26.157, Qs: Garden Path Sentences (India); Proto-forms in Historical Linguistics

Tue Jan 13 19:53:39 UTC 2015

LINGUIST List: Vol-26-157. Tue Jan 13 2015. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 26.157, Qs: Garden Path Sentences (India); Proto-forms in Historical Linguistics

Moderators: Damir Cavar, Indiana U <damir at linguistlist.org>
            Malgorzata E. Cavar, Indiana U <gosia at linguistlist.org>

Reviews: reviews at linguistlist.org
Anthony Aristar <aristar at linguistlist.org>
Helen Aristar-Dry <hdry at linguistlist.org>
Sara Couture, Indiana U <sara at linguistlist.org>

Homepage: http://linguistlist.org

Do you want to donate to LINGUIST without spending an extra penny? Bookmark
the Amazon link for your country below; then use it whenever you buy from
Amazon!

USA: http://www.amazon.com/?_encoding=UTF8&tag=linguistlist-20
Britain: http://www.amazon.co.uk/?_encoding=UTF8&tag=linguistlist-21
Germany: http://www.amazon.de/?_encoding=UTF8&tag=linguistlistd-21
Japan: http://www.amazon.co.jp/?_encoding=UTF8&tag=linguistlist-22
Canada: http://www.amazon.ca/?_encoding=UTF8&tag=linguistlistc-20
France: http://www.amazon.fr/?_encoding=UTF8&tag=linguistlistf-21

For more information on the LINGUIST Amazon store please visit our
FAQ at http://linguistlist.org/amazon-faq.cfm.

Editor for this issue: Damir Cavar <damir at linguistlist.org>
================================================================

Visit LL's Multitree project for over 1000 trees dynamically generated
from scholarly hypotheses about language relationships:
          http://multitree.linguistlist.org/

===========================Directory==============================

1)
Date: 28-Oct-2014
From: Sharbatanu Chatterjee [sharbatc at iitk.ac.in]
Subject: Garden Path Sentences (India)
2)
Date: 17-Oct-2014
From: Ari Marappan [farmasiariv2 at yahoo.com]
Subject: Proto-forms in Historical Linguistics

-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 14:53:27
From: Sharbatanu Chatterjee [sharbatc at iitk.ac.in]
Subject: Garden Path Sentences (India)

E-mail this message to a friend:
http://linguistlist.org/issues/emailmessage/verification.cfm?iss=26-157.html&submissionid=35972717&topicid=8&msgnumber=1

Are there any known examples of Garden Path Sentences,
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_path_sentence) in languages spoken in
India (any language family)?

Linguistic Field(s): General Linguistics

-------------------------Message 2 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 14:53:27
From: Ari Marappan [farmasiariv2 at yahoo.com]
Subject: Proto-forms in Historical Linguistics

E-mail this message to a friend:
http://linguistlist.org/issues/emailmessage/verification.cfm?iss=26-157.html&submissionid=35969477&topicid=8&msgnumber=2

My question is whether proto-forms in Historical Linguistics are
relevant/valid anymore?

I don't think they are as they are not scientific enough. I quote the
following from Wikipedia:

//In general, the issue of the nature of proto-language remains unsolved, with
linguists taking the realist or abstractionist position. Even the widely
studied proto-languages, such as Proto-Indo-European, have suffered criticism
due to being typological outliers with respect to the reconstructed phonemic
inventory. The alternatives such as glottalic theory, despite representing a
typologically less rare system, have not gained wider acceptance, with some
researchers even suggesting the use of indexes to represent the disputed
series of plosives. On the other end of spectrum, Pulgram (1959:424) suggests
that Proto-Indo-European reconstructions are just ''a set of reconstructed
formulae not representative of any reality''. In the same vein Julius Pokorny
in his study on Indo-European claims that the linguistic term IE parent
language is merely an abstraction that does not exist in reality, and it
should be understood as consisting of dialects possibly dating back to the
paleolithic, during which these formed the linguistic structure of the IE
language group.[7] In his view, Indo-European is solely a system of isoglosses
which held together dialects which were spoken by various tribes, from which
the historically attested Indo-European languages emerged.[7]//

This is from Wikipedia: http://en. wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto- language
What is your opinion on this?

Linguistic Field(s): Historical Linguistics

----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-26-157	
----------------------------------------------------------
Visit LL's Multitree project for over 1000 trees dynamically generated
from scholarly hypotheses about language relationships:
          http://multitree.linguistlist.org/