rhotacism from Ray Hickey

[H.M.Hubey]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Sarah G. Thomason wrote:
>
> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>
> H.M. Hubey's claim that "there cannot be any proof" that Armenian
> /erku/ is not a loanword from a Turkic language is mistaken: there
> are at least two, and perhaps more than two, other cognate sets
> between Armenian and other IE languages (e.g. Ancient Greek) with
> initial correspondences Armenian erk- : other IE dw-.  One is a
> word for "long", the other a word for "fear/terrible" -- sorry, I
> don't have the actual forms in my head or by my desk.
 
There are different ways to reason; one way with certainty is logic.
REasoning
under uncertainty is probabilistic or fuzzy-logical. Most people who
write about science are philosophers and they mostly use logic. Under
this particular type of reasoning, proof is possible only in math. No
proof of any laws of physics is possible let alone linguistics.
 
Since borrowings are also regularized and since there is a tendency
in language to 'regularize' including 'hypercorrection', it does not
matter how many sound correspondences are found. The laws of linguistics
are based on probability theory (as are laws of physics). At best we
can obtain statements to the effect that such and such occurences are
unlikely to be due to chance. This, of course, does not rule out
'borrowing'.
 
 
>    Of course, Sumerian "imma" doesn't look very similar to Turkic
> "ikki", either; but in the absence of other pairs of words showing
> -mm- in Sumerian and -kk- in Turkic, no historical linguist would
> accept it as a promising cognate set, especially in the absence
> of  *systematic* evidence of cognacy elsewhere in the
> lexicon (systematic, i.e. with recurring correspondences, as opposed
> to scattered similarities of the sort Trask was warning against).
 
Sure, there are 165 of them in Dr. Tuna's book. And the sound change
m > k is one of them. And, of course, there are other examples of this
sound change. Once again, if regular sound changes are "proof" then
Tuna's work has to be treated consistently as are works are treated.
 
>
>    I must have missed part of this thread: has Hubey given a
> definition of "intuitive historical linguistics"?  Is it his view
> that all historical linguistics that isn't supported by statistics
> is "intuitive"?
 
During the last century engineers used the laws of 'hydraulics' which
were
derived empirically but could not be obtained from the laws of physics.
Things changed during the early part of this century.
 
Historical linguistics is circular, especially as it is based mostly on
IE.
IT says;
 
1. The set of languages, {x,y,z...} constitutes a family because of
'regular
sound correspondences'.
2. 'Regular sound correspondences' indicate a 'language family'.
 
Surely, this is as circular as;
 
1. I am Napoleon, and my friend here is General Marat, and he can
testify that
I am Napoleon.
 
2. I am General Marat and this is Emperor Napoleon.
 
Any two clowns can memorize and repeat these lines.
 
In the case of linguistics, something else is needed. I noted the basics
above.
--
Best Regards,
Mark
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