Originally Posted By: goofy
But this hypothesis is not falsifiable in your theory, because your theory doesn't account for regular sound change.


This is a logical fallacy called begging the question; that is, assuming that the question — “Are the sound changes that historical linguists consider inviolable laws regular?” — has already been answered affirmatively. And It most certainly hasn’t — at least in any way that a logician, empirical scientist or philosopher of science should consider logical or scientific. To the contrary, the answer to the question is evidently “No,” even though you’re having trouble accepting that answer.

With respect to the Popperian notion of falsifiability, you can certainly disprove my theory if, for instance, you can prove that the following literal formulae don’t really equal one: L p_d/foot = Gk p_d/foot = Gc p_d/foot = 1

On the other hand, I’ve just disproved the supposed laws specifying that Gc *p and *d never correspond to Gk and L *p and *d. But, according to historical linguists, this isn’t a falsification; it’s nothing but a coincidence, since the law is inviolable. This is exactly the kind of fallacious reasoning that Vonnegurt had in mind when he coined the term“Catch-22."


Originally Posted By: goofy
So you can hypothesize that any number of words are related by making up semantic connections.


Except that I’m not “making up semantic connections.” The assertion that people have graphically and linguistically personified plants and their parts is so intuitively obvious and incredibly well-documented that it’s an axiom, insofar as it’s a self-evident and a universally recognized truth. The etymologies I’ve presented just exemplify that truth.

Originally Posted By: goofy
All you've done is presented a list of words from different languages that are similar in sound


You mean, as opposed to what linguists did? Firstly, let’s get our terms straight. The issue is the inviolability of consonant changes, not sound changes, since (1) vocalization — hence sound — changes with vowelization, (2) historical linguists have accepted the existence of differential vowelization when they framed their laws and roots, and (2) the Gc words I’ve been comparing are consonantally and semantically identical to L. and Gk words, in opposition to those alleged laws. The Gc words are therefore obvious counterexamples, even though these linguists somehow managed to pawn the counterexamples off as coincidences in an effort to frame and support their purported laws.

Originally Posted By: goofy
[words] can be made to seem similar in meaning,

So, what are you saying now? That I made words like L. pedetemptim ‘step by step’, and pedestrian ‘walker’ seem semantically similar to Gc words for walking like pedden, padden and a multitude of other words for the feet and using them.

Originally Posted By: goofy
I could do the same for any two languages you care to mention. And since in your theory there is no such thing as regular sound change, you don't have to explain any of the sound correspondences.


You just keep begging the question, evidently because your teachers believed and led you and their other students to believe that neither L nor Gk *p or *d can correspond to Gc. *p or *d because of supposed laws. So these students simply accepted what their teachers told them for a number of reasons I need not go into.

Originally Posted By: goofy
Why not say that root is related to Greek pous and Latin pes as well? After all, you can easily see how a tree could be personified with the roots as the feet.


Now you’re starting to think the way you should have been thinking all along, since the same root [p+V+d that yielded Gk. L, and Gc words for feet and pods came into Sanskrit as pada ‘foot, tree root.’ So, now, since Gk, L and Skt *p and *d inviolably correspond to each other but never to Gc *p and d, historical linguists also had to orphan Skt pada from its Gc cognates to frame these supposed laws. Consequently, frame is a perfect word for what they did.

BTW, I’m not denying that Gk, L. and Skt p and d can correspond to Gc f and t, respectively, since they evidently can and do. However, since Gk, L. and Skt p and d can also correspond to Gk, L. and Skt *f and *t, the supposed laws specifying that they can never correspond to Gc *f and *t are also invalid.

But I’m not about to present that case here, if you can’t even accept the relatively obvious formula L p_d/foot = Gk p_d/foot = Gc p_d/foot = 1, and its intuitively obvious corollaries.

Steve

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