IE, Genetic Data, Languages of Anatolia

[WB (in Frankfurt today)]

At 13:30 25.02.99 -0500, Alexis wrote:

AMR| I have yet to
AMR| see any real debate of the SC hypothesis.  If there is any
AMR| competent comment on this hypothesis, pro or con, I would
AMR| appreciate references.

Well, take a look at Alexander Vovin's excellent review article on
WSY Wang ed. (1995), _The ancestry of the Chinese language_ (_Journal
of CHinese Linguistics 25[1997]2: 308-336) for starts. Sasha demon-
strates that Starostin's SC reconstruction rests on multiple correspon-
dances not showing any trace of phonological conditioning (ST *-t,
for instance, has no less than 17 PNC correspondances!), that "there
is anything but regularity", that SC "with its 150 or 180 consonants
does not even remotely resemble a human language", and that Starostin
introduces rather dubious rules of root reduction (a la Paul King
Benedict), which are even contradicted by his own etymologies. Vovin
concludes (fair enough, I must say!), "In my opinion, the Sino-Cua-
casian theory in the shape as it is presented is better placed on the
back burner, until more regular and phonologically motivated corres-
pondances can be offered." If I remember things correctly, there will
be a workshop on SC in Cambridge (at the McDonald Institute of Archeo-
logy) sometime this year, so maybe we will see a convincing defense
of Starostin before long ???

Cheers, Wolfgang

ps, re:

AMR| I don't know what Miguel views of Sino-Caucasian are, but I
AMR| do know that these kinds of speculations are precisely grist
AMR| to the mill of those, like Wolfgang, who are perhaps all
AMR| too eager to dismiss the SC theory w/o a proper evaluation.

Oh well... for Wolfgang Schulze's _very proper_ evaluation of the
C-part of SC, cf. his review of Starostin & Nikolayev in _Diachronica_
1997.1: 149-161.