Principled Comparative Method - a new tool

[X99Lynx at aol.com]

In a message dated 9/1/99 11:10:25 PM, kurisuto at unagi.cis.upenn.edu wrote:

<<Let me give you an example here.  Suppose that some proto-language has the
syllables /*ki *ke *ka *ko *ku/.  Suppose that one of the daughter languages
first palatalizes *k before *i, giving /*ci *ke *ka *ko *ku/, and then merges
*e into *i, giving the attested forms /ci ki ka ko ku/.>>

<<So suppose you're the linguist trying to figure out which of the rules
happened first.  If they had applied in the other order, they would have
given /*ci *ci *ka *ko *ku/.  But this isn't what we find, so we can say
with reasonable certainty that palatalization applied first, and then the
vowel merger.>>

I'd like to make the same point what I did in my prior post.

I hope you undertand that by using a reconstruction of the parent here you
may be simply creating a loop that guarantees your answer before you even ask
it.

Was the parent /*ki *ke *ka *ko *ku/ reconstructed using, among others, the
daughter's /ci ki ka ko ku/?  I think we can assume it was.  Otherwise, it
would be an incomplete reconstruction.

How did we reconstruct /*ki *ke *ka *ko *ku/ if one of the daughter's shows
/ci ki ka ko ku/?  Well, we must have assumed that a palatalization and a
vowel shift happened.  Otherwise, how did we get a parent /*ki *ke *ka *ko
*ku/ with a daughter /ci ki ka ko ku/?  It would not be consistent to settle
on that reconstruction unless we also accounted for the changes that could
have resulted in /ci ki ka ko ku/.

So, now we turn around, act like the reconstruction came out of nowhere and
compare the daughter and say, wow, that could have only happened if the
palatalization came first!

But in fact what this whole supposition proves is that the parent's
reconstruction WAS BASED on the prior assumption that those changes happened
and /ci ki ka ko ku/ was the result.  (ASSUME: C - (Pal/Vow) = *A.  It adds
no new information to conclude *A + (Pal/Vow) = C.)

(I am not suggesting this is done intentionally or dishonestly.  It's just
that we forget in working with reconstructions that they are reconstructed
with certain paths already in mind.  In effect, like the man on the deserted
island, we are startled to see footsteps, not realizing that they are ours.)

If you want to seriously get an idea of how much presumption is built into
your example, try a difference "supposition."

First, do not presume that the parent is at this point reconstructable.  This
gets you out of the logic loop.  To use /*ki *ke *ka *ko *ku/, but not as a
reconstruction, presume that Langauge A is a sister - but lets say one of ten
sisters - all showing attested /ki ke ka ko ku/.

I hope you see this.  I am giving you /ki ke ka ko ku/ and the strongest
indication of its presence in the parent I can give.  But in exchange, I'm
not conceding the reconstruction - so you don't get the "guaranteed"
reconstruction- generated result you got in your example.  You have to work
for it.

Notice the uncertainty this creates.

Daughters (A1 ...A10) have attested /ki ke ka ko ku/.   Daughter (B) has /ci
ki ka ko ku/.  Palatalization and later vowel merge can still explain why (A)
is different than (B).  But look at all the other possibilities that arise.

One, of course, is that (A1...A10) all reflect a common innovation.  And that
(B) (/ci ki ka ko ku/) in fact reflects the parent (/*ci *ki *ka *ko *ku/).
With *ci> ke by whatever course the sound laws in this situation would allow.
 Including maybe loss of a conditioning environment - /c/ - and then a
phonemic split.  (Remember there is no /*ke/ in this version of the
reconstructed parent.)

And this shows the fundamental uncertainty when we are trying to reconstruct
from two daughters.  If you assume one has innovated, you assume the other
reflects the parent.

<< But there are many, many cases where we have to say that the rules applied
in
a certain order and not some other order, because another ordering would
simply give the wrong results.>>

In attested cases , yes.  But that may never be the case where you have to
use reconstruction to create that exclusively correct order.

Regards,
Steve Long