Subject: comparative method

these are notes after the recent discussions of karl teeter , amramer , sally thomason , after the aaa meetings sessions on distant language reconstructions , and also in response to part of mr . poser 's message of 14 december . first , most of the discussion of karl teeter i can agree with wholeheartedly except in the use of any of his criteria as absolutes . even grammatical things can be borrowed ( as sally pointed out ) . people do in practice * * * correctly * * * accept a language family such as uto - aztecan as essentially proven , even when no grammar has been written for the proto-language , or when only parts of a grammar are written . on the one hand , nobody would be disturbed much if it turned out that one of the assumed uto - aztecan languages was originally from another family , with truly massive borrowing from uto - aztecan . the overall hypothesis of a uto - aztecan family would not be shaken . on the other hand , asking the question how much of the grammar of the proto-language has to be written reveals the non-absoluteness of the criterion . only a tiny bit ? that might be subject to one of the special cases in which some morphology and other grammar were borrowed ( sally 's general type of example ) . so , again , karl is right in general , but wrong if any single criterion is taken as an absolute ( unless circularly many criteria are combined by feats of legalese into a single criterion ) . i would like to modify amramer 's statement in exactly the same spirit : ) we cannot demand a detailed morphological reconstruction ) until the languages are accepted as related . this is too strong . it is not quite the same as ramer 's ) but surely he does not mean that a comparative grammar is a ) prerequisite to a reconstruction ; it is part of a reconstruction . in practice , an extensive comparative grammar is indeed written as part of a reconstruction ( ramer 's second wording above , not his first above ) , but it is not likely to be written unless * * * both * * * of the following two conditions are fulfilled : 1 ) the languages are in fact related ( makes the grammar easier to write ) 2 ) enough scholars believe that the languages might be related and so put effort into establishing their links . it is some unwarranted discouragement of the second which needs to be dealt with in our field . ramer is right that some linguists do discourage attempts to prove what has not already been proven . no risk-taking , in other words . good researchers , attempting to write a grammar of altaic for example , will report all of their results , both for genetic relatedness , for borrowing , and for a host of other questions they will not even have thought of when they started their research . some researchers evaluate only the hypothesis they started with . very often the differences of viewpoint amount to nothing more than an elevation of what one does oneself into the " true " or " real " work of the field , instead of recognizing that it takes a number of different contributions . i will illustrate from karl teeter 's recent messages , with no malice intended , because i am absolutely sure he intends none himself . in modifying his wording to take account of amramer 's point that of course people do properly classify languages on the basis of phonological correspondences , teeter writes on 10 december : " since it is clear that everybody 's first approximation to linguistic history begins with such classification . what i say is just that you cannot reconstruct languages on this basis . " ( please note the words " first approximation " in this . that you cannot reconstruct languages on the bases of classification alone seems to me a tautology . ) later in the same message , teeter reverts to the more absolute statement : " on the contrary , my contention ( not my invention ) , is that the only way to establish that languages are related is to write a grammar of the proto - langauge and show how it developed into different later grammars . " ( please note the words " the only way " and " establish " . using these words does not change the fact that uto - aztecan is * * * correctly * * * accepted as a proven family without teeter 's criteria being satisfied . ) on 8 december , teeter wrote : ) " systematic correspondences of sounds in the vocabularies " may prove ) a connection between languages , which is certainly an interesting ) first step , but there the real work of comparative grammar starts : [ then teeter mentions four possible explanations , only one genetic ] ) until one can exclude the first three factors , one has proven ) nothing at all regarding genetic relationship . teeter discounts the enormous work of discovering likely language families in the first place , trivializes that as not the " real work " and establishment of systematic sound correspondences as proving " nothing at all " regarding genetic relationship . on the contrary , that does prove a grouping as a legitimate candidate for genetic relationship , and often the nature of the sound correspondences found will also have made one or more of the alternatives less probable . the work of comparative-historical grammarians is " real work " . so is the work of those who spend enormous hard-working hours sifting potential cognates to discover potential sound correspondences . do teeter and others really have no knowledge of how much work that takes ? at no stage is something ever completely proven in an absolute sense ( not even after a comparative grammar is written , because of the potential for undiscovered problems of the kind noted by sally thomas ) . all stages of the process contribute to the end result . all stages are equally " the real work " . proof is always incremental , not nothing , not complete and absolute . * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * i turn next to mr . poser 's message , and to other information gleaned at the aaa meetings . perhaps mr . poser will be surprised that i am enthusiastically in favor of anyone correcting any errors in any claims of language relationship or language structure , including mr . poser 's mention of kimball correcting errors in muskogean , even or especially if that means that a greenberg claim about pronouns in amerind is weakened . it is actually claims about morphology where i expect greenberg is least likely to have succeeded in contributing something . i thank mr . poser for the bibliography i can check against my lists of corrections and for this note on muskogean pronouns . i also agree with mr . poser that the criticism of errors in data does not rely on the mere authority of the critic . ( that was not my point about appeals to authority , so one of mr . poser 's paragraphs was not directly relevant . my earlier point about appeals to authority remains . ) i did not indicate ( as mr . poser 's message suggests ) that critics complained of errors when they could not back them up . what i did say was that they claimed greenberg 's errors made the method worthless , without bothering to test whether correction of the errors would actually lead to a change in his conclusions , and without promptly providing the data so others could carry out such a test . ) from conversations , i would judge some are still reluctant to face this test , the one required by a part of their claims . ( even if their claims on this point prove wrong in some degree , because the conclusions of greenberg 's method mostly remain the same even after errors of those kinds are corrected , it still will not follow that greenberg 's methods produce valid results on a regular basis . please notice how careful it is important to be with notions of proof for or against anything . ) in conversation with bob rankin at the recent aaa meetings i indicated i was glad greenberg had made the attempt at morphology , with his 3rd - person alternation between / y / and / t / as a putative relic irregularity , but i was equally likely to end up believing that he had discovered a new typological fact , a preference for these unmarked segments and recurring conditions under which they might alternate in more or less the same way , which might indicate that the same phenomenon could arise by chance repeatedly . we are always dealing simultaneously with possibilities of genetic relationship or convergent evolution . as a general warning about the danger of throwing out hypotheses too early because they are " obviously " cases of chance lookalikes or convergent evolution , an article " common pathways of illumination " by stephen jay gould of harvard , in natural history magazine , december 1994 pp . 10-20 , discusses the origins of eyes in different phyla of the animal kingdom . he states that this had been a classic case in biology , used to show convergent evolution of originally unrelated organs to serve the same function . however , the dna specialists have gotten their hands on this one , and apparently it is * * * the same dna * * * which is regulating important parts of the production of eyes in these various phyla , barring of course a few changes in a few amino acid codes . this dna is therefore genetically inherited ( and we are talking as far back as the common node on the family tree of drosophila fruit flies , squids , and humans ! ) . if this line of argument holds up , we have quite a revolution in thinking on our hands . ( such thinking can of course go far overboard too . ) " chance lookalikes " certainly do exist massively . sound symbolism is a typological basis for their recurrence . the too-easy use of " chance lookalikes " to reject comparisons can however also be just like the too-easy use of " substrate " and many other ways of purporting to explain phenomena , but in reality merely naming them without doing the hard work of really explaining them . as another factual contribution to the discussion of greenberg 's errors , bob rankin clarified for me at the aaa meetings that he had looked at greenberg 's original notebooks , and that apparently what happened is that greenberg had a single flexible flap in his notebook bearing the language names , and sheets which he matched up against that to enter data for particular lexical items . this is a mechanism subject to errors of the two pieces of paper slipping vertically relative to each other , and in fact there were rather a large number of such errors . it was errors of rows rather than of columns ( as i loosely had assumed without ever bothering to ask if rows or columns ) . mr . poser originally asked on 9th november whether " limitations [ of the comparative method ] had been and were being used to justify resistance to proposals of emote relationships . . . " please take careful note of this wording , as mr . poser changed the wording in his message of 14 december , when he asserts no example has been given . i gave mr . poser an eyewitness account satisfying the wording he used . i stand by that eyewitness account . ( i do not like naming names ever in these matters , but mr . poser 's assertion could be answered only by an eyewitness account . ) none of mr . poser 's supposed rebuttal in his recent message is at all relevant to that claim , though it is relevant to another claim , an absurd one , that i did not make . ( as in his previous message , mr . poser mixes several different wordings of what are quite radically different hypotheses . any extended discussion of these variants would not be relevant to any of our central points , so i omit them . ) to be specific about that absurd claim i did * not * make , i quite agree with mr . poser that some of the same people also criticize greenberg 's hypotheses based on the factual data . i have never denied that , and in fact took pains to refer to other good work by the same people , and have always emphasized the importance of having corrections of data . mr . poser 's conclusion was : ) it thus appears , as i thought , that there are no real examples of perceived ) limitations of the comparative method being used as the basis for rejecting ) proposals of genetic affiliation . since i gave an eyewitness account of such an example of the perceived limitations being used as one basis for rejecting proposals of genetic affiliation , mr . poser can only maintain his original assertion by converting it into a different assertion as he has here , namely that there is no case of a person using those perceived limitations as " the " ( read " the only " ) basis for rejecting such proposals . i will simply repeat that in the case to which i was eyewitness , the tone of the presentation was quite clear that the absurdity of the time depth was sufficient * * * in and of itself * * * to rule out the legitimacy of attempting such distant comparison . ( a critique of errors in greenberg 's data is not directly relevant to this point , even if engaged in by the same person . ) apparently mr . poser wants his allies to be persons who not only do good work , but also do nothing wrong . but we cannot posit such a division between the " holy " and the " unclean " , like the caste distinctions of traditional india . no one has the right to take such a position vis a vis other good-faith researchers , however much they may disagree with data , results , or methods . i gather from some conversations at the aaa that some of the people involved have become more moderate since the earlier years in these matters , at least in their public statements . that is certainly all to the good . there are also small beginnings of developments of method which may turn out to be relevant to our current limitations . i am perplexed by mr . poser 's discussion of the supposed rule of using only three-consonant matches never merely two-consonant matches . although i used siouxan - yuchi , because some amerindianists are considering this , the point does not depend in the slightest on whether one believes these two particular nodes are related or not . perhaps someone can propose another alternative ( i would suggest looking for one in tibeto - burman , where perhaps only one consonant , one vowel , and tone would be available , and yet the genetic relations are in some cases secure . ) i agree with mr . poser that it is better to have three consonants than two , and precisely because it helps to avoid chance resemblances . as i stated in the previous message . that means that the only difference between us is that mr . poser will consider treating the preferred method ( 3 consonants ) as the only permitted one : ) if ( probably contrary to fact ) , matches of three consonants are ) necessary to exclude chance , . . . i do not see why we should be ) unwilling , in that case , to conclude either that they are not ) related or that , if they are , the relationship is not demonstrable . the problem here is the notion that such a particular rule * could even conceivably * be " necessary to exclude chance " . no rule is necessary to exclude chance . a large number of procedures and methods can * * * help * * * to exclude chance . except in the most difficult cases of all , probably most single rules can be violated , and there will still be enough other ways of excluding chance that a good result can be achieved . it is this fossilization in the response to expansions of the methods available as part of " the comparative method " which is damaging to increasing the rigor as well as the power of our field . it is encouraging to see sessions on distant language relationships . i firmly believe some of these sessions would not be occurring nor would there be so much work on studying methods , if greenberg had not published that book . some of the growth of interdisciplinary cooperation and communication was also in the process of happening anyway , and greenberg just accidentally published at this time . ( i am not trying to credit him with causing all of this interest . ) i particularly liked john colarusso 's contribution to the eurasian session , because he outlined his views on why distant language comparisons are very difficult because of the progressive loss of data , yet he is not in the business of criticizing people who attempt these . he is in the business of himself contributing to a deepening of both linguistic and mythological comparisons as much as he can in areas which are still to a great extent uncharted . johanna nichols also provoked much thought with her methods , and ways of integrating more information on peripheries vs . centers of innovation and residue of repeated waves of innovation visible even at the peripheries , as a pattern to look for in projecting a homeland backwards in time . i am somewhat skeptical about very distant language comparisons which involve only identities of sound correspondence , precisely because it is so easy for this approach to select a very old but still relatively more recent layer of borrowings ( more recent than the node on the family tree we may be struggling to find a way to reach ) . as greenberg pointed out , an increase in the number of conditioning contexts over time , once it approaches the number of lexical items available for comparison , leads to the result that there are virtually no recurrences of exactly the same sound correspondences . please see a separate message on how we can sharpen our tools to deal with this , titled " typology of historical change " . this means that i start out somewhat skeptical about alan bomhard 's nostratic and similar comparisons , precisely because he uses only or preferentially sound correspondences of identity . but that may be my personal bias , and i may end up granting that such a strictness of sound correspondences can actually work over great time depths . i cannot presume to know . there was one session i did not attend but report here from the abstract , in which researchers reported results of mitochondrial dna studies of the various native american populations . as expected , eskimo and athabaskan were separable ( one variety each ? ) . the remainder of native american populations shared four varieties of mitochondrial dna , either without subgrouping , or perhaps in two major subgroups . bob rankin did attend and says that the authors in their presentation had come down on the side of two major subgroups . population genetics need not match language directly , but the data is still at least interesting and obliquely relevant . . . lloyd anderson
