Not exactly. As I mentioned before, /C/ doesn't stand for any consonant but a dental affricate/fricative, as /c/ = IPA /ts/.KathTheDragon wrote: ↑Fri Nov 13, 2020 2:04 pmYes. This means "an unknown consonant and an unknown vowel"
The phonetics have a poor match, almost at the cakra v. wheel level, but at least there are sibilance and dorsality.Zju wrote: ↑Fri Nov 13, 2020 1:15 pmNeither phonetics nor semantics match here, not even parts of speech match. This is not even a resemblance.Talskubilos wrote: ↑Fri Nov 13, 2020 9:09 am Apparently, there're no more examples of *ttsˀ ~ IE *d but I could find one with *s instead: Caucasian *ttsˀăqˀV 'strength, power' ~ IE *seģh- 'to hold'.
Sorry, then I can’t accept it. Such an ad hoc correspondence is almost certainly a chance resemblance, if you can’t find any other instances of the same alternation.Talskubilos wrote: ↑Fri Nov 13, 2020 9:09 amApparently, there're no more examples of *ttsˀ ~ IE *d but I could find one with *s instead: Caucasian *ttsˀăqˀV 'strength, power' ~ IE *seģh- 'to hold'.bradrn wrote: ↑Fri Nov 13, 2020 7:11 amHmm, that argument is starting to make a bit more sense now. Though I’d feel a lot more comfortable with it if I had a few more examples of that same purported *ttsˀ ~ d correspondence. (I’d try finding some myself, except I have very limited knowledge of PIE.)
Even when it’s capitalised? It’s usually lowercase ⟨c⟩ which is equal to /ts/; all the other instances of uppercase ⟨C⟩ I’ve seen have been used to represent an unknown consonant.Talskubilos wrote: ↑Fri Nov 13, 2020 2:10 pmNot exactly. As I mentioned before, /C/ doesn't stand for any consonant but a dental affricate/fricative, as /c/ = IPA /ts/.KathTheDragon wrote: ↑Fri Nov 13, 2020 2:04 pmYes. This means "an unknown consonant and an unknown vowel"
I've already show you one: *pard-/*pars- 'leopard' ~ Caucasian *bħĕrtsˀĭ (~ -ĕ) 'wolf, jackal'.bradrn wrote: ↑Fri Nov 13, 2020 6:48 pmHmm, that argument is starting to make a bit more sense now. Though I’d feel a lot more comfortable with it if I had a few more examples of that same purported *ttsˀ ~ d correspondence. (I’d try finding some myself, except I have very limited knowledge of PIE.)Sorry, then I can’t accept it. Such an ad hoc correspondence is almost certainly a chance resemblance, if you can’t find any other instances of the same alternation.Apparently, there're no more examples of *ttsˀ ~ IE *d but I could find one with *s instead: Caucasian *ttsˀăqˀV 'strength, power' ~ IE *seģh- 'to hold'.
No wonder that site is called The Tower of Babel.
Oh, sorry, I missed that one. In that case, you have two correspondences! Which isn’t really much better. I’d be curious to know, do you have any correspondences with more than 5 or so pairs?Talskubilos wrote: ↑Fri Nov 13, 2020 7:12 pmI've already show you one: *pard-/*pars- 'leopard' ~ Caucasian *bħĕrtsˀĭ (~ -ĕ) 'wolf, jackal'.bradrn wrote: ↑Fri Nov 13, 2020 6:48 pmHmm, that argument is starting to make a bit more sense now. Though I’d feel a lot more comfortable with it if I had a few more examples of that same purported *ttsˀ ~ d correspondence. (I’d try finding some myself, except I have very limited knowledge of PIE.)Sorry, then I can’t accept it. Such an ad hoc correspondence is almost certainly a chance resemblance, if you can’t find any other instances of the same alternation.Apparently, there're no more examples of *ttsˀ ~ IE *d but I could find one with *s instead: Caucasian *ttsˀăqˀV 'strength, power' ~ IE *seģh- 'to hold'.
Wait, we're using words like "should" in Anglo-Saxon phonology now? If I had a nickel for each time a word showed up in historical English spelling with a vowel that has no historical explanation, I would be a rich woman. Back vowels become front vowels. Front vowels become back vowels. It's madness. If we encounter a word in English with a non-sensical vowel, all that it tells us is that, yes, Middle English continues to Middle English.Richard W wrote: ↑Thu Nov 12, 2020 10:35 amIt is not the voicing, but the vowel that calls out for explanation. Though the reflexes of Old English þæg(e)/þāg (and of þā in the north) and Old Danish þei (in English) eventually merge, they should have different Middle English reflexes, should they not?Moose-tache wrote: ↑Thu Nov 12, 2020 7:34 am There are already examples of initial voicing of the dental fricative in native words, so "they" does not cry out for any special explanation.
Unfortunately no, but the this d ~ s alternation can be seen in e.g. IE *dug-h2ter 'daughter' ~ Thracian suk(h)is.
As to the point, I detect envy of the palaeontologists' trees. The drawing up of trees seems to be a pursuit of history for its own sake, with a hobbit-like desire for simplicity and clarity. There is of course a kingdomist preference for emulating the evolutionary trees of animals, disdaining the reticulate 'trees' of plants and the vine-laden speculative trees of prokaryotes.Zju wrote: ↑Fri Nov 13, 2020 1:15 pmHmmm... there really are a couple of points here:Richard W wrote: ↑Thu Nov 12, 2020 3:29 pm Hybridisation adds to a genealogy, rather than reroots it. Now, this process that incorporated the language of the Danes into English might be considered the absorption of a dialect - it's far from certain that the languages of the English and Danish weren't mutually comprehensible. Hybridisation is frequently rejected on principle.
Wasn't the point of cladistics to just study intrafamilial language relationships without being concerned about loaning?
Biologists have tools for extracting branching cladograms from tables of characters. The palaeontologists themselves have chants of "garbage in, garbage out", and have their specialist terms of denigration for uncooperative facts, such as "incomplete lineage sorting" and "introgression" (= dialect mixing). Having tried these tools, computational linguists have tried their hand with the botanists' tools for extracting reticulated cladograms. These tools integrally have the concept of hybridisation, which is not based on lingusts' usage.
I've seen the results of computational studies of reticulation on Indo-European, and remarkably enough, 'round' and 'mountain' don't lead to a deduction of hybridisation between English and French, and I see no sign of it in the reported outputs. (These meanings don't hold onto their words well.) Computational studies come up with English being distinct from the rest of West Germanic, and reinterpret the Anglo-Frisian group as a hybridisation event between English and Dutch yielding Frisian. What shows up in phylogenetic networks is the Scandinavianness of English within West Germanic.
Presumably with Proto-Romance as the outcome. Nothing shows in the computational analyses. Conversely, Albanian does show up as a hybrid of Latin and something else; I think the something else was Indo-Iranian.
Do you mean Middle English? Middle English is a grade rather than a clade, and covers various combinations of Old English dialects and whatever became of East Norse. (I am not sure about specifically West Norse input.)
How does creolisation, as opposed to pidginisation, affect genealogy?Zju wrote: ↑Fri Nov 13, 2020 1:15 pm 2. Tangent to the last point, I've left with the impression that just creolisation and pidginisation affect genealogy. If hybridisation also does, what's the threshold? How many words and grammatical elements? Certainly history is full of language A heavily influences language B scenarios and at this point we're looking at tanglewebs instead of just trees.
Celtic *longā 'boat, vessel' (but 'cinerary urn' in Cisalpine Gaulish lokan /longan/) is a loanword related to Caucasian *lĕqˀV̆ 'a kind of vessel'. Latin lanx 'dish' also comes from this etymology, presumably through Etruscan.
In that case, I am forced to consider this relationship ‘very unproven’, if not completely non-existent. Please inform us when you have enough regular correspondences to show that these aren’t just chance resemblances.
The Celtic word means 'ship'; the Caucasian word typically means a holder for food or liquid. The Celtic word is generally held to derive from Latin.Talskubilos wrote: ↑Sat Nov 14, 2020 6:25 pm Celtic *longā 'boat, vessel' (but 'cinerary urn' in Cisalpine Gaulish lokan /longan/) is a loanword related to Caucasian *lĕqˀV̆ 'a kind of vessel'. Latin lanx 'dish' also comes from this etymology, presumably through Etruscan.
For example, English vessel refers to both, so semantics isn't a problem.
Ranko Matasović (2009): Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Celtic thinks this is a genuine Celtic word without IE etymology, and I agree with him.
Quality is always preferrable to quantity. I'm sure we don't need a complete skeleton to identify an extinct hominid species, for example.
What do you mean by ‘quality’ in this particular case?
Yes, I quite agree with this. But there is a limit: you cannot identify a species as a hominid, for instance, from the shape of a single tooth. The analogy should be obvious.I'm sure we don't need a complete skeleton to identify an extinct hominid species, for example.
It has something to do with the amount of bibliographic work and the skills needed to filter spurious data (i.e. noise).
I think we've recovered more than just a single tooth.bradrn wrote: ↑Sat Nov 14, 2020 7:18 pmYes, I quite agree with this. But there is a limit: you cannot identify a species as a hominid, for instance, from the shape of a single tooth. The analogy should be obvious.I'm sure we don't need a complete skeleton to identify an extinct hominid species, for example.
Do you really need a fingertip (or tip of a toe) as well? H. Denisova didn't start out with any more than those. The lectotype of Iguanadon anglicus is a single tooth.
OK, so how do you know that your correspondences are not spurious, i.e. are regular and not just chance resemblances? The usual way of doing this is by finding enough cognates that we know they must be regular, which is why I am placing such an emphasis on quantity.Talskubilos wrote: ↑Sat Nov 14, 2020 7:23 pmIt has something to do with the amount of bibliographic work and the skills needed to filter spurious data (i.e. noise).
True, I was a bit uncharitable there: with the amount of evidence you’ve shown us so far, it feels as if we have a single tooth, a fingerbone, and half a toe. Yes, it’s more than a tooth, but I wouldn’t go wildly drawing conclusions from such paucity of evidence either.I think we've recovered more than just a single tooth.bradrn wrote: ↑Sat Nov 14, 2020 7:18 pmYes, I quite agree with this. But there is a limit: you cannot identify a species as a hominid, for instance, from the shape of a single tooth. The analogy should be obvious.I'm sure we don't need a complete skeleton to identify an extinct hominid species, for example.
I believe the Denisovans were identified using DNA evidence, so that’s millions of data rather than just one datum. The Iguanadon case is interesting, and shows the perils of scarce evidence:Richard W wrote: ↑Sat Nov 14, 2020 7:48 pmDo you really need a fingertip (or tip of a toe) as well? H. Denisova didn't start out with any more than those. The lectotype of Iguanadon anglicus is a single tooth.
Note the various misidentifications: crocodiles, fish and rhinoceroses. The correct identification came only after much more comparative evidence was found (namely the skeleton of Megalosaurus).Wikipedia wrote: It is known from his notebooks that Mantell first acquired large fossil bones from the quarry at Whitemans Green in 1820. Because also theropod teeth were found, thus belonging to carnivores, he at first interpreted these bones, which he tried to combine into a partial skeleton, as those of a giant crocodile. In 1821 Mantell mentioned the find of herbivorous teeth and began to consider the possibility that a large herbivorous reptile was present in the strata … In May 1822 he first presented the herbivorous teeth to the Royal Society of London but the members, among them William Buckland, dismissed them as fish teeth or the incisors of a rhinoceros … In 1824 Buckland described Megalosaurus and was on that occasion invited to visit Mantell's collection. Seeing the bones on 6 March he agreed that these were of some giant saurian—though still denying it was a herbivore. Emboldened nevertheless, Mantell again sent some teeth to Cuvier, who answered on 22 June 1824 that he had determined that they were reptilian and quite possibly belonged to a giant herbivore. In a new edition that year of his Recherches sur les Ossemens Fossiles Cuvier admitted his earlier mistake, leading to an immediate acceptance of Mantell, and his new saurian, in scientific circles.
Well, I think the case of the 'reed' words is solid enough. On the one hand, we've got a Caucasian protoform with two metathesized variants, and on the other, two IE protoforms with consistent sound correspondences.bradrn wrote: ↑Sat Nov 14, 2020 7:55 pmOK, so how do you know that your correspondences are not spurious, i.e. are regular and not just chance resemblances? The usual way of doing this is by finding enough cognates that we know they must be regular, which is why I am placing such an emphasis on quantity.
Yes, I agree that this is the most solid of your correspondences. But metathesis is common enough that, while suspicious, I don’t see this coincidence as enough evidence for a genealogical connection.Talskubilos wrote: ↑Sat Nov 14, 2020 8:56 pmWell, I think the case of the 'reed' words is solid enough. On the one hand, we've got a Caucasian protoform with two metathesized variants, and on the other, two IE protoforms with consistent sound correspondences.bradrn wrote: ↑Sat Nov 14, 2020 7:55 pmOK, so how do you know that your correspondences are not spurious, i.e. are regular and not just chance resemblances? The usual way of doing this is by finding enough cognates that we know they must be regular, which is why I am placing such an emphasis on quantity.