Loaded "HOW LIKELY" questions

X99Lynx at aol.com X99Lynx at aol.com
Fri Mar 17 08:22:06 UTC 2000


In a message dated 3/16/2000 1:51:59 AM, g_sandi at hotmail.com wrote:

>The HOW LIKELY question enters the picture if someone claims that, say,
>*kwekwlos was applied to the wheel independently in two different IE
>languages, quite distant from each other in space.

I just wanted to make a SEPARATE point about this HOW LIKELY question and how
it is guaranteed to get us nowhere.

FOR EXAMPLE:
Does HOW LIKELY apply if someone claims that they can know what a
reconstructed word like *kwekwos meant before it was ever attested -
as if someone could actually deduce what 'drive' once meant from only knowing
its current application to data storage devices?

Does the HOW LIKELY question apply when someone assumes that two different IE
languages could have once been the same language in the same place and then
separate and MAGICALLY become "quite distant from each other" without the
intermediate step (required of most phenomenon in this physical universe) of
first being close-by - and at that point very amenable to contact and
linguistic exchange?

What question applies if someone assumes that *kwekwos even existed in PIE
when there's no direct evidence at all that it was ever even present in half
of the known IE languages?

Obviously, "HOW LIKELY" can be used in a question that can be as loaded as
Nathan Detroit's favorite pair of dice.  But of course when that question is
rephrased to reveal hidden assumptions, we can start to see the tabulations
of "likeliness" change and change drastically.

How likely is it that the unattested *kwekwlos was applied to the wheel
independently in two different IE languages, [alledgedly] quite distant from
one another" and therefore alledgedly not in contact?  If by that you mean,
how likely is it that two peoples speaking very similar languages with the
same word for something circular would both independently describe the wheel
as being circular -  well, the better question is probably: why wouldn't they?

Regards,
Steve Long



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