rhotacism from Ray Hickey

[H.M.Hubey]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Ross Clark wrote:
>
> > Aren't morphological paradigms also part of 'regular sound change"?
>
> No, they're not.
>
> But more to the point, contrary to what Mr Hubey seems to be
> suggesting, the little couplet above is not an instance of circular
> reasoning. It's merely the same statement phrased two different ways.
> Or rather,  2. is a statement of a general principle, of which 1. is a
 specific application.
>
> What Mr Hubey may be trying to articulate is the superficially
> circular-looking:
>
> 1. A,B,C are a language family ===> A,B,C have regular sound
> correspondences.
>
> 2. A,B,C have regular sound correspondences ===> A,B,C are a language
> family.
>
 
Perhaps only some people use it circularly, or many linguists use it
circularly, but it is in use.
 
> But the attribution of circularity rests on a misreading of the
> relations between the propositions in 1. and 2. as the same. 1. is a
> causal relation -- regular sound correspondences result from the
> definition of a language family, plus the fact that sound change is
> regular.
 
But borrowings also create regular sound correspondences.
 
2. is a progression from evidence to inference -- we observe
> regular sound correspondences, from which we conclude these languages
> are a family. (Whether this is an accurate account of what we
> actually do is not the question here.) It's no more circular than:
>
> 1. Patient has measles ===> patient has spots on face.
> 2. Patient has spots on face ===> patient has measles.
 
This rests on something different.
 
1. Patient has measles (definition comes from some other place, but may
include spots on the face). These days the defn would come from being
able
to culture the bacteria. Then the spots on the face and measles
correlate.
The time depth is short and one can see a non-measles person get it, get
sick, etc.
 
Because of the correlation of measles and spots, 2 then becomes an
implication.
 
 
But that does not work so in historical linguistics because we never had
a record of any language family (knowing its relatives, etc) but all of
it
rests on a larger theory of which regular sound correspondence must be a
part.
 
So it is a whole mess of correlations which lead towards that
conclusion.
 
More to the point it is based on this reasoning.
 
1. These languages have too many things in common. IOW, there are many
words in
these languages which can be made to look like each other with similar
meanings
and which could not be due to chance.
 
2. If that is not due to chance then either they got these words from
each other
or the words are all descended from a common language.
 
3. We have plenty of evidence (what?) that these languages did not get
these
words from each other.
 
4. Therefore these words in these languages must all come from an
earlier common
source.
 
This is how it is supposed to work, but you can see rather easily how
and where
problems crop up, and where arguments occur.
 
Isn't this basically right?
 
> This may be rough and ready diagnostic practice, but it isn't a
> logical fallacy.
>
> Ross Clark
 
--
Best Regards,
Mark
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