Language desk
< December 5	<< Nov \| December \| Jan >>	Current desk >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

December 6[edit]

Most plausible reconstruction of Proto-Sino-Tibetan[edit]

Does anybody have the expertise to provide guidance on which of the three reconstructions of Proto-Sino-Tibetan is the most plausible or compelling? Remsense留 19:44, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hill's reconstruction is the most recent one. He refers to both Benedict^[1] and Peiros and Starostin^[2] in his book The Historical Phonology of Tibetan, Burmese, and Chinese, so inasmuch as he does not follow their reconstructions it is not out of ignorance. It is reasonable to think Hill has good arguments for his own reconstruction, which he presumably presents in his book, but without studying them it is not possible to judge their validity. Reconstructions will always be tentative and can hardly ever be "compelling" and the plausibility is hard to quantify. --Lambiam 14:49, 7 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Is compelling not a word you would ever use? As a relative layperson, knowing all the guesses that go into, I still find the reconstruction of PIE to be 'compelling', though I suppose from a personal awe perspective rather than being compelled to a particular academic conclusion—what an interesting conflation of terms on my part. Remsense留 14:52, 7 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Remsense -- Which version of PIE, the "standard" obstruents or the glottalic theory? And how many laryngeals are posited, and what are their phonetic realizations? And what about the so-called Thorn clusters, etc. AnonMoos (talk) 15:05, 7 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]