into these areas were likely accultured
Britons looking for a better life.

	The fact that there were Christians among the Anglo-Saxons when
Augustine arrived suggests that the process of acculturation flowed both
ways.

[snip]
>
>-- mmmm, most of lowland England was overrun in one or two generations at
>most.
[snip]

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
MUW
Columbus MS 39701
rmccalli at sunmuw1.muw.edu


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Sun Jan 31 03:01:41 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1999 21:01:41 -0600
Subject: literacy
In-Reply-To: <009201be4aee$e0dcef40$e1ecabc3@niywlxpn>
Message-ID: <SAT.30.JAN.1999.210141.0600.RMCCALLI@SUNMUW1.MUW.EDU>

	TV & film are a type of literacy in the sense that they fix and
distribute certain linguistic forms. In literary studies, they are most
definitely considered as "text."

	Linguistics, of course, is another discipline.

At 6:35 PM +0000 1/28/99, Peter &/or Graham wrote:
>>It's notable that there has been a massive convergence in dialect forms in
>>modern English ...
>>The same has happened in places like Italy,

>We might ask if this is due to TV and film rather than literacy.

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
MUW
Columbus MS 39701
rmccalli at sunmuw1.muw.edu

[ Moderator's comment:
  It is, indeed, another discipline, one in which the spoken word is given
  primacy.  The point being made, by me as well as others, is that TV, film,
  and before them radio, provided *spoken* evidence of standard pronunciations
  that was previously lacking in the lives of most speakers of most languages
  around the world, and thus an homogenization of dialects is made possible
  that simply could not have happened earlier because of the communications
  media available.
  --rma ]


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Sun Jan 31 03:08:15 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1999 21:08:15 -0600
Subject: rate of language change
In-Reply-To: <008f01be4aee$ddc1f3a0$e1ecabc3@niywlxpn>
Message-ID: <SAT.30.JAN.1999.210815.0600.RMCCALLI@SUNMUW1.MUW.EDU>

At 6:18 PM +0000 1/28/99, Peter &/or Graham wrote:
>Larry said:
>> Paul, Marie, elle a couche avec.
>>you won't find this construction in any
>>reference grammar of French.

	My colleague in French blanched when she saw this. She said this
was the kind of French that "you heard in the Metro but that no one would
admit to speaking."

[snip]
>And does it occur in
>Spanish?

never --as far as I know except for occasionally in "Spanglish"
I don't know about Spain but I would seriously doubt it cropping up even there

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
MUW
Columbus MS 39701
rmccalli at sunmuw1.muw.edu


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Sun Jan 31 03:21:47 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1999 21:21:47 -0600
Subject: In search of Trojans again
In-Reply-To: <19990128195658.10197.qmail@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <SAT.30.JAN.1999.212147.0600.RMCCALLI@SUNMUW1.MUW.EDU>

	Hattic, Hurrian & Urartian are often said to be N. Caucasian
--which in modern times is almost always found on the north slope and north
of the Caucasus.

	I seem to remember reading that formerly, N Caucasian languages
were spoken even farther to the north. [which obviously doesn't preclude
them having a larger territory to the south as well].

	It's possible that Kartvelian may have divided Hattic et al.
[assuming they are NC] from N. Caucasian and pushed them to the west &
south, perhaps even as far as Greece --where they are some claims that
"pre-Pelasgian" languages may have been from the Caucasus. Kaska --just a
name on the map as far as I know-- has also been claimed as Caucasian.

	I'm not vouching for any of this. So I'll just stand back and let
the rest of you sort it out.

[snip]

>When you mention North Caucasian specifically going back to
>Indo-Tyrrhenian, are you suggesting a link between the waves of
>"Indo-Tyrrhenian" (damn, that word's hard to spell) and pockets of
>North Caucasian in Anatolia? Are you perhaps suggesting that a North
>Caucasian language had been spreading ahead of these waves and then
>finally got pushed into Anatolia as Indo-Tyrrhenian spread out and
>smothered the areas once North Caucasian? Or do you just mention North
>Caucasian in Anatolia for fun? I could have over-extrapolated as is my
>nature.
[snip]

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
MUW
Columbus MS 39701
rmccalli at sunmuw1.muw.edu


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Sun Jan 31 09:06:11 1999
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 31 Jan 1999 04:06:11 EST
Subject: Why *p-*f?
Message-ID: <SUN.31.JAN.1999.040611.EST.>

In a message dated 1/29/99 11:26:00 PM, Glen Gordon wrote:

<<Now, weather, genetic irregularities and religion are the most absurd ideas
for phonemic change I've ever heard.>>

My point - way back when - was that "external causes" just interfere with the
methodology of historical linguistics and should not be a main focus at all.
So I just sort of picked those examples out of the air.  But, once you do go
to cultural history, I suspect it is a little bit overconfident to dismiss any
cause too quickly.

An equally "absurd idea" perhaps is that such powerful forces as religion and
climate (weather over the long term) and disease could not affect language
structure when they can totally alter every other aspect of human culture.
Take a look at "Viruses, Plagues and History" by B.A. Oldstone for a notion of
how randomly and profoundly disease can alter every other aspect of human
life.

You'll allow that language structure changes "simply take place because the
human species is imperfect (or too lazy)."  But you seem certain that such
powerful things as religion can't do it.

But consider this in the development of Church Latin.  Early on, the elite
"Church Fathers" are becoming critical of local pastors who are using "bad
language" to speak to their congregations, "such as dolus for dolor, effloriet
for florebit, ossum for os."  Despite this St. Augustine, who was well trained
in Greek and Latin syntax, told his audience: "I often employ words that are
not [true] Latin and I do so that you may understand me. Better that I should
incur the blame of the grammarians than not be understood by the people (In
Psal. cxxxviii, 90)."  The breakdown in regularity is so bad that, despite
many prior translations of the Greek Septugant, St Jerome must issue forth the
official Latin Vulgate "in good language."  We still have his teacher's -
Donatus - essay on the extensive spread of "barbarisms" (not meaning
foreignisms) in latin which include, with examples: "...changing and
transposing of letters, syllables, tones and aspiration." (This piece is on
the web.)

Point is that if religion didn't start isolated language structure changes, it
could sure spread them (or try to stop them.)

<<Changes simply take place because the human species is imperfect (or too
lazy).>>

Interesting.  In some quarters, changes take place because people are striving
to be perfect or are too ambitious.  Could go either way, I suppose.  Can't be
too sure.

<<The change of *p to *f or *k to *x, etc. is nothing more than a tendency
towards "softening" the stop and is a very valid sound change.>>

So what happened to the softening of the stop in b>p? At this level, the only
basis for saying the sound change is valid is because it happened.  It's a
found rule, not a necessary one.  "Hardening" towards a stop could be just as
natural in other cases. It must have happened at some point for stops to even
exist.

I think the following might suggest evidence for an explanation for *p>f (from
the Linguist list 9/98):

<<Originally the Greek letter "phi" was pronounced like a "p" with a strong
puff of air afterwards--that is, more or less like "p" followed by "h" (this
was as opposed to the letter "pi", which was pronounced like the unaspirated
"p" you get in many languages other than English....  Much later, the letter
"phi" underwent a sound change and started being pronounced like "f"....

You can actually date the sound change by looking at Roman misspellings--when
uneducated Romans or Roman schoolchildren misspelled "philosophia" before the
sound change, they would spell it "pilosopia"--afterwards, it was
"filosofia".>>  - N. Richards

Now that's evidence.  P>f showing up among uneducated Romans (like soldiers)
as a variant of ph>f.

<<Deal with it. :)>>

Same to you.  And good luck.

Regards,
Steve Long

PS - you wrote:
<<You are probably doing it to English right now as we speak. There's no
religion involved, you don't have a cleft palette and it happens whether it's
sunny or cloudy.>>

Amazing.  Wrong on all three counts. A lot of folks around here are either
talking funny ever since the new preacher from North Carolina has us singing
songs that rhyme things like "the Lord" with "adode."  Or because they all
went hard of hearing due to that virus or maybe the weather, and now you've
got to harden those stops just to be understood.

So I doubt if my cleft palette had much to do with it.
Of course you'd have no way of knowing I have one with the limited information
you had. :)


From iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu  Sun Jan 31 14:10:47 1999
From: iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu)
Date: Sun, 31 Jan 1999 08:10:47 -0600
Subject: Darwin and IE and Respect
In-Reply-To: <80f90896.36b130c9@aol.com>
Message-ID: <SUN.31.JAN.1999.081047.0600.>

On Thu, 28 Jan 1999 X99Lynx at aol.com wrote:

>There is a pretty good commercial software simulation of natural selection
>processes called SimLife.  I don't know the publisher, it came out about 1994.
>It incorporates a lot of the variables known to influence evolution in a
>biosystem and does get nifty results.  There are a fair number of more
>powerful simulations at various academic institutions, including currently I
>believe at Harvard.

	The larger aspects of such simulations, i.e. those not
specifically tied to biology, are likely to have some applicablity to
linguistic evolution.  This might lead to things that would in effect
serve as more sophisticated elaborations of the Ringge model.  No, I do
not have one with me ...

					DLW


From manaster at umich.edu  Sun Jan 31 17:57:03 1999
From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu)
Date: Sun, 31 Jan 1999 12:57:03 -0500
Subject: rate of language change
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.03.9901261637520.680-100000@rsuno.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <SUN.31.JAN.1999.125703.0500.>

The real question is how old some of these constructions
are in French.  They are certainly not as recnet as
Larry seems to assuming.

On Tue, 26 Jan 1999, Larry Traskmentioned (inter alia)

> 	Jean, il l'a achetee, la bagnole.

> 	Paul, Marie a couche avec.

> 	Vla la meuf qui s'est fait peta son keus.

> 	Paul, Marie, elle a couche avec.


From manaster at umich.edu  Sun Jan 31 18:42:12 1999
From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu)
Date: Sun, 31 Jan 1999 13:42:12 -0500
Subject: MSS
Message-ID: <SUN.31.JAN.1999.134212.0500.>

Does anybody know what's going on with the editors
of MSS and why they would not be responding to
repeated letters?  Alexis MR


From tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de  Sun Jan 31 20:51:12 1999
From: tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de (Theo Vennemann)
Date: Sun, 31 Jan 1999 21:51:12 +0100
Subject: Language Succession
Message-ID: <SUN.31.JAN.1999.215112.0100.TVN@CIS.UNIMUENCHEN.DE>

[ moderator snip ]

>>English is an exception. Having developed on an Insular Celtic substratum,
>>it is (mildly) "transformed" Germanic. As a consequence, it is structurally
>>more similar to Insular Celtic (and, by transitivity, to Atlantic) than the
>>other Germanic languages, but not to the same high degree as Insular Celtic
>>is to Atlantic.

>>Theo Vennemann, 28 January 1999.

>Would you care to enlarge on the last paragraph, especially? For the whole
>group, I mean. As many of us do not know Arabic, and I at least cannot see
>how English is closer structurally to Arabic than German or Danish, it
>would be very interesting.

>Carol

I would like to write about this, and I will have to for lectures in the Fall,
but I do not have time now to do this just for fun. I am not a specialist in
Semitic, Insular Celtic, or English, whereas there are scholars on this List
who can give you lots of facts without having to do much reading. If you
want to wait, I will probably be able to provide much material later this
year. In the meantime, I repeat some of the titles I have referred to on the
List before.

--- John Morris Jones. 1900. "Pre-Aryan syntax in Insular Celtic." In: John
Rhys and David Brynmor-Jones, The Welsh people: Chapters on their origin,
history, laws, language, literature and characteristics, London: T. Fisher
Unwin, Appendix B, pp. 617-641.
--- Julius Pokorny. 1927-30. "Das nicht-indogermanische Substrat im Iri-
schen", Zeitschrift f?r celtische Philologie 16: 95-144, 231-266, 363-394;
17: 373-388; 18: 233-248.
--- Orin David Gensler. 1993. A typological evaluation of Celtic/Hamito-
Semitic syntactic parallels. Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, University
of California, Berkeley. [Available from University Microfilms Inter-
national, Ann Arbor, Michigan, no. 9407967.]

These works mostly compare Insular Celtic to Hamito-Semitic, but to some
extent they refer to features of English that agree with features of languages
of these groups but differ from Germanic. Gensler has an extensive biblog-
raphy. You may also want to consult the following book:

--- Heinrich Wagner. 1959. Das Verbum in den Sprachen der Britischen
Inseln (Buchreihe der Zeitschrift f?r celtische Philologie, 1). Tuebingen:
Max Niemeyer.

You may further want to look out for Celtic Englishes II, the successor
volume of the following (which is also worthy of attention):

--- Hildegard L. C. Tristram (ed.). 1997. The Celtic Englishes (Anglistische
Forschungen, 247), Heidelberg: C. Winter.

Of course, you may also go ahead and see what Semitic and Insular Celtic
look like, e.g. by reading the following books:

--- E. Lipinski. Semitic languages: Outline of a comparative grammar (= Orien-
talia Lovaniensia Analecta 80). Leuven 1997.

Donald Macaulay, The Celtic languages. Cambridge UP 1992, 1998.

There are many others, but these will get you started.

Kind regards,
Theo Vennemann.
31 January 1999


From vidynath at math.ohio-state.edu  Sun Jan 31 21:04:06 1999
From: vidynath at math.ohio-state.edu (Vidhyanath Rao)
Date: Sun, 31 Jan 1999 16:04:06 -0500
Subject: How weird is Hittite? Not weird enough :)
Message-ID: <SUN.31.JAN.1999.160406.0500.VIDYNATH@MATH.OHIOSTATE.EDU>

"Glen Gordon" <glengordon01 at hotmail.com> wrote:
> What's up with the *e- past tense?? Isn't THAT "weird"?

How was tense expressed in PIE that included Anatolian?

I don't find it obvious that the secondary endings expressed tense
originally: The PE are SE extended with -i (meaning ``here and now''?).
The imperative looks like just SE (in 2nd pl) or SE extended with -u
(3rd), except in 2nd sing. Optative is built on SE. If SE expressed
tense, how did these evolve? In particular, present = past + ``here and
now'' looks strange.

------

I also find Szeremenyi's objections to the view of PIE in any stage had
morphologically expressed aspect convincing and think that they apply to
any stage that includes both Greek and Indo-Iranian . In particular I am
not sure that Greek and Indo-Iranian show similar verb systems.

I started expanding on the above, but it got too long. So I will simply
summarize what I have to add to Szeremenyi's objections:

(1) The classification of verbal forms of RV are based on blind
application of the Greek system and not on the syntax of RV itself.

(2) In particular, in Vedic, moods are not orthogonal to the `tenses'.
The distribution of modal forms is highly skewed with sigmatic optatives
and imperatives all too rare. Nor is there any demonstrable syntactical
or aspectual difference between the moods of the `aorist' and the
present. This leads to the conclusion that moods were originally formed
directly from the root, but the present stem eventually took over this
function.

(3) The line between `aorist' and `imperfect' is very diffuse in
RV and a good part of it attributable to the behavior of root forms. Nor
is there any evidence of that present is marked while the aorist is
unmarked in RV. It is the root forms, especially root presents, that show
obscure archaisms.

(4) The aorist vs imperfect opposition in middle Vedic and Sanskrit behaves
more like `completive' (terminology of Bybee et al, ``The evolution of
grammar'') vs simple past than like perfective vs imperfective.

(5) There seems to be no reasonable pathway that would lead to both
the Vedic and Greek verbal system from one in which both the imperfect
and the sigmatic aorist were fully gramaticized.

-Nath


From alemko.gluhak at infocentar.hr  Sat Jan 30 15:24:24 1999
From: alemko.gluhak at infocentar.hr (Alemko Gluhak)
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1999 16:24:24 +0100
Subject: IE in Balkans and Semitic? -- Sem. agricultural terms in IE
Message-ID: <SAT.30.JAN.1999.162424.0100.ALEMKO.GLUHAK@INFOCENTAR.HR>

----------
> Von: Glen Gordon <glengordon01 at hotmail.com>
> An: indoeuropean at xkl.com
> Betreff: IE in Balkans and Semitic?
> Datum: 1999. sije?anj 28 03:41

Glen Gordon wrote (28 Jan 1999, IE in Balkans and Semitic?):

> I don't remember any Semitic agricultural terms in IE although I could
> be wrong.

In Gamq.relidze--Ivanov, you can find f.e.

IE *tauro- + Sem. *t_awr- "bull"
IE *ghait.- + Sem. *gadj- "goat"
IE *agwno- "lamb" + Sem. *`igl- "young animal"
IR *qe/op- + Sem., comp. Akkad. uk.u:pu, OHebr. k.?p_, Aram. k.o:p_a:
"monkey"
IE *bhar(s)- "grain, cereals" + Sem. *burr-/*barr-
IE *dhoHna:- "cereals, grain" + Sem. *duh,n- "millet"
IE *Handh- "edible plants" + Sem. *h.int.(at-) "wheat"
etc. 

See also V.M. Illic^-Svityc^'s article 1964 and other IE-Sem articles.

Alemko Gluhak
Zavod za lingvisticka istrazivanja
Hrvatske akademije znanosti i umjetnosti
(Linguistic Research Institute of the
Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts)
Ante Kovacica 5, HR-10000 Zagreb
Hrvatska/Croatia
gluhak at hazu.hr