Alternative to the laryngeal theory

So, can you summarize what arguments for and against the Laryngeal Theory were used earlier in this thread?

Nobody will ever do that, in no possible universe.

This article is quite interesting:

https://www.academia.edu/25121020/The_Laryngeal_Theory_has_no_Theory_Incompatibility_with_the_Anatolian_Data_excludes_a_Viable_Model

I've actually seen that article. Seems to me that it's mostly red herring. As for the actual arguments against the second and the third laryngeal, I don't have the knowledge of the Anatolian languages needed to evaluate them. Their main argument is the inconsistency in the evolution of *h3 in Anatolian.

I've just read the opening post. FlatAssembler is most likely a troll. I don't see how can anyone with the basic knowledge of Indo-European linguistics (which FlatAssembler obviously has) think that laryngeals were semi-vowels. He might have just said that the laryngeals were bird-singing sounds. If someone were to deny the existence of the laryngeals, he can simply claim that initial *a turned into "ha" in Anatolian and then that *o turned into "a" (just like the initial h in Greek was regularly added before y). Those who try to disprove the Laryngeal Theory generally either try to reconstruct a short *a in late PIE, or try to reconstruct an *a that ablauts with an *e. What do you think is a valid response to those arguments? An argument for the Laryngeal Theory which is rarely used, but is actually pretty strong, is that it explains the epenthetic vowels in Ancient Greek. What do you think?

FlatAssembler is a self taught linguist, I don't think he's a troll. He's just sure that he's right about everything.

I am also not a professional linguist. But errors made by self-taught linguists are usually the likes of "Finnish probably borrowed its pronouns from Russian." or "The Latin word 'habere' and the English word 'have' are cognates". Claiming that laryngeals were equivalents of the semi-vowels without explaining the supposed conditioning rules is more of an error in logic than a lack of knowledge of linguistics.

I also doubt flatassember is a troll.  I think he just has a different perspective on things.  He's Croatian I think.  I've noticed that it takes time to understand someone's culture before you can really get what they're saying.

If he has learned about linguistics from the Internet, he is pretty much a member of the same Internet culture we are.
My native language is Bosnian, by the way, which is fairly similar to Croatian.

Welcome to the FES!

Though I can't really amaze you with my study of the Bosnian toponyms, because I haven't done any. I only know that Bosnia was originally a river name, probably derived from Proto-Indo-European word *bhogj-nu (in Bosnian it's translated to mean "tečnost", perhaps that'd be rendered in English as "flowness" or "fluid").

Nobody here is really interested in the Laryngeal Theory, I can see. No wonder. It's primarily about accentology, and I am having problems getting the accents right even in my own language. I can imagine nobody here tried to pronounce an ancient language with a right accent.
So, tell me something about yourselves, guys!
I see FlatAssembler likes to talk about linguistics and informatics. When it comes to linguistics, he will talk even if he doesn't have anything smart to say, and I guess that the same is about informatics. As can be seen from the thread he linked to in his signature, he also likes to make fun of the conspiracy theorists.
FalseProphet is a professional linguist, and he is, unlike most linguists, deeply interested in linguistics. He knows in details things that aren't in his field. He is also somewhat interested in philosophical idealism, when he says in his signature "Life is just a tale". Why exactly did he choose a nickname "False Prophet"?
I can't figure out much about SpaceCowGirl or Crutonius. SpaceCowGirl probably believes that the Earth is flat, right? What about Crutonius? What are your other interests?

Nobody here is really interested in the Laryngeal Theory, I can see. No wonder. It's primarily about accentology, and I am having problems getting the accents right even in my own language. I can imagine nobody here tried to pronounce an ancient language with a right accent.
So, tell me something about yourselves, guys!
I see FlatAssembler likes to talk about linguistics and informatics. When it comes to linguistics, he will talk even if he doesn't have anything smart to say, and I guess that the same is about informatics. As can be seen from the thread he linked to in his signature, he also likes to make fun of the conspiracy theorists.
FalseProphet is a professional linguist, and he is, unlike most linguists, deeply interested in linguistics. He knows in details things that aren't in his field. He is also somewhat interested in philosophical idealism, when he says in his signature "Life is just a tale". Why exactly did he choose a nickname "False Prophet"?
I can't figure out much about SpaceCowGirl or Crutonius. SpaceCowGirl probably believes that the Earth is flat, right? What about Crutonius? What are your other interests?

That's a very broad subject.  I'd politely suggest that it would be better to discuss specific topics in different threads so as to not detract from the discussion at hand here.

It's not like we've been discussing the Laryngeal Theory all along. So, you are not sure if the Earth is round or flat? At least you are being honest with yourself then.

The difference here between human language and monkey language is that the latter consists primarily of interjections

People thought the same about the Aboriginal languages until they investigated them in details, didn't they?

I see FlatAssembler likes to talk about linguistics and informatics. When it comes to linguistics, he will talk even if he doesn't have anything smart to say, and I guess that the same is about informatics. As can be seen from the thread he linked to in his signature, he also likes to make fun of the conspiracy theorists.

Well, since I am interested in social sciences, Internet forums are perfect places to do experiments. And I like to investigate how people react to nonsense. My other interests are anarchism and digital physics (the hypothesis that the world we live in is just another computer simulation).

A weird guy even for this forum, ain't ye?

A weird guy even for this forum, ain't ye?

Oh, you ain't seen nothing yet.

Quote

The difference here between human language and monkey language is that the latter consists primarily of interjections

People thought the same about the Aboriginal languages until they investigated them in details, didn't they?

WTF...

Internet forums are perfect places to do experiments. And I like to investigate how people react to nonsense.

...oh, good to know.

Anyway, when you were discussing Indo-European grammar, you somehow assumed that Indo-Uralic hypothesis is certainly wrong, that it's absurd to say that Finnish grammar is related to the Latin grammar. Why do you think that's the case?

I have looked into it a bit, and it seems fairly reasonable. The similarities are fairly systematic. For instance, in both PIE and Proto-Uralic does accusative singular and 1st person singular present end with *m, interrogative pronouns and conjunctive enclitic start with the same sound in both languages, in PIE it's *kw, in Uralic it's *k, and there are a few other such correspondences in grammar. Personal pronouns also sound almost identical… You think this can all be just a coincidence?

Anyway, when you were discussing Indo-European grammar, you somehow assumed that Indo-Uralic hypothesis is certainly wrong, that it's absurd to say that Finnish grammar is related to the Latin grammar. Why do you think that's the case?

I have looked into it a bit, and it seems fairly reasonable. The similarities are fairly systematic. For instance, in both PIE and Proto-Uralic does accusative singular and 1st person singular present end with *m, interrogative pronouns and conjunctive enclitic start with the same sound in both languages, in PIE it's *kw, in Uralic it's *k, and there are a few other such correspondences in grammar. Personal pronouns also sound almost identical… You think this can all be just a coincidence?

The close correspondences are not numerous.  1st person -m- is too widespread in the languages of the world to be significant. 3rd person is actually different, remains 2n person -t-. Striking is that both proto languages had the same endings for akk and abl.

Other correspondences are rather arbitrary and assumed shared vocabulary is below the margin to tell apart chance, borrowings and inheritance.

Typologically both proto languages are very far from each other. They have a very different spirit.

Is it reasonable to consider a relationship between the two? Sure, especially because the suspected homelands of both languages are relatively close. But if so, the relationship must be very distant - far beyond that we could prove it with sound linguistic methods. So if we do not find some ancient language that connect them somehow, it will remain a matter of speculation.

Generally I'm not a fan of large scale comparison. But it would be interesting to construct (not reconstruct) a language, from which both language families could have derived. It could for example be used for a film that plays somewhere 15 000 years ago. It's not "science", but it would not be without merit.

The first person singular -m is not that common. In the native American languages, the endings for 1st and 2nd person are usually -n and -m. And why would the proto-language have to go so far back in time?

The first person singular -m is not that common. In the native American languages, the endings for 1st and 2nd person are usually -n and -m. And why would the proto-language have to go so far back in time?

In the majority of Native American languages  "the endings for 1st and 2nd person are usually -n and -m"? Are you sure? I took a random sample of 5 North American native languages of 5 different families (Lakota, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Navajo, Ojibwe). Only Navajo had a nasal element for the 2nd Person.

Just a guess. Uralic and IE, in case they are related, are more distant than, let's say, Italian and Hindi. Of course there are examples of accelerated change in languages, especially when they come under the influence of other languages.

It's one of the bases of the Amerind hypothesis. Supporters of Indo-Uralic often appeal to it in response to the argument that -m in 1st person and -t/s in 2nd person are cross-linguistic tendencies. I must admit I haven't looked into it.

Anyway, how do you mean that English "gift" and German "Gift" are cognates? Wouldn't a German cognate to English "gift" be "Gibze" or "Gebze"?

It's one of the bases of the Amerind hypothesis. Supporters of Indo-Uralic often appeal to it in response to the argument that -m in 1st person and -t/s in 2nd person are cross-linguistic tendencies. I must admit I haven't looked into it.

Seems to be the case that in many South an Central American language families the 1st person has -n- and the second has -m-. In case this is because of generic relationship, that has no significance in regard to linguistic universals.

Anyway, how do you mean that English "gift" and German "Gift" are cognates? Wouldn't a German cognate to English "gift" be "Gibze" or "Gebze"?

No, why? Both come from Proto-germanic giftiz, a derivation of gebana, meaning the act of giving as well as the thing given. In Old High German it shifted its meaning to "portion" and from there to "(portion of) poison".

So, why do you think Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Uralic would have to be more distantly related than Italian and Hindi? If you counted the words that started with a d in Italian and how many of them have a dictionary translation to Hindi that starts with a d, you wouldn't get a statistically significant result, would you?

I thought that "gift" was actually English "give"+"-t". So that 'v' changed to 'f' because of devoicing caused by the following 't', much like in "leave"-"left". So, I thought, since English 'v' corresponds to German 'b', and English 't' corresponds to German 'z' or 'ss', English "gift" and German "Gift" can't be real cognates.

So, why do you think Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Uralic would have to be more distantly related than Italian and Hindi? If you counted the words that started with a d in Italian and how many of them have a dictionary translation to Hindi that starts with a d, you wouldn't get a statistically significant result, would you?

If you take only the core vocabulary, that is, the words most likely to stem from PIE, I guess you would, because Hindi d corresponds to Italian d.

Let's change the topic to a bit less serious one. So, what are your favourite etymologies, guys? I have got several of them, everyone laughs when I tell them, but they are most likely true. One is the Proto-Indo-European word for catfish, *skwolos (whence English "whale"), being derived from *skwel (to shine), because catfish doesn't have scales and its skin "shines". One is the Bosnian word for red, "crven", derived from the Proto-Slavic word for worm, because they used to make the red colour from worms. The last one of mine is the word "gymnasium", coming from the Greek word for "naked", "gymnos", because the Spartans used to exercise a lot in their schools, and Ancient Greeks exercised naked. Your etymology doesn't have to be mainstream, but it has to be plausible. For example, supposed radical mistranslations aren't plausible.

Really? Nobody?

There just aren't that many word nerds here. I love reading the conversations you guys have, tho!

Then watching some vlogs about linguistics, like Xidnaf, would probably be more interesting to you.

And I am also not sure how much FalseProphet really enjoys discussing technical stuff in linguistics with people like FlatAssembler.

There just aren't that many word nerds here. I love reading the conversations you guys have, tho!

There are more word nerds here than I've met in my life.

So, whom all on this forum do you consider a "word nerd"?