Accepting fewer etymologies

[Herb Stahlke]

>>> Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen <jer at cphling.dk> 09/16 11:58 AM >>>
My desperate question is: How does one make
people in non-rigorous linguistics (comparative or other) understand that
these principles reflect superior, not inferior and deficient, scholarly
standards? Where I know the field, the sheer survival of Indo-European
studies (perhaps even of good objective reasoning) appears to depend
crucially on the propagation of these principles to quarters where it is
rather the opposite (the "exciting point of view") that is at a premium.
Anyone out there who has ever succeeded in convincing those "in charge" of
linguistics that the rigorous methods of good old comparative linguistics
constitute a point in our favor and not in our disfavor? If so, what did
you say to them? Please help the needy with important advice!
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

There is little question that rigorous comparative linguistics must end up at
this point, that the rigorous application of the comparative method, as the
Ringe quote specifies, is the only way to get carefully reasoned, testable
results.  However, that leaves us still with the methodological question of how
one gets to the point at which the CM becomes usable.  In IE details of
relationships have been well enough worked out that one can start with the CM.
In a place like Africa, South America, Australia, or New Guinea, on the other
hand, we need ways to determine which languages are promising candidates for
the CM, and we need other methods to formulate those hypotheses.  This is where
lexicostatistics and, in Africa, mass comparison, have proved useful.  It is
not that groupings established by these methods are to be considered as
strongly motivated.  Rather, it means that we can formulate hypotheses that we
can then test with the comparative method.  This is not a matter of discarding
rigor for the "exciting point of view"; it's a matter of having some basis for
deciding where to start.

Herb Stahlke