Excluding data

[Larry Trask]

On Sun, 26 Sep 1999, Jon Patrick wrote:

> Let's agree to differ. My position is that if can't be shown to be
> non-basque then it is basque.

Too strong for me.  I prefer this view: if there exist reasonable
grounds for *suspecting* it may not be native Basque, then we should
exclude it.

> If it can't be shown to be modern then it is old.

Far too strong for me.  Only in a case in which the entry of a word into
Basque can be firmly documented can we show that it is modern.  In most
of the interesting cases, we can't do this.  Accordingly, we require
positive evidence that a word is a plausible candidate for native and
ancient status, and not merely the absence of evidence against this.
I cannot, for example, prove that <taup> `heartbeat' is modern: I can
only show that there exists no good evidence that it is old.

After all, no Basque writer is on record as saying "I've just invented
the word <taup>", or "The young people have started saying <taup>, which
nobody used in my day."  So I propose to let the textual evidence speak
for itself.

> How old is anybody's guess.

Precisely, and not good enough for my purposes.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk