--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "mkelkar2003" <swatimkelkar@...> wrote:
>
>
http://language.psy.auckland.ac.nz/publications/index.php?pub=Words_to_dates05
>
> Atkinson, Q., Nicholls, G., Welch, D., Gray, R.D. (2005) FROM WORDS
> TO DATES: WATER INTO WINE, MATHEMAGIC OR PHYLOGENETIC INFERENCE?
> Transactions of the Philological Society Volume 103:2 (2005) 193219
>
> "Abstract:
>
> Gray & Atkinson's (2003) application of quantitative phylo- genetic
> methods to Dyen, Kruskal & Black's (1992) Indo- European database
> produced controversial divergence time estimates. Here we test the
> robustness of these results using an alternative data set of ancient
> Indo-European languages. We employ two very different stochastic
> models of lexical evolution Gray & Atkinson's (2003) finite-sites
> model and a stochastic-Dollo model of word evolution introduced by
> Nicholls & Gray (in press). Results of this analysis support the
> findings of Gray & Atkinson (2003). We also tested the ability of
> both methods to reconstruct phylogeny and divergence times
> accurately from synthetic data. The methods performed well under a
> range of scenarios, including widespread and localized borrowing. "
This report concludes that even with very different statistical
methods, PIE will have begun to split apart not in the Kurgan Urheimat
theory range 3000-4000 BCE, but in the Anatolian Urheimat theory range
6000-7000 BCE (illustration p. 23). However, according to that same
illustration, if we peel off the Anatolian languages, the rest of IE
will have split up only 500 yrs before 'Kurgan time' and if we further
peel off Tocharian the next split-up, separating
Greek/Armenian/Albanian from the rest, takes place only 200 yrs before
that time. Now Greek is supposed to have descended from the so-called
Catacomb culture in the Eastern Ukraine, which means they stayed
"home" in the Ukraine until well into Kurgan time. The separation of
Indo-Iranian from Balto-Slavic and Western European takes place in the
upper range of Kurgan time, which means that mr Kelkar's project of
chasing Indo-Iranian out of Kurgan, or Kurgan out of Indo-Iranian, has
stranded again.
And even for the Urheimat question of the whole PIE, given the fact
that it split off Anatolian in Anatolia and Tocharian in Sinkiang, it
would be odd to place it in Anatolia. Some place in the middle seems
more reasonable.
Other than that, it seems the kentum/satem distinction doesn't play a
large role in the development of the tree. At least one IE dialect
must have stayed undecided until the split that separated Balto-Slavic
from West-European. One advantage of placing the kentum/satem
distinction etc as allophones in PIE is that we don't have to explain
the appearance of several similar developments in separate branches
(eg. Indo-Iranian and Balto-Slavic second palatalization).
Torsten