Zompist Bboard Again

Posted: **Wed May 29, 2024 12:55 am**

Ketsuban wrote: ↑Tue May 28, 2024 11:39 pmThe discussion following the post you quoted includes links to a pair of papers by Rhona Fenwick which I think adequately address the entire topic without any need to posit a Wanderwort. The Anatolian terms are just the result of s-mobile; the irregular metathesis from *meh₂l- to *h₂eml- (> *h₂ebl-) [,,,]

I strongly disagree. These words aren't PIE-native at all.

Ketsuban wrote: ↑Tue May 28, 2024 11:39 pm*meh₂l- is explained as *meh₂- "grow, increase" plus a deverbal *-l- also found in *webʰ- "weave" > *webʰl- "weevil".

This is correct, but *-l- would possibly be a fossilized suffix.

Posted: **Wed May 29, 2024 2:34 am**

Talskubilos wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2024 12:55 am
Ketsuban wrote: ↑Tue May 28, 2024 11:39 pmThe discussion following the post you quoted includes links to a pair of papers by Rhona Fenwick which I think adequately address the entire topic without any need to posit a Wanderwort. The Anatolian terms are just the result of s-mobile; the irregular metathesis from *meh₂l- to *h₂eml- (> *h₂ebl-) [,,,]
I strongly disagree. These words aren't PIE-native at all.

Well, as it happens, the post you’ve replied to is one which summarises the strong evidence that it is in fact PIE-native. I strongly recommend reading Fenwick’s papers here and here — they’re quite thoroughly interesting, and very well-worked-out.

Posted: **Wed May 29, 2024 5:59 am**

bradrn wrote: ↑Tue May 28, 2024 10:28 am
WeepingElf wrote: ↑Tue May 28, 2024 10:10 am Does it read to you that way because of the aggressive language the author takes recourse to?
Yes, precisely.

AMR is an acquired taste - I've read several of his papers over the last couple of years, and he often makes good arguments. You just need to read past those "everyone is out there to ignore and suppress my opinions" complaints; if he would drop that, it would make him indeded sound less like a crackpot.
I still have to read that paper on the laryngeals, so I can't say yet what I think of it.

Ketsuban wrote: ↑Tue May 28, 2024 11:25 am Do you think there's still artifacts bearing evidence of historical Indo-European languages waiting to be found which can improve our reconstructions, or is it more likely that we have everything we'll ever get and the best we can hope for is philologists finding specks of gold in their pans?

Beyond what Elf and Glass said, there's also the chance of finding more material on sparsely attested or unknown Anatolian languages; one new Anatolian language was discovered quite recently.

Posted: **Wed May 29, 2024 11:49 am**

bradrn wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2024 2:34 amWell, as it happens, the post you’ve replied to is one which summarises the strong evidence that it is in fact PIE-native. I strongly recommend reading Fenwick’s papers here and here — they’re quite thoroughly interesting, and very well-worked-out.

Not exactly. On the first hand, the Hittite and Indo-Iranian forms would suggest some kind of fossilized prefix, which shouldn't confused with the PIE "s-mobile" as Fenwick does. Secondly, there's "North West IE" *abVl- (Celtic, Germanic, Balto-Slavic), also with traces of this prefix; and thirdly, the native PIE word *meH₂l-o-.

My point is although these words are more or less distantly related, they can't be derived from a single PIE protoform. I'm affraid Fenwick and other scholars deceive themselves.

Posted: **Wed May 29, 2024 11:58 am**

Talskubilos wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2024 11:49 am My point is although these words are more or less distantly related, they can't be derived from a single PIE protoform. I'm affraid Fenwick and other scholars deceive themselves.

And yet, you’re yet to give us any actual reasons why you think this…

(As they say, ‘what is presented without evidence can be dismissed without evidence’.)

Posted: **Wed May 29, 2024 12:09 pm**

Talskubilos wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2024 11:49 am My point is although these words are more or less distantly related, they can't be derived from a single PIE protoform.
I'm affraid Fenwick and other scholars deceive themselves.

Talskubilos, are you related to Octavia? (They posted on a similar topic about 5 years ago.)

Posted: **Wed May 29, 2024 12:15 pm**

Talskubilos wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2024 11:49 am
bradrn wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2024 2:34 amWell, as it happens, the post you’ve replied to is one which summarises the strong evidence that it is in fact PIE-native. I strongly recommend reading Fenwick’s papers here and here — they’re quite thoroughly interesting, and very well-worked-out.
Not exactly. On the first hand, the Hittite and Indo-Iranian forms would suggest some kind of fossilized prefix, [...]

How so?

Posted: **Wed May 29, 2024 12:20 pm**

TomHChappell wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2024 12:09 pm
Talskubilos wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2024 11:49 am My point is although these words are more or less distantly related, they can't be derived from a single PIE protoform.
I'm affraid Fenwick and other scholars deceive themselves.
Talskubilos, are you related to Octavia? (They posted on a similar topic about 5 years ago.)

As I recall, Talskubilos is Octavia, under a different name.

Posted: **Wed May 29, 2024 12:51 pm**

bradrn wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2024 12:20 pm
TomHChappell wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2024 12:09 pm
Talskubilos wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2024 11:49 am My point is although these words are more or less distantly related, they can't be derived from a single PIE protoform.
I'm affraid Fenwick and other scholars deceive themselves.
Talskubilos, are you related to Octavia? (They posted on a similar topic about 5 years ago.)
As I recall, Talskubilos is Octavia, under a different name.

Yes, Talskubilos is the very same person as Octavià. And his misspelling and his misuse of the word afraid is a trademark of his. I don't think he always fears that this or that is true when he says he was 'affraid', rather that he thinks that way.

Posted: **Wed May 29, 2024 12:54 pm**

WeepingElf wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2024 12:51 pm
bradrn wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2024 12:20 pm
TomHChappell wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2024 12:09 pm

Talskubilos, are you related to Octavia? (They posted on a similar topic about 5 years ago.)
As I recall, Talskubilos is Octavia, under a different name.
Yes, Talskubilos is the very same person as Octavià. And his misspelling and his misuse of the word afraid is a trademark of his. I don't think he always fears that this or that is true when he says he was 'affraid', rather that he thinks that way.

Actually, to me it reads as perfectly good English (aside from the typo). ‘I’m afraid that X’ is a rather standard way of politely — or, as it may be, passive-aggressively — saying that one believes inconvenient fact X to be true.

Posted: **Wed May 29, 2024 1:08 pm**

bradrn wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2024 12:54 pm
WeepingElf wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2024 12:51 pm
bradrn wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2024 12:20 pm

As I recall, Talskubilos is Octavia, under a different name.
Yes, Talskubilos is the very same person as Octavià. And his misspelling and his misuse of the word afraid is a trademark of his. I don't think he always fears that this or that is true when he says he was 'affraid', rather that he thinks that way.
Actually, to me it reads as perfectly good English (aside from the typo). ‘I’m afraid that X’ is a rather standard way of politely — or, as it may be, passive-aggressively — saying that one believes inconvenient fact X to be true.

But I have the impression that Talksubilos hasn't grasped that the inconvenience of the fact is an important facet of the semantics of afraid. But then I am not a native English speaker and may be wrong

Posted: **Wed May 29, 2024 1:14 pm**

WeepingElf wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2024 1:08 pm
bradrn wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2024 12:54 pm
WeepingElf wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2024 12:51 pm

Yes, Talskubilos is the very same person as Octavià. And his misspelling and his misuse of the word afraid is a trademark of his. I don't think he always fears that this or that is true when he says he was 'affraid', rather that he thinks that way.
Actually, to me it reads as perfectly good English (aside from the typo). ‘I’m afraid that X’ is a rather standard way of politely — or, as it may be, passive-aggressively — saying that one believes inconvenient fact X to be true.
But I have the impression that Talksubilos hasn't grasped that the inconvenience of the fact is an important facet of the semantics of afraid. But then I am not a native English speaker and may be wrong

Well, it would be inconvenient to Fenwick, as well as us… seems acceptable enough to me. (Of course, overuse gets tiring after a time for even the most acceptable idioms.)

Posted: **Wed May 29, 2024 1:16 pm**

WeepingElf wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2024 1:08 pm But I have the impression that Talksubilos hasn't grasped that the inconvenience of the fact is an important facet of the semantics of afraid. But then I am not a native English speaker and may be wrong

What I get out of Talskubilos's use of the word afraid is that they are insisting that they must be right (and those who think otherwise must be wrong) in a very passive-aggressive fashion.

Posted: **Wed May 29, 2024 1:25 pm**

Travis B. wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2024 1:16 pm
WeepingElf wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2024 1:08 pm But I have the impression that Talksubilos hasn't grasped that the inconvenience of the fact is an important facet of the semantics of afraid. But then I am not a native English speaker and may be wrong
What I get out of Talskubilos's use of the word afraid is that they are insisting that they must be right (and those who think otherwise must be wrong) in a very passive-aggressive fashion.

Yes, precisely.

Posted: **Wed May 29, 2024 3:10 pm**

bradrn wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2024 11:58 am
Talskubilos wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2024 11:49 am My point is although these words are more or less distantly related, they can't be derived from a single PIE protoform. I'm affraid Fenwick and other scholars deceive themselves.
And yet, you’re yet to give us any actual reasons why you think this…

OK, I owe you an explanation. From my own research, I've found out that among the +2000 lexical items commonly reconstructed for PIE (see e.g. Mallory & Adams) there's a signifcant number of "long-range" correspondences which lead to doublets (and even triplets) of related protoforms, as for example the 'apple' words we've discussed. My point is this would imply they were other source languages apart from PIE strictu senso in the traditional genealogical tree model.

On the other hand, I've also seen many IE-ists try hard to derive (almost) every word in IE languages from PIE, even when borrowing (either from substrate languages or Wanderwörter) is a more plausible explanation.

Posted: **Wed May 29, 2024 3:15 pm**

Talskubilos wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2024 3:10 pm
bradrn wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2024 11:58 am
Talskubilos wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2024 11:49 am My point is although these words are more or less distantly related, they can't be derived from a single PIE protoform. I'm affraid Fenwick and other scholars deceive themselves.
And yet, you’re yet to give us any actual reasons why you think this…
OK, I owe you an explanation. From my own research [emphasis mine], I've found out that among the +2000 lexical items commonly reconstructed for PIE (see e.g. Mallory & Adams) there's a signifcant number of "long-range" correspondences which lead to doublets (and even triplets) of related protoforms, as for example the 'apple' words we've discussed. My point is this would imply they were other source languages apart from PIE strictu senso in the traditional genealogical tree model.

On the other hand, I've also seen many IE-ists try hard to derive (almost) every word in IE languages from PIE, even when borrowing (either from substrate languages or Wanderwörter) is a more plausible explanation.

You do know what they say about original research... and if it isn't good enough for Wikipedia...

Posted: **Wed May 29, 2024 3:34 pm**

The thing about true Wanderwörter is they are dead obvious -- words traveling between many unrelated and loosely related languages with gradual changes over space that do not obey typical sound changes within language groups as if they were inherited. I am sure if there were so many Wanderwörter people other than yourself would have noticed this by now. (And to a good degree they have noticed loans between language groups -- for instance, many of the seemingly-related words in IE and in Uralic are actually obvious loans, such as famous words like kuningas, because they are just too close together to have been inherited from some Proto-Indo-Uralic.)

Posted: **Wed May 29, 2024 3:37 pm**

Talskubilos wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2024 3:10 pm
bradrn wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2024 11:58 am
Talskubilos wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2024 11:49 am My point is although these words are more or less distantly related, they can't be derived from a single PIE protoform. I'm affraid Fenwick and other scholars deceive themselves.
And yet, you’re yet to give us any actual reasons why you think this…
OK, I owe you an explanation. From my own research, I've found out that among the +2000 lexical items commonly reconstructed for PIE (see e.g. Mallory & Adams) there's a signifcant number of "long-range" correspondences which lead to doublets (and even triplets) of related protoforms, as for example the 'apple' words we've discussed. My point is this would imply they were other source languages apart from PIE strictu senso in the traditional genealogical tree model.

On the other hand, I've also seen many IE-ists try hard to derive (almost) every word in IE languages from PIE, even when borrowing (either from substrate languages or Wanderwörter) is a more plausible explanation.

I’m sorry, but I’m afraid this isn’t an ‘explanation’: it’s merely a vagueness. Even if I assume that many IE words are Wanderwörter, you’ve still given me no reason to believe that the specific word *meh₂l- is a Wanderwort itself. Given the strong evidence for its antiquity in Fenwick’s paper, why should I believe that this word in particular is not a native PIE word?

Posted: **Wed May 29, 2024 3:57 pm**

bradrn wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2024 3:37 pmI’m sorry, but I’m afraid this isn’t an ‘explanation’: it’s merely a vagueness. Even if I assume that many IE words are Wanderwörter, you’ve still given me no reason to believe that the specific word *meh₂l- is a Wanderwort itself. Given the strong evidence for its antiquity in Fenwick’s paper, why should I believe that this word in particular is not a native PIE word?

Not exactly. This would be a native PIE word, but *abVl-, restricted to NW IE European languages, even if remotedly related to *meh₂l-, would not.

Posted: **Wed May 29, 2024 4:16 pm**

Talskubilos wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2024 3:57 pm
bradrn wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2024 3:37 pmI’m sorry, but I’m afraid this isn’t an ‘explanation’: it’s merely a vagueness. Even if I assume that many IE words are Wanderwörter, you’ve still given me no reason to believe that the specific word *meh₂l- is a Wanderwort itself. Given the strong evidence for its antiquity in Fenwick’s paper, why should I believe that this word in particular is not a native PIE word?
Not exactly. This would be a native PIE word, but *abVl-, restricted to NW IE European languages, even if remotedly related to *meh₂l-, would not.

Now we’re starting to get somewhere. Next question: why do you believe that *abVl- is not a native PIE word?

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