borrowing pronouns

[maher, johnpeter]

[ moderator re-formatted ]

>Is it your point that <'usta:dh> is invalid because it is an argument
>from authority while "ustaeth" is based on your own personal experience?

Not at all. I intended only that ideally we should work with authentic scripts
to back up transcriptions. For classical Latin e.g. there are problems that
are solved only when working with majuscules/capitals, and which are concealed
or worse, by writing in Carolingian minuscules.
jpm

Robert Whiting wrote:

> On Thu, 18 Mar 1999, maher, johnpeter wrote:

> > 1. No, no, a 1000x no = no argument.
> > As an argument from authority is no argument.

> An argument from authority can be quite valid.  There are a number of
> rules that have to be observed to qualify an argument from authority, but
> if they are met then the argument can be accepted.  Anything that you have
> knowledge of that you have not verified personally is an argument from
> authority.  The reason that I know that the moon is not made out of
> green cheese (or Normandy brie) is that reasonable people who have been
> trained to investigate the matter and who have no reason to lie have told
> me so.  It is an argument from authority.  Do not confuse expert authority
> with institutional authority.

AGREED. good point.

> The two are quite different in a logical
> context.  Any time you look up a word in a dictionary or check out
> something in an encylopaedia it is an argument from authority.  Now if
> you wish to say that such references are invalid because an argument from
> authority is no argument, then the only arguments that you can use are
> ones that you have personally verified.  Therefore we can assume that your
> connection of Arabic <'usta:dh> and Spanish <usted> is based on your
> personal knowledge of the two languages and the histories of the words
> in those languages.  In which case it would seem more useful to share
> this information with the rest of us than to shout down "arguments from
> authority."

AGREED.  It would seem useful, as well, to consider that I referred to bald,
without argument. --But didn't you hear the shouted "NO" that provoked my
counter-shout?

> It might be useful for a start to note that <'usta:dh> is a non-native
> word in Arabic (according to Lane's dictionary; oops, argument from
> authority -- well perhaps you can tell us from your own knowledge why
> the word violates Arabic phonotactics) and that the same word exists
> in Persian (<'usta:d>).

I DON'T KNOW, whether from percept or precept. Can you perhaps tell us?

> > 2. <'usta:dh> ~ "ustaeth" are both transcriptions

OF ______ ?  I meant, not a "transcription/1" from speech, but a
"transcription/2" from one script to another. And I don not mean
"transliteration".

> So are <the> ~ "duh".

? --  from what is <THE> transcribed?

> Is it your point that <'usta:dh> is invalid because it is an argument
> from authority while "ustaeth" is based on your own personal experience?

NOPE. Why would you want to say that?