More on Etruscan verb *zil-

To add to my previous rant, Overseeing in Anatolia, it turns out that a quick google search yielded a gem in my favour. To recap, since the attested Etruscan words zilaθ and zilχ strongly imply a verbal root *zil- presumably meaning 'to oversee, to supervise', I considered the possibility that the verb was simply inherited from a Proto-Cyprian form *zila-. I then considered the possibility of a relationship between this word and Hattic zilat 'throne, seat' by way of a cultural exchange between these two unrelated language groups. I asked: Could this latter word be built on a Hattic verbal root -zil? Is there a shared verb pertaining to governance between Hattic and Cyprian? Sadly, Cyprian-Hattic loans seem to be hard to examine given the gaps in present-day linguistic information of that region and time period.

Now to the aforementioned gem. I came across Yasemin Arikan's article, An official in Hittite cult: ^LUtazzelli-, where he surprisingly contemplates precisely this Hattic verb, *-zil, but with the added evidence of another Hattic word, *ta-zil, pertaining to a type of official. If I understand correctly so far, ta- creates derivative nouns as in *ta-parfasu (cf. Hittite taparfasu-, a type of ritual bread), and another noun *t-astup (cf. Hittite tastuppa-). Both of these latter nouns are mentioned in Petra Goedegebuure's article I read previously.

Innateness of grammar

On Language Log, I came across Universal Grammar haters. For some, the debate rages on about nurture versus nature and I, like this blogger, also think the debate is inane.

My personal slant draws from the field of artificial intelligence where it's an already-firm conclusion that "grammars" aren't just abstract concepts pertaining to linguistics only. In a broader sense "grammar" is structure; it determines the sequential order of computation and clarifies the constituents of a functioning dynamic. So grammar also has relevance in other geeky subjects like computer programming, mathematics, systems theory and digital circuitry. Even our very DNA must have the innate capacity to understand a grammar because, without it, it would surely be hit-or-miss whether a string of gene sequences were executed in a timely order. Grammar is order. Neither you nor I would exist otherwise, let alone our complex brains.

Grammar is, on the most fundamental level, part of any coherent system and necessary to maintain that coherency. So, forgetting about whatever political vendettas one personally has against Chomsky et alia, most emphatically there must be some sort of basic "universal grammar" from which specialized grammars for particular languages are drawn. However this universal grammar must not be misunderstood to be only linguistic in nature but part of the fundamental processes of thought and computation. I believe that one innate capacity of the human brain, bland as it may sound, would be the ability to distinguish an object from an action performed on it.

A brain born without any inherent grammar must surely be a lump of thoughtless meat, fundamentally incapable of computation itself. Thought requires grammar. It's a foregone conclusion that an idea is nothing more than a structure of links to other ideas in an infinite sea we call knowledge. The neuronal structure of knowledge requires an innate grammar to parse it before one can comprehend it. To deny that there is a universal grammar in this sense is to say that the very act of thinking can be learned out of thin air. It can't, no more than you can teach a block of ice to think.