Re: [tied] Re: Automatic clustering of languages

At 11:35:14 PM on Tuesday, April 3, 2007, mkelkar2003 wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham"
> <richard@...> wrote:

>> Note that in the schemes presented, regular
>> correspondences get no discount - each word pays the full
>> cost of the sound change!

> That *is* the correct way to classify with complete
> objectivity.

No, it's a counsel of ignorance.

> If regular corrospondences are assumed to indicate genetic
> relation, then these same genetic relations cannot be used
> to decide what is regular and what is not regular.

You can rest easy: they aren't. Regularities are
independently observable.

Brian