The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread's Sequel

[KathTheDragon]

This is Octaviano? I'm just gonna... be over there...

[WeepingElf]

This is Octaviano? I'm just gonna... be over there...

Yes, Talskubilos is a nickname he has used before, and what he has posted here is entirely his style, including spelling monolithic as monolythic. If this isn't Octaviano, it's a very good imposter, and I don't see why anyone would impost him. I guess many will now cry "Ban him again!!!", but I am of the opinion - the same as at his last comeback - that unorthodox linguistic opinions are not a reason to ban someone from a forum like this, though improper social conduct is, and he should be given a fair chance of reform. If he doesn't fall back into going ad hominem against those who criticize his opinions, we should tolerate him. Of course, everybody is invited to criticize his ideas!

[WeepingElf]

Somebody said *Hoḱu- could be related either to *akwā or *h₁eḱwo- but not to both of them!

The point is that if both are inherited from PIE, they must have had different initial laryngeals, since Latin aqua can only be from *h₂ek(')weh₂; however, the limited distribution of the latter suggests that we are dealing with a substratum loanword here, and if this substratum was related to IE (which we don't know but is IMHO plausible), the words may be related since the substratum language may have developed vowels next to laryngeals differently. Alas, we simply don't know.

[Talskubilos]

The point is that if both are inherited from PIE, they must have had different initial laryngeals, since Latin aqua can only be from *h₂ek(')weh₂; however, the limited distribution of the latter suggests that we are dealing with a substratum loanword here, and if this substratum was related to IE (which we don't know but is IMHO plausible), the words may be related since the substratum language may have developed vowels next to laryngeals differently. Alas, we simply don't know.

The thing is we've got three seemingly related Latin words: aqua, acupedis, accipiter. The geminated consonant of the latter is rather puzzling, but it has parallels in the Lusitanian theonym Iccona, identified by scholars with Celtic Epona. Furthermore, there's evidence aqua had a geminated variant in Vulgar Latin, as shown by the Appendix Probi and Italian acqua.

Yes, Talskubilos is a nickname he has used before, and what he has posted here is entirely his style, including spelling monolithic as monolythic. If this isn't Octaviano, it's a very good imposter, and I don't see why anyone would impost him. I guess many will now cry "Ban him again!!!", but I am of the opinion - the same as at his last comeback - that unorthodox linguistic opinions are not a reason to ban someone from a forum like this, though improper social conduct is, and he should be given a fair chance of reform. If he doesn't fall back into going ad hominem against those who criticize his opinions, we should tolerate him. Of course, everybody is invited to criticize his ideas!

To cut a long story short, I think the IE family is the result of a (rather complex) series of expansion and replacement processes over several millenia. This implies the traditional genealogic tree model is a huge oversimplification and its parent node (PIE) a convenient fiction (conlang) rather than a real language spoken by real people (natlang). However, reconstructed protoforms are still useful tools for comparative purposes.

[WeepingElf]

To cut a long story short, I think the IE family is the result of a (rather complex) series of expansion and replacement processes over several millenia. This implies the traditional genealogic tree model is a huge oversimplification and its parent node (PIE) a convenient fiction (conlang) rather than a real language spoken by real people (natlang). However, reconstructed protoforms are still useful tools for comparative purposes.

I concur with you that (1) the conventional model of IE simplifies some things and (2) the individual branches of IE contain many loanwords from other languages. Many of Pokorny's etymologies have various problems and are probably spurious. But I feel that you are throwing out the baby with the bathwater here. At least, when you attack the foundations of an edifice on which academic scholars have worked on for 200 years, the burden of proof is on you, and few relevant scholars will take you seriously.

[KathTheDragon]

Using Pokorny of all scholars as your reference is itself questionable. He might be comprehensive, but that's not very useful when you're more out of date than an extinct species.

[Talskubilos]

I concur with you that (1) the conventional model of IE simplifies some things and (2) the individual branches of IE contain many loanwords from other languages. Many of Pokorny's etymologies have various problems and are probably spurious.

Using Pokorny of all scholars as your reference is itself questionable. He might be comprehensive, but that's not very useful when you're more out of date than an extinct species.

Mallory & Adams (2006): The Oxford Introduction to PIE and the PIE World is an updated reference.

But I feel that you are throwing out the baby with the bathwater here. At least, when you attack the foundations of an edifice on which academic scholars have worked on for 200 years, the burden of proof is on you, and few relevant scholars will take you seriously.

We'll see.

[Richard W]

The thing is we've got three seemingly related Latin words: aqua, acupedis, accipiter. The geminated consonant of the latter is rather puzzling, but it has parallels in the Lusitanian theonym Iccona, identified by scholars with Celtic Epona. Furthermore, there's evidence aqua had a geminated variant in Vulgar Latin, as shown by the Appendix Probi and Italian acqua.

And Greek hippos with its geminate might fit in here somewhere.

To cut a long story short, I think the IE family is the result of a (rather complex) series of expansion and replacement processes over several millenia. This implies the traditional genealogic tree model is a huge oversimplification and its parent node (PIE) a convenient fiction (conlang) rather than a real language spoken by real people (natlang). However, reconstructed protoforms are still useful tools for comparative purposes.

I think there's a bit more going on than this in your model. I think you want to throw in absorption of dialects by other dialects, as befits a dialect continuum, with a result that may be interpreted as IE languages having significant IE substrates or superstrates.

[Talskubilos]

I think there's a bit more going on than this in your model. I think you want to throw in absorption of dialects by other dialects, as befits a dialect continuum, with a result that may be interpreted as IE languages having significant IE substrates or superstrates.

The answer would be affirmative, at least in some cases. For example, Celtic shares some lexical isoglosses with Eastern IE languages, such as the inverted "thorn" clusters and the relative pronoun *yo-. Despite so, its morphology lacks Indo-Greek innovations such as the "augment" and it's closer to the Italic one, pointing to a substrate/adstrate of that kind rather than an Italo-Celtic node.

[WeepingElf]

Overlapping isoglosses in IE are a thing. Language families evolve from dialect continuums, where such overlapping isoglosses are the norm rather than the exception, so it should be nobody's surprise that they can be found in the IE family.

[Talskubilos]

Overlapping isoglosses in IE are a thing. Language families evolve from dialect continuums, where such overlapping isoglosses are the norm rathr than the exception, so it should be nobody's surprise that they can be found in the IE family.

The thing is there's evidence of several instances of seemingly related protoforms A,B,... appearing in different branches, often with overlapping. To quote an example, on one hand we've got *ghebhōl- 'head' in Tocharian, Greek and Germanic (where its meaning is 'gable') and on the other *kapōlo- 'id.' (Old English hafola, Sanskrit kapá:la-), both ultimately related to Semitic *gVbVl- 'mountain; boundary, border' (Arabic ʒabal 'mountain').

This is why I think a multi-layer model, a term which I borrowed from the Bulgarian Indo-Europeist Vladimir Georgiev, would be more appropriate for the IE family than the classical genealogical tree.

[Ares Land]

Furthermore, there's evidence aqua had a geminated variant in Vulgar Latin, as shown by the Appendix Probi and Italian acqua.

Just for a bit of a nitpick: acqua is the expected outcome of a regular sound change C > CC /_j,w in Italian.
accipiter most likely predates that sound change (it's attested in Plautus). It is certainly related to acus, though!

As for the rest, most of that discussion goes way above my head, so don't mind me

[WeepingElf]

As for the rest, most of that discussion goes way above my head, so don't mind me

It goes above my head, too, and I think I know my ways around here! This, after all, is our old "friend" Octaviano, whom you surely remember, and who cultivates ideas about etymologies that are, well, non-standard He likes to play willy-nilly with phonemes and relapses into the kind of etymology Voltaire once - before the development of the comparative method by people like Rask, Bopp and Grimm - characterized as "a science in which consonants count for little and vowels for nothing at all". And meanwhile, he rejects the well-reasoned and well-established work of academic historical linguists in favour of the castles in the air he is building. Also, he likes to misrepresent other people. Any discussion with him is pointless, unless he has reformed during the time of his absence from the ZBB - for which I see no signs. His etymologies are as capricious as ever, and he has already been misrepresenting me in the Paleo-European languages thread. Sometimes this is fun; more often, it is annoying.

[Talskubilos]

It goes above my head, too, and I think I know my ways around here! This, after all, is our old "friend" Octaviano, whom you surely remember, and who cultivates ideas about etymologies that are, well, non-standard He likes to play willy-nilly with phonemes and relapses into the kind of etymology Voltaire once - before the development of the comparative method by people like Rask, Bopp and Grimm - characterized as "a science in which consonants count for little and vowels for nothing at all". And meanwhile, he rejects the well-reasoned and well-established work of academic historical linguists in favour of the castles in the air he is building. Also, he likes to misrepresent other people. Any discussion with him is pointless, unless he has reformed during the time of his absence from the ZBB - for which I see no signs. His etymologies are as capricious as ever, and he has already been misrepresenting me in the Paleo-European languages thread. Sometimes this is fun; more often, it is annoying.

Ad hominem!!!

[WeepingElf]

Ad hominem!!!

I am sorry if you feel like that, but I merely intended to criticize your methodology and your way of arguing. Your reply only shows that you haven't changed much, as you used to cry "Ad hominem!" when people criticized your methods and social behaviour. You certainly aren't stupid, let alone fraudulent; you are smart and sincere, it is just that you apparently haven't learned properly how real etymology works and how real scholars discuss their ideas, and it seems as if you have deceived yourself by your improper methodology. I know what I am talking about because I myself pursued many ideas which I later realized to be misguided, and dropped them when I did so.

[Talskubilos]

it is just that you apparently haven't learned properly how real etymology works and how real scholars discuss their ideas, and it seems as if you have deceived yourself by your improper methodology.

Nothing of the kind. Although I don't adhere to the "established" consensus regarding PIE, I know how comparative linguistics works, so if you've got any genuine criticism about any of my proposals, please feel free to express it.

[KathTheDragon]

This is why I'm refusing to acknowledge a single thing he's writing. I have better things to do than pick them apart. I learned that from Jouna Pyysalo.

[mèþru]

it is just that you apparently haven't learned properly how real etymology works and how real scholars discuss their ideas, and it seems as if you have deceived yourself by your improper methodology.

Nothing of the kind. Although I don't adhere to the "established" consensus regarding PIE, I know how comparative linguistics works, so if you've got any genuine criticism about any of my proposals, please feel free to express it.

More seriously, I gotta agree with Kath here.

[Sol717]

The thing is we've got three seemingly related Latin words: aqua, acupedis, accipiter. The geminated consonant of the latter is rather puzzling, but it has parallels in the Lusitanian theonym Iccona, identified by scholars with Celtic Epona.

De Vaan explains the geminate of accipiter as influence from accipio. Since It. acqua is regular, there is no need to posit a geminated byform of h₂eḱ- (which would be odd, since geminates in IE languages are post-IE). More generally, the important takeaway here is that variations in form don't have to be old; proto-forms can and have been reconstructed with variants which could easily be secondary and of no great import.

[Kuchigakatai]

Arguments have long been shown not to work well with our dear Octavià. Would mockery have a better effect, as detailed in this post of mine from August last year?

The way these etymologies go, some work could be done in deriving the Starostinian Proto-North-Caucasian and such from zomp's Proto-Eastern conlang, justified through a magical portal that opened to our dimension perhaps circa 6000 BC.