excluding data

[Larry Trask]

ECOLING at aol.com writes:

[LT: on proposed alternatives to my criteria]

>> Are you ever going to answer these questions?

>  Larry has repeatedly made the statement above.
>  It is a red herring, avoiding dealing with the poins which WERE raised.

It is not a red herring.  I have put my criteria on the table with considerable
explicitness.  Lloyd and others have repeatedly implied that there is, or might
be, something wrong with my criteria.  I have therefore asked for alternative
criteria.  I have seen none, except for Lloyd's suggestion that 1700 is a
better cutoff date than 1600 and his insistence that sound-symbolic words
should be self-consciously added to the list according to no specified
criteria.  I have agreed that the first is possible, but dismissed the second
as lacking in specifics and intrinsically circular.

>  I have repeatedly answered these questions.
>  I have done so here yet again.

Nope.  I have yet to see a set of fully explicit criteria for choosing, in a
principled manner, how words should be included or excluded.

>  Partly the answer is fewer exclusions, this will give better results
>  because of earlier awareness of the full range of native and
>  ancient vocabulary.

No.  "Fewer exclusions" is not in the least specific.  What criteria should be
invoked to determine inclusion or exclusion?

>  Anything more specific has to refer to specifics which
>  have been given elsewhere, some of them here yet again.

Sorry, but I don't recall seeing any further specifics.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk