Indo-Hittite

[X99Lynx at aol.com]

In a message dated 1/26/00 11:23:23 AM, Hans J Holm wrote:

<<It must be noticed that the starting point or so called 'root' in the
Ringe/Warnow tree is /not/ calculated, but inserted by Ringe as outcome of
traditional, mainstream views perhaps too much preoccupied by the only
early documentation of Hittite. >>

Since it is mainly based on prior scholarship and selected PIE
reconstructions, I suspect there is nothing particularly novel about the
UPenn tree findings.  It's clear that the methodology is originally designed
to find the best possible internal consistency for particular theories,
rather than testing the theories themselves.

As you say, adjustments were made in the data to give a relative chronology
to the tree afterwards.  Some of these adjustments were geographical and
relate to
presumed contact or lack of it.  Specific adjustments made to date Hittite
are not clear in the texts I have.

There is no indication that the UPenn group ever hypothesized or attempted to
execute a tree where Hittite and PIE were hypothesized to be sisters decended
from a common ancestor to see if it was also consistent with the data.  Such
a procedure might have been methodologically necessary to properly 'test' the
IndoHittite hypothesis.  These findings also might have carried assumptions
that Hittite was a descendent of PIE (e.g., some of the established
reconstructed PIE that Ringe, et al used to identify cognates for
co-categorization presumably were reconstructed with Hittite included in the
comparative data) and the computer confirmed that this was not inconsistent -
a finding that could have also possibly come out of hypothesizing Hittite as
being a sister language.

I'm not saying anything here of course about the correctness of the
Indo-Hittite hypothesis.

Regards,
Steve Long