Newsgroups: sci.lang
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From: hubey@pegasus.montclair.edu (H. M. Hubey)
Subject: Re: More Proto-World
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References: <37pqr1$ffn@tardis.trl.OZ.AU> <37q421$b6a@news.asu.edu> <37sb2u$jgj@tardis.trl.OZ.AU> <38cds2INNbgr@SUNED.ZOO.CS.YALE.EDU> <hubey.782882530@pegasus.montclair.edu> <Cy6sGq.Gp5@acsu.buffalo.edu>
Date: Tue, 25 Oct 1994 14:45:48 GMT
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v187ef4y@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu (Patrick J Crowe) writes:


>To the first question, maybe, but maybe it doesn't matter anyway.  If
>'language' arose after humans spread out over the world, there is no
>Proto-World to reconstruct.

Yes, but that too is a part of the question. When did something that
can be called language arise? Was it only 100,000 years ago or
did it start about 2 million years ago? 


>To the second, yes there is a difference between what serious P-W people
>do and what gets done "by the orthodox/standard schools".  Standard
>comparative work requires that systematic phonemic correspondences be
>established.  P-Wers, on the other hand, will usually deal with only one
>single lexical item, using forms which look similar in a handfull (or
>fewer) languages.

Surely "systematic" also needs to be more clearly defined. What
does "regular" mean? Once every 100 years is a regular occurrence.
A correspondance of p<->f is regular. Is this sufficient or do
you have some minimum quantity in mind? If so what is this number
and why did you pick this number except via intuition? Why not
use statistical measures instead?

--
						-- Mark---
....we must realize that the infinite in the sense of an infinite totality, 
where we still find it used in deductive methods, is an illusion. Hilbert,1925
