Loaded "HOW LIKELY" questions

[JoatSimeon at aol.com]

>X99Lynx at aol.com writes:

>Definitely not.  But I sure have problems with YOUR version of historical
>linguistics.

-- well, since mine is taken straight from the textbooks...

>I don't know how three IE languages can be "otherwise unrelated."  Is this
>another one of the special concepts in your version of historical
>linguistics?

-- French and Italian are both IE languages.  French and German are both IE
languages.  But French and German are "otherwise unrelated" while French and
Italian are related by both being Romance languages.

Is this clear now?

Hence, if we have cognates in, say, Hittite, Tocharian, and Celtic, we can
assume a PIE origin for the word.  (Note the distinction between "cognate"
and "loanword"; this seems to be a perennial problem of yours.)

>I think the memory slip is yours.  No known word in Hittite.

-- Luwian "azuwa", and Lycian "esbe".

>*Telephone: reflexes in all IE languages.  Give me a break.

-- no breaks as long as you fail to understand the difference between
"cognate" and "loanword", I'm afraid.