bones and flesh

[Paul Kekai Manansala]

Michael Witzel wrote:
>
> At 9:24 -0800 12/6/99, Paul Kekai Manansala wrote:
> >Michael Witzel wrote:
>
> >
> >That seems difficult to believe, but I'm not one for reconstruction
> >anyway.
>
> A good theory PREDICTS. Comparative historical linguistics have predicted,
> before texts were found with the predicted characteristics ,
> eg. Archaic Greek (Mycenean) *kw  or IE  larungeals (h1-3), at lest one
> type of which was subsequently found in Hittite pehur = Greek puur = fire.
>
> Anybody who cannot see that this theory works better keeps quiet. We had
> that sort of discussion in teh Thirties & Forties. They are on teh dustbin
> of  history by now.
>

Reconstruction is assumption based upon pillars which are also
assumptions.
All of these assumptions can and have been attacked. From the purely
mathematical
standpoint, Mark Hubey, a computer science professor and mathematican,
does a
good job over the Net. Giving examples of prediction is bogus and cannot
be
distinguished from a lucky guess or simple coincidence. The fact is that
you can
not prove any laws regarding sound changes. You can only hypothesize.

> Or one should join one of the  'anything goes' lists. Opinions are not
> required here, arguments are. The rejection of reconstruction makes most of
> the following arguments obsolete.
>

Not really.

> >Munda has retroflexion in its infix system
>
> which ones? I do not know of any -D- infix...

I thought you said in your last post that Munda "D" could be
reconstructed?

Anyway, there are plenty of examples such as the past verbal infix -R-.
I'd have to order some books through interlibrary loan to see if there
is
a -D- infix.

>
> >Generally speaking, I would agree with SK Chatterji that people
> >tend to borrow words or languages but retain their own sound systems.
>
> It seems to look like that frequently but proof is another matter. Easily,
> circular arguments...
>

There is no proof that be can offered in any of these arguments.
However, I can
predict fairly well the sound systems of Indians who are taught English
or practically
any other language. So it is a pretty good theory, right?

> >This was the reason the latter gave for retroflexion in "Aryan"
> >languages (Munda Dravidian people speaking foreign language).
>
> This confuses ethnicity (or even 'race'??) with language. A cardinal sin
> these days.
>

No, it is a reasonable explanation given certain preconceptions.


> Please show 'native' infixes. I have not seen any -D-. Native vocab. would
> involve words built from reconstructed Munda (or preferably even
> Austro-Asiatic) roots...
>


Well, the most conservative elements in language even according to
Western linguistic
theory are grammatical particles and affixes and basic vocabulary.

Thus, we can see even a morphophonemic use of retroflexion in which the
final D of
intensive bases becomes R before the future suffix. There is also the
intensive suffix
-goD. The plural suffix -T0; present negative prefix in Ton -- aRi. The
past suffix -teDa, Tee,
etc., and many other such affixes.

Third person and demonstrative pronouns:

        -De, -aDi, Juang;
        Deh, De?, Mon;
        eTey, Nahali;
        eTa, Ho;
        hinkaR, Mundari;
        Di, Curu;
        Do, Som;


There are also some second person pronouns like Juang amDe, amanDe,
"you" and amDa, amaDa "your."

If you took the top few hundred Swadesh terms, I'm willing to bet well
over half have retroflex
sounds including words like haRa "man, koNDu "small", ukaR "this
person", koRa "boy," etc.


> >Well,  my point is the North-South division of retroflexion.
> >If we subscribe to the theory that Dravidian was "pushed" southward
> >by invading Indo-Aryans, when did they lose (or did northerners gain?)
> >initial retroflexion?
>
> You do not need any 'pushing' Aryans, there are many other models of
> language transfer.
> And were do you get your 'initial retroflexion'? On what basis? This is
> just an empty assumption.
>

What do you mean by the last sentence? Are you saying that Munda and
"Aryan" languages
do not have initial retroflex consonants?

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