🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1k3wmj#3X2tH88WtzQs7tp3yw6svQZq=cowan@snark.thyrsus.com> cowan@snark.thyrsus.com (John Cowan) writes:
 
>Something that's always puzzled me:  how do historical linguists decide
>what form should be the standard reconstructed form?  Consider the following
>...case:
>
>[I]n the reconstruction of Proto-Romance, we find that Sard has /k/ where
>other Romance languages have /s/ in a large number of words.  In this case,
>the reconstruction is /k/, and the postulation is that a sound-change
>affected >all< the Romance languages except Sard.  Apparent methodological
>contradiction.

	As a linguistics undergrad at the University of Chicago, I learned 
that the principle balancing out "majority rules" is "phonetic plausibility."  
Applying this to the Romance example, we notice that although there are 
several documented cases of the change /k/ -> /s/,/sh/ (e.g. the division
of Proto-Indo-European into `centum' and s'atem languages, based on whether
inherited */k/ remains /k/ (as in Italic) or palatalises to /sh/ (as in
Slavic)), there is no (to my knowledge) example of a regular change in the
reverse direction, i.e. /s/ becoming /k/.  Thus, we decide on a /k/ to /s/ 
change as being the only plausible explanation.  So think of "plausiblity" 
as being a more general "majority rules" principle which serves to limit the
first one.
	Now, the downside:  if this argument seems circular, it's because
(as faras this example goes), it is.  Many of our guidelines for phonetic 
plausiblity were developed through work on the Indo-European languages, in 
large part because it afforded written sources old enough for us to check our 
hypotheses (and, of course, Europeans were the first to use it extensively).
However, if certain phonetic changes common to I-E turn out to be _specific_
to it, we may become guilty of overgeneralisation in our attempts to see them 
at work in other language families.
	After all, like most sciences, historical reconstruction is still an 
inexact one (which is why them *'s come in so darn handy : >).




-- 
	Daniel "Da" von Brighoff (deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /\
	951 E. 54th Place				    /__\
	Chicago, IL  60637				   /____\