Sociological Linguistics

[Patrick C. Ryan]

[ moderator re-formatted ]

Dear Tom and IEists:

 ----- Original Message -----
From: Tom Wier <artabanos at mail.utexas.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 1999 4:28 AM

>> Pat responded:

>> "Irrelevant" must be your favorite word. What happened to your "*in any
>> era*"? Have you just dropped that idea without acknowledging how
>> wrong-headed it is?

>> What "extant" languages show is totally irrelevant to what they may have
>> been like in the far distant past.

Tom commented:

> (a) Linguistics must procede under the assumption that the kinds of
> phenomena that we see today have always been that way.  We cannot
> go around assuming that entirely unprecedented changes or features
> were the case centuries or millennia earlier.  They might well have been,
> but, methodologicly speaking, *there is no way to prove that*.  Any
> processes you do claim existed would be entirely lacking in empirical
> foundation, by definition, and thus subject to a high probability of error
> (here we're getting back to Aristotle's fundamental problem).

Pat responds:

If you ever visit my website, you will see that nothing I hypothesize about
the Proto-Language does not have similar modern parallels.

Tom continued:

> (b) So, what extant languages show might well be entirely relevant, if
> there is no methodological means to reconstruct the protolanguage.
> When you are trying to describe a language, you have to know what it
> is first -- and when you're dealing with reconstructed languages, this
> is an iffy business at best. Also, if the known data about extant
> languages all disagree fundamentally with a hypothesis, it is the duty
> of the linguistic establishment not to accept that hypothesis as true
> unless further evidence comes along to reinforce it (which could
> happen).

Pat responds:

Strange words from a man who announces "credo ergo ero (indicium non
necessarium)". But, anyway, instead of generalities, take any of what you
believe to be my hypotheses --- those you believe "disagree fundamentally"
with "data about extant languages" --- and show me where they conflict.

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN (501) 227-9947; FAX/DATA (501)312-9947 9115 W. 34th St.
Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803 and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit
ek, at ek hekk, vindga meipi, nftr allar nmu, geiri undapr . . . a ~eim
meipi er mangi veit hvers hann af rstum renn." (Havamal 138)