accusative and ergative languages

[Patrick C. Ryan]

[ moderator re-formatted ]

Dear Joat and IEists:

 ----- Original Message -----
From: <JoatSimeon at aol.com>
Sent: Tuesday, July 06, 1999 11:46 PM

>> proto-language at email.msn.com writes:

>> So what? It only requires us to expand our universe of applicable data.
>> The idea that vocabulary is irretrievably lost is jejeune.

> -- actually, it's obvious.  Information vanishes as entropy increases.  If we
> didn't have written or other artificially preserved examples of now-extinct
> languages, much of the PIE vocabulary we have would be completely
> unrecoverable.

> Try reconstructing PIE using _nothing_ but contemporary Albanian and
> English.  You'd be hard-put to prove that such a language even existed.

It is thuis type of illogic which stands in the way of real progress in
historical linguistics.

Larry Trask and others have done an excellent job, IMHO, of reconstructing
the language from which present Basque derives --- from only one language.

I also am certain that if we had reason to know that Albanian and English
were descendants of a common language, we would eventually discover a kind
of IE that would be inaccurate in some ways but essentially write.

Naturally, the more languages we added to the equation, the better
reconstruction of IE we would achieve.

Same principle.

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN (501) 227-9947; FAX/DATA (501)312-9947 9115 W. 34th St.
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http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit
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meipi er mangi veit hvers hann af rstum renn." (Havamal 138)