Accepting fewer etymologies

[petegray]

The principle of working only with core elements ("fewer") is laudable, but
I would hate to see only praise for it without an acknowledgement of the
obvious dangers.

There is a difference between:
 (a) a system of sound changes and etymologies clearly exemplified by a few
central cognates, and supported by a large body of similar such
relationships, and
 (b) a proposed system based on a small corpus, competing with alternative
systems based on other small corpora.

Unless the system determined by or exemplified by the "fewer" examples can
actually be shown to be regularly true for a significant proportion of the
words accepted as cognate, then it remains unproven.   If the system itself
is used to decide which words are cognate, then there is a danger of the
argument being circular.

Peter